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The Wild Nights On the Ocean
Trans-ocean sailing stays with you
I woke up and was on my hands and knees in a split second. The sound of the rain hitting my bedroom window had sparked something. For the briefest of moments, I thought only of reefing the sails.
Except my flat doesn’t have sails. It’s not bobbing about in the middle of the Atlantic and this squall won’t threaten my life.
It’s been over two years since I was last out there on the ocean. Over two years since my last night watch, since the last time my body was poised for anything that resembled danger from above. From below. From anywhere.
Trans-ocean sailing stays with you it would seem.
Wild nights and unhappy seas
No matter how deeply I slept on the boat, there was a tether between my ears and the outside world. The sound of the rising wind, the clank of a loose halyard against the mast, the rush of increasing waves, all would draw me out in a second.
There was never grogginess, as though my brain knew that if something was going to wake me from exhaustion, it would need my full attention.
I’d forgotten, almost, what it felt like to go from deep sleep to wide awake in the snap of a shackle. Until the wind hurled the rain against my bedroom…
