What a beautiful day for a short cruise, just enough to run out the engines, use 50 gallons of fuel & enjoy my sea. She’s running perfect,listening to, on a CD, a good tune, the sun high at noon.
Piloting from the fly-bridge, no shirt, deck shoes and just a bathing suit, comfortable for the warmth of the day. No weather predicted, just sun & heat. Dolphins running the prow, frolicking like children, such a day given me by God in his infinite love.
The boat, the Rene Lyn, running like the top she is. Both diesels at peak performance, recently tuned and ready for their break in. Cutting through the surf at but only 10 knots, but enough to make a nice wake, 500 yards from the beach. The beaches full of surf-goers, not a cloud in the sky, no hint of a breeze. The stars and stripes blowing from the speed & flapping on the same.
Time to crank her up and head out to sea. The stabilizers set & nothing on the radar for the surrounding fifty miles. We are all alone out here, except for the gulls & the dolphins, we are enjoying each others company.
Out but 60 miles & things start to come apart. First the compass starts to spin, then the GPS shows all zero’s. Okay, I can always shoot the sun & get my position the old fashioned way, but what happened to the sun.
Gone behind very dark clouds in the few minutes it took me to hit the head. Where did the lightening in the distance come from, and not from what I think is the west. The waves are rising, from calm to 6 to 10 to 12 feet all in a period of what seems like seconds. Bounding from wave to wave, the waves are breaking across the bow & I am forced to move into the pilot house to stay dry as the winds are now as well raising.
Gusts of maybe 40 knots and cold, how could it get so cold in a matter of minutes?
No further points of reference, nothing on radar, ocean & sky become one. Surprisingly the weather radar shows only sun & blue sky, where the hell am I?
There IS land in the distance, but that can’t be right. I am too far out to find land. In a fog, behind a cloud, an eerie mist does shroud not only the island but my boat. She suddenly stalls & there’s no restarting her.I am on a current directly towards this strange little island.
We, the boat & I, come to rest in a cove, crossed breakers that I heard, but the cove is solitude personified, I have never felt so relaxed, for that matter tired. Time for a nap, maybe I died & I will never awaken, but won’t find out till I sleep. Crawled into my bunk thinking where the hell am I…?
That’s when I awoke, snug in my bed at home, oh man what a dream, I’m afraid to get up for I still know not where the hell I am or is it was?
© ed ~ 11/2/10
