Thursday 19 May 2016

Short read on a mid #ocean #drama #travel #sailing from 'This Is It-2hemispheres, 2 people, and 1 boat" by author Jackie Parry! @NandJJourneys #RPBP

Excerpt: This Is It - 2 hemispheres, 2 people, and I boat

Intro: We're in the middle of the ocean - thousands of miles from land, sailing from Galapagos to Easter Island, the remotest inhabited island in the world.... ‘What the f**k!’ I yelled from the galley. My feet were soaking wet. I looked down. Brown, filthy water swirled around my ankles. At that moment, a wave slammed into port side and shoved Pyewacket over and onto her starboard side momentarily. The disgusting water that caused me to pinch my nose gleefully ran to the other side of the galley, washing its mucky trail all over the floor.

Three difficult weeks at sea, living on a tilting vessel!

‘What the effing-hell is going on!’ I looked in the sink. Another shot of water came up and over the sink’s edge as we lurched back onto our port side, my feet desperately trying to grip the sloping, slimy floor. I peered through the window that led to the cockpit and watched Noel merrily chirping a pretty song with a hose in his hand. ‘Whatever you’re doing, STOP!’ I yelled. I knew we weren’t sinking; the brown muck had come via an internal system. ‘What’s going on?’ Noel sauntered into the galley and sharply stopped. ‘Oh dear.’ ‘Oh dear! Oh bloody dear,’ I screeched as the foul water sloshed around the gyrating floor, and I tried to sponge it into a sliding bucket. I skidded on my hands and knees within the quagmire as if on ice, cursing as each bump on Pyewacket’s bow caused the odorous water to leap up and splash the cupboards. ‘It’s from the cockpit drain,’ Noel explained sheepishly. ‘Never mind, help me clean up.’

Water constantly splashed over the entire boat - coating the everything in a fine salt

In the galley floor were four boards that lifted. Beneath the floor were large bilge cupboards, where we stowed items in plastic containers in case water came in. While scooping and sponging up the marsh-like water, we hauled out cartons of pasta and rice and tried to find an alternative place to stow them in the tilting, squirming boat. Half an hour later, we were drying out; the smell eased back to a wafty pong, and we sat in the cockpit, unaware of the jarring boat, glad to relax for a minute. ‘The rain wasn’t draining from the cockpit, so I connected up the deck wash hose to flush out the drains.’ ‘Hmm.’ I allowed myself a small grin. ‘The pressure must have forced all that shit up through the kitchen sink. What a stupid way to arrange the plumbing... I should have looked at that before we left,’ he admitted. I wasn’t upset or angry any more. Noel was simply trying to make a repair; he didn’t intend to cause such mayhem. We don’t blame or hold grudges – we’re both working to achieve the same thing: a safe passage. Recrimination is such a damaging emotion; it can follow you around like a shadow, sit with you at dinner, and cast a depressing grey over all you do. We had no room for that in our lives.