Stormy Waters
Deborah L. Wade
I once was a blue-water cruiser who sailed the open ocean. My three children, two sons and a daughter, bravely grew up on wild and uncontrollable salty waters. In complete contrast, I grew up in Ontario with summers spent swimming and boating on freshwater cottage country lakes. To sail, much less sail the mighty Pacific, was not something I ever expected to do. During my young family’s first open ocean voyage, halfway between Victoria and San Francisco, I asked the captain a question.
“How can you tell a storm is approaching?”
A straightforward answer was provided.
“First the waves get bigger, then the wind picks up.”
Well, for the past 24 hours, the waves around us had certainly gotten bigger. The wind, thank goodness, had not yet intensified. The VHF radio crackled out a maritime weather report. A low-pressure trough was parked 100 nautical miles due west of California. Our 35-foot steel monohull was right smack dab in the middle of that trough. A force-10 storm (on a storm-scale of zero through twelve) barreled our way. We could neither run nor hide. Within a few short hours, raging and hissing 100-kilometre per hour winds produced imposingly mammoth 40-foot waves; waves that crashed into us, beneath us, and on top of us. The mighty Pacific, much to our chagrin, kicked up her heels and hosted an offshore party.
Steering and sailing amidst such nautical chaos was more than inconceivable, it was downright impossible. With hatches battened and sails lashed, our empty-decked boat was left to stare down the tempest as best she could. Not certain at all of our future, we mortals retreated apprehensively into the depths of the cabin. Alone and isolated in a narrow stern bunk, horror-stricken as gargantuan waves tried in vain to rip our tiny floating capsule apart, I boldly declared to the mighty Pacific, and to myself, “It was not our time to die.”
The nautical queen concurred. It was not our time to die. It was, however, time to be tossed around a little bit first, just for the heck of it. With unrelenting viciousness, she released her fury upon our good boat, night and day, day and night. We were hit, kicked, punched and knocked down at right angles. She did everything she could except capsize the boat and drag it, and my family of five, down into the deep, dark watery abyss.
Eventually, she tired of this topsy turvy game. Off she went to wreak havoc in some other far off place. After 48 hours of unrelenting oceanic disturbance, the mighty Pacific graced us with diminished wind, becalmed seas and the whitest and brightest full moon upon which one could ever hope to gaze. Forever humbled, my family lived to sail another day.