Lessons Learned :: Karma (Part II)

http://adeepbluesky.blogspot.com/2004/09/lessons-learned-karma-part-i.html

Use the link if you haven't read Part 1

Once the Captain returned below, I could feel tears streaming down my face. I was sorry that I wasn't stronger to help them. I was sorry for them. I was sorry for the stubborness of the Captain. And this guilt and remorse overcame me as I watched the two men melt into the horizon like they appeared...

I couldn't look at the captain, I couldn't be reminded of his stern no's, I couldn't face the fact that I was so powerless and tried so hard to avoid wondering what would happen if the supposed pirates didn't have water. I wanted to scream, I wanted bury myself and hide but instead I sat on the deck still with my head clenched between in my hands and watched the sun slowly set.

It was hours before the Captain and I spoke and in some way I think he was showing remorse. He admitted that he was so afraid that they would board the boat, although to me, the two men seemed very cautious of the space between both boats. We talked and no matter how many times he seemed to rationalize his behaviour, I still couldn't stomach the fact that perhaps our actions determined the fate of individuals halfway between land and open sea.

The Captain left me with my own thoughts on the deck as I scribbled in my journal, and I watched night come quickly. In some odd way I felt so alone, so distant from everything and yet so confined to the 34 feet of this boat.

I balled up in my sleeping bag and harnessed myself in for the night; bobbing in the ocean and watching the stars dart across the midnight sky. Sleep took forever to come. My gut was in knots, my heart in my throat and the warm breeze seemed so much colder. But I began drifting into that sleepy state, until finally the concious thoughts seemed to disappear all together and it was just me with my dreams....

It was the loudest bang I had ever heard and it jarred every part of me. I shot up in a daze, forgetting where I was and wondering what the hell that noise was. In the haze of it all, scrambling from the zipped up bag and forcing my eyes open, I could have sworn that it was the mast that fell down. Struggling, unzipping, tangled legs between the fleece covers, eyes opening, tugging, trapped in the harness, still in complete confusion. Eyes now open, mast still up, legs almost free and then the voice of the Captain, "Are you OK, are you hurt?" My voice, silenced by the struggle and confusion, couldn't respond. But I peeled myself up and out of my bag and harness and found the Captain behind the wheel, frantically looking at the depth finder.

"Get down below, now," he barked. I still couldn't speak and scrambled down the 4 steps into the galley.

"Lift up those floor boards and you will see some water, how much is in it? How deep?" he asked.

I pulled the floor boards and saw what looked like a box filled with water a few inches deep.

"Keep your eyes on it, we may have punctured the hull," he ordered. "Tell me if it becomes deeper." And there I sat, sprawled among the floor boards in the galley. My heart racing and asking myself questions; were we going to be taking on water? Was this going to be a slow leak? Were we doomed? The reassuring thought was the Australian Coast Guard that would be flying over sometime in the late morning.

"What was that? What did we hit?" I yelled up.

"I don't know! I don't know," as the Captains voice faded into the night.

Minutes passed that felt like hours, my eyes watching the water slosh around. This hole in the floor boards stayed the same, no water was coming in. So I climbed back up and poked my head out.

"No extra water, looks like it is OK," I said.

"Fine start pulling down the sails."

And once the sails were down we started the engine and began motering our way through the darkness. There we were, in the fucking middle of nowhere and the darkness was so thick you couldn't see 10 feet in front of you. We couldn't see if what we hit was floating on the surface; you couldn't see a bloody thing. The depth finder was going nuts, bouncing from 3 feet to 33 feet in a matter of seconds, darting from deep to shallow. The Captain left me to steer and started to unlatch and inflate the dingy.

Fuck! I can't believe this. What has happened here. We are going to be adrift in the middle of nowhere, in the dark with nothing, bobbing around the Timor Sea. This is a bad dream coming so close to being true.

The Captain returned, "We have to be over a reef, but..." He momentarily froze, darted down into the cabin and brought out a map and his head lamp. There was no indication of a reef, not on the first map, not on the second. Then what the hell was it?

For over 3 hours we motored away from the bump in the night. We held our breath and exchanged only a few words while eyes were on the galley hole and the depth finder. I held onto the idea of the Coast Guard's daily flights; it seemed to slow the heart rate and plant hope.

The sky began to lighten and the motor hushed. The sails back up to catch the slow wind and we were on our way. We still had no idea what we hit. And through the early morning silence I asked myself 'why'. My thoughts drifted back to our encounter several hours ago and in some saddistic form of a smile, I knew the answer; it was karma.