Of course, if you're going to be a sailor, you'll need to memorize a few things. First: Jimmy Buffet lyrics; memorize all you can. Makes for good humming too. Sometime I'll post some real chanties.

Second, learn to tie you some knots. To help with that, I reccomend a few resources:

• The Ashley Book of Knots is the knot book. Ask anybody you see tying complex, beautiful knots were they learned them, and it's a good bet they'll say, "I saw 'em in Ashley's."
  
• Peter Suber's Knots on the Web is a big repository of knotting information, combining ancient knot art and modern knot theory. Quite a lot of good stuff here.
  
• Brion Toss's The Rigger's Apprentice is another classic book, but one which approaches knotwork from the larger context of traditional sail rigging.
  
• Ropers Knots Page--I haven't really explored this one yet, but it looks to have a very very large number of knots and links to other knotwork sites.
  

Anyway, there's some starters and I'll update this post as I gather others.