The Sea Will Lift You Up…

sea will lift you up…

Of course, it will also throw you down, crush you, and spin or toss you around. But it will eventually lift you once again. I love the rising above the storm.

I was in a storm off Cape Hatteras careening through 70’ seas for  three days, four hundred miles off shore in a sixty foot trawler/yacht. It was a circumstance wherein life lessons arrived hourly. These lessons became well learned because of this particular environment and since each wave returned us to a top, I assumed school was still “in”. Little lessons like lock the fridge, eye patches forestall crew sea sickness, and strong bolts on the helmsman’s chair don’t beat rotting deck holes. Yes, school was in session.

It had been suggested that it might be a less lumpy trip if we changed course ninety degrees toward the entrance of the Intracoastal Waterway, a calm, canal-like cruise lined with restaurants, marinas, and grocery stores. 

Pretty enticing. However, my primary concern was simply that as we approached this promising coast, the undersea shelves might cause these massive seas to break. Thus far we had maintained mostly dry decks and risking waves crashing over our port side was conceptually quite risky. 

I waited for a window of semi calm, altered course and prayed. We prayed for an hour or so only to discover that our little ship was up to the task. No breaking waves on our decks! We were still having the ride of our lives, seventy five foot mountains followed by seventy five foot canyons, but still dryish. 

Even chaos has a rhythm. We eventually settled into the pride of imagined accomplishment and gripped the helm tightly every time we crossed a shelf as indicated on the trusted Garmin. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t steering. Changing course was more like pressing button A and then button B when the correct course was achieved. When I say “trusted Garmin” , I say those words with great reverence.

The waves indeed got higher at random intervals 

but the chaotic rhythm filled me with confidence which infused the crew with contagious calm.

We were headed home.  Or at least toward land. That in itself is calming. Just a few hundred miles to go. That contagious calm waned after twenty or so hours and the crew started to get antsy in anticipation of hamburger glory. Why were we not yet there? Then I heard it. An electronic trill bubbling upward. What… It was my cell phone. I dug it out from under some paper charts. My wheelhouse focus shifted to the glowing brick. I had email!

How could that be! Two hundred miles from the nearest Wifi?. 

To this day I don’t know how it happened but from the top of a very large wave it worked like magic. In a second the crew abandoned its life-or-death -at-any-instant feeling of wariness and fell into the joy of being home again. 

It was specious and awesome. Every one talking and recanting the adventures abandoned to gourmet memories. Like flipping a switch. Sigh. A precious moment embraced. 

We still had a couple hundred miles to go but they flew by invisibility. No more email downloads or incidents worthy of a sea tale but when we entered the harbor entrance to the Intracoastal waterways the waves were still fifteen footers and quite random. There was a massive buoy to which were attached two small ships. One was a US Coast Guard vessel and the other was Homeland Security’s craft. They were bucking and twisting on their lines and I’m sure they were quite uncomfortable. 

They hailed us on the VHF radio and welcomed us home in a friendly fashion. They eventually asked us the purpose of our visit to the US and I with a sense of urgency in my voice said I need to get the rest of my email. They laughed on broadcast and then “out”

Now where’s that hamburger.