BillThistle
Virgin
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2011
- Posts
- 10
Anxious to meet his love, Bill presses on in the dark. At dawn a slate grey sky greets me as the sun's glaze pierces the windy dark morning. Deep black clouds mix with softer light grey puffs; shafts of sunlight break between parts of this mixed sky with promises of warmth that never quite comes. Cockpit and deck are covered with the carcasses of unlucky flying fish who encountered the hull and deck in their flights. Soon scavenger birds will eye these treats and hope for me to collect and cast them over board to their hungry mouths. Maybe I’ll just have them with eggs.
Large swells come rolling up from behind our boat. Huge deep blue-green mountains of water covered with frothy aquamarine spouts and bubbly white sea-spume. Frothy white patches bubble as air escapes from the wavelets that break up and cascade off the wave peaks and tumble down the face of the big rollers. As each mountain draws close the stern and cockpit rise up just as it seams the wave will engulf the cockpit and drown us all. The stern rises and the boat reacts to the push from the face of the wave. The hull-speed accelerates, tiller shivers as we move from 4 knots to 8 or 10 knots. Now with the stern way up above the bow and I am looking down the deckhouse at the trough between the waves, I feel the acceleration, the sliding down the wave; "Will I be able to control the boat in this skiing motion?" Like braking to a traffic stop, the hull shudders and the bow plunges its self deep into the bottom of the wave trough and our speed comes to a halt while wave, water and bow struggle to see who will win this battle. The wind pulls hard on the little reefed staysail remaining; shrouds, halyards and sheets, taught as piano wires, squeeze every bit of sea water from between their windings. Tiller vibration stops and a moment of no helm occurs before the sails pull us from a stall back into forward motion; tiller control restored, we crawl up the back of the wave. Steering off to starboard, I maneuver across the back of the wave hoping to lessen the strain of the steep backside. Up this watery mountain, sky dark and forlorn, windward wave tops collapsing and breaking, sea foam and water blowing off and crashing down on backs of waves indifferent to these minor movements. What care these leviathan waves for the struggles of lone men testing their nerve upon the deep, deeper rhythms drive these mountains across the earth miles below. One mistake and we’ll all sleep deep below; where all is silent, dark and still for a millennium.
And on, we climb up the backside of the next wave. Approaching the top, the wave top curls and collapses, Revelry broaches and struggles to stay upright as her sideway motion forces her on her side abeam to her movement and across the tops of the wave. Port gunnels down in the water and plowing sideways, Leaning hard on the helm, turning into the motion and trying to recover down the wave front, Revelry waddles then rights herself only to be slammed on the opposite side and pushed over in another skidding slide down the face of this same wave. More water over the gunnels and against the deckhouse. Burying her bow into the trough of this wave brings her frantic effort for control into balance just as the wave behind catches up with her and lifts her high into a teetering balance. Either we move forward under the pull of the sail or fall off the back of this wave and slide down the backside into the next trough. Fortunately the sail wins this tug of war and Revelry moves before the peak gets under her wide bottom and she dances off across the broad long face of the leviathan looking for the next opportunity to cross the next wave or avoid being swallowed by another breaking wave. Now some what relaxed and anxious to reach port and his love Bill presses on though so very tired.
Copyright © 2009
Large swells come rolling up from behind our boat. Huge deep blue-green mountains of water covered with frothy aquamarine spouts and bubbly white sea-spume. Frothy white patches bubble as air escapes from the wavelets that break up and cascade off the wave peaks and tumble down the face of the big rollers. As each mountain draws close the stern and cockpit rise up just as it seams the wave will engulf the cockpit and drown us all. The stern rises and the boat reacts to the push from the face of the wave. The hull-speed accelerates, tiller shivers as we move from 4 knots to 8 or 10 knots. Now with the stern way up above the bow and I am looking down the deckhouse at the trough between the waves, I feel the acceleration, the sliding down the wave; "Will I be able to control the boat in this skiing motion?" Like braking to a traffic stop, the hull shudders and the bow plunges its self deep into the bottom of the wave trough and our speed comes to a halt while wave, water and bow struggle to see who will win this battle. The wind pulls hard on the little reefed staysail remaining; shrouds, halyards and sheets, taught as piano wires, squeeze every bit of sea water from between their windings. Tiller vibration stops and a moment of no helm occurs before the sails pull us from a stall back into forward motion; tiller control restored, we crawl up the back of the wave. Steering off to starboard, I maneuver across the back of the wave hoping to lessen the strain of the steep backside. Up this watery mountain, sky dark and forlorn, windward wave tops collapsing and breaking, sea foam and water blowing off and crashing down on backs of waves indifferent to these minor movements. What care these leviathan waves for the struggles of lone men testing their nerve upon the deep, deeper rhythms drive these mountains across the earth miles below. One mistake and we’ll all sleep deep below; where all is silent, dark and still for a millennium.
And on, we climb up the backside of the next wave. Approaching the top, the wave top curls and collapses, Revelry broaches and struggles to stay upright as her sideway motion forces her on her side abeam to her movement and across the tops of the wave. Port gunnels down in the water and plowing sideways, Leaning hard on the helm, turning into the motion and trying to recover down the wave front, Revelry waddles then rights herself only to be slammed on the opposite side and pushed over in another skidding slide down the face of this same wave. More water over the gunnels and against the deckhouse. Burying her bow into the trough of this wave brings her frantic effort for control into balance just as the wave behind catches up with her and lifts her high into a teetering balance. Either we move forward under the pull of the sail or fall off the back of this wave and slide down the backside into the next trough. Fortunately the sail wins this tug of war and Revelry moves before the peak gets under her wide bottom and she dances off across the broad long face of the leviathan looking for the next opportunity to cross the next wave or avoid being swallowed by another breaking wave. Now some what relaxed and anxious to reach port and his love Bill presses on though so very tired.
Copyright © 2009
