Crawling

Laying in my bunk, tired of trying to fall asleep, I can see Sean through a porthole window, crawling on all fours to the foredeck. The wind has dropped below 20 now and he is taking down the stay sail. The boat is still pitching in the waves from the storm we've just been through, making it hard to balance up there. I'm sure he's wearing his life jacket and harness and that he is clipped in via a tether to the nylon webbing we have run up each side of the boat. The thought of falling in the water out here is ominous. He knows the likelihood of us finding him if he goes over, especially if we do not immediately know he's gone over, is slim. At least it is daylight now. Sometimes you have to do this stuff at night. The ocean is really dark a night. The first waves we saw were bigger than the ones last night. Sean aptly characterized the biggest ones as being the size of a sledding hill. Those ones were coming from behind us and we could surf down as they passed underneath our boat. Our entire hull would shudder. Sometimes they would crash into the cockpit. Last night they were smaller, but we were going against them, trying to make our way upwind. Even smaller ten foot waves would make it hard to see the little head of a person, treading water one trough over. Our life jackets have lights and whistles attached to them, but there are too many stories of people overboard who are never found. The storm wasn't that bad. I actually enjoyed it. Winds were over 30 knots for about three hours, but they have been over 25 for the last 16. Sean had woke me in the night to say that we needed to put in a reef (reduce the size of the main sail) and that he needed my help. As long as we approach these type of jobs methodically they are not that bad. If we leave a step half done, or do not keep our lines organized, or fail to take a safety precaution, mother nature will get the upper hand. The forces that are harnessed by our sails are tremendous. When the ropes are controlled by the winches and the sails are nicely shaped and pretty, these forces are not so apparent. But let the sail flap, swinging the boom like it's a twig and turning our ropes into clubs, and you realize the value of keeping things under control. And don't forget that we are 450 miles from land, way beyond the range of helicopter rescue. Not that medical attention could do much for the injuries you could sustain here anyway. So it becomes essential to keep control of the boat and the sails. Change things one step at a time. Set the safety lines, then change them to the other side when we switch what side the sail is on. Straighten up lines, a never ending chore, to prevent the development of spaghetti. There is an element of being honest with nature inherent in all this activity. We are harnessing the power contained within the wind to make our boats go. If we allow our tools to get out of control, allowing nature to flog the sails, rock the boat or whip the lines around, there are honest consequences. We cannot go into the lodge and get warm or get into our cars and go home. We are out here dependent on our skills and the preparation we have done. I am not only in awe of nature, I am deeply respectful of it. That is a big reason why I am out here.