They say “red sky at night, sailors delight”, so as I
munched my fresh from the ocean sushi and watched the sky turn more shades of
red then there are probably names for, I felt relaxed knowing I had a night of
gentle winds and calm seas ahead of me. That
was my first mistake.
My second was being lax on my watch schedule. Normally I’d
set my alarm to wake me every 15 minutes, so I could pop my head out of the
hatch and scan the horizon to make sure I wasn’t about to careen bow first into
a giant oil tanker, but I was out in the middle of the Pacific now, half way
between California and French Polynesia, and far from any shipping lanes, so I
decided to let myself sleep for a full 60 minutes at a time. I’d been out at
sea for 13 days; I needed the extra z’s.
I think I rested too much though, and I missed my alarm.
Instead, what woke me was a bucket of water to my face. At first, I was
confused. I was alone, so who could be throwing buckets of water? Sure, the
hatch was open. I’d left it open so I could pop my head out and look around between
naps. It wasn’t the hatch being open that concerned me, it was the change in
the view from my bunk. When I’d fallen asleep, I was under a blanket of stars
so thick it was nearly impossible to tell where one star ended, and the next
began. But now, all I saw was black. The kind of black that makes you dizzy to
look at.
I threw the sopping wet blankets off and dropped down from my
mattress, into a pool of water. Apparently, the wave that woke me up wasn’t the
first to make it in my cabin. Or at least I hoped that’s where the water came
from.
“Curse that red sky at night saying”, I muttered to myself
as I waded through knee deep water. My mind grasped at straws as if I could
collect enough of them that I could drain all the water from my bilge.
I grabbed my life vest and flew up the three wooden steps
into my cockpit. Outside, I found it wasn’t raining, at least not yet, but the
seas were confused. The wind was howling through my rigging, but something was
wrong, the sails were flogging wildly. Just as my eyes were adjusting to the
blackness, a flash of lighting illuminated the night, and on the horizon, I saw
a great bulk of a ship. The next second the thunder rolled, but there was
another noise, my radio. I could just make out a staticky voice over the rumble
of the thunder, “small sailboat” it said, “we may have collided with you,” crackle
crackle, “changing course,” crackle crackle, “coming back to get you”
Well, that explains it, I thought, and I grabbed my
ditch bag to await rescue.
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