Misery

Misery

There are no pictures. I could only think of one that would do my mood justice  I could not  figure out how to take it. The picture I would have added here would have been something akin to me with my head in the head, one hand banging the seat continuously on my bald pate and the other hand working the flushing handle furiously.

To put it mildly, I was miserable and miserably unhappy. The only thing worse than the weather was my mood and the only thing more foul than the seas tossing, heaving, rolling, and throwing us around was my temper.

The trough, supposed to have long since left, stopped when we stopped and continued East when we went East. Only now, we were embedded with severe thunderstorms. John had warned me about the possibility of storm cells the evening before. I slowed down and reefed down when I saw the northern horizon lit by lightening. That night we had showers and gusts to 30+ knots but thankfully no thunderstorms.

Turns out they were simply playing possum.

Yet again Northerly gales. Yet again sustained gusts of 40+ knots. Yet again close reaching and beating the boat to bits. Yet again giving up gains made North. But now, now I had invoked the fury of the Gods. Rain became torrential. Gusts vicious. The sea a chaotic heap of dump-truck sized mounds coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once.

As the sea smoked with the rain blistering the surface, I raged at the world and everything it contained. My world is small so that didn’t take long. I broadened scope and fumed at the past, present, and future. I cursed and swore at all I knew and finally, once I has exhausted all earthly matters, I hurled insult and innuendo at God himself. Thou shalt tempt thy God Charlton Heston would have us know but I was beyond caring and reason. I wanted here to give an account of His doing.  And I wanted desperately to give Him an accounting of my own.

What more could we do? How much longer would this trough and weather stalk us? How could any one or any boat do better? Whose camels had I stolen in some precious life to have made the Universe so mad at me? What else could possibly be dredged up to make my life any more miserable?

There seemed no end to the abuse. No light at the end of the tunnel and it was too dark to see any coconuts floating by. Abject misery. The worst day in 200 days. The worst day I could ever remember on any boat.

Beaten down I remained on deck all day and into the night. There was no reason to go below. I would only be brought back by another gust. Or calm. Or shift in the wind. Or Or Or.

I simply figured I could outlast it. John was adamant the trough would move on. The models  were forecasting the same. I would wait it out and dare it to come back. I know the difference between mad and angry. I was mad and mad made me want to pick a fight.

At 0030 local, after a deluge of rain hurled horizontal by a shrieking gust, the winds fell silent and then shifted abruptly from North to South. In 30 more minutes, the sky overhead had cleared off in the eastern distance the entire horizon was constantly lit by lightning. The sea, still confused no longer threatened. I, neither miserable nor mad, smiled thinking surely good things come to those that wait. And after nearly 5 days of this, surely I had waited long enough.

Just to be sure, I waited another hour before one long, last profane tirade. Just for good measure. My parting thoughts to the retreating trough from ‘H’ ‘E’ double hockey sticks.

Follow my tracks in real-time:
https://bit.ly/svseaburban