June 5th
My next wheel watch was not as relaxing as my first had been. Not more than fifteen minutes after I had taken the wheel, a wind picked up as we passed a valley on the mainland. Quickly the waves were as tall as the bridge (where I was steering). The boat bobbed and dove on wave after wave. I was taking green water over the bow. The front windows started to leak. I winced every time the bow of our boat dipped into another wave. I realized a 32-foot boat isn’t very big compared to the power of the ocean.
Dave woke as he levitated out of bed on one of our plummets down the face of one wave only to be thrust back into bed violently as we stopped on the next. To me relief, he took the helm.
After four hours of pitching I couldn’t wait any longer and I had to use the head (bathroom). If you’ve ever been on a boat you know how small the bathroom on a boat if. For those of you who do not let me try to explain what using the head in ten foot swells is like… Imagine being locked in a coffin with a coffee can nailed to one end while perpetually rolling down a rocky embankment and you’ll have an idea of what it was like.
As the fear drenched my heart with every wave, I noticed Alan Jackson playing on the XM radio’s country station – the song “Good Times.” It seemed fitting.
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