Tuesday 29 April 2008

Moments in the maelstrom

Some things stand out in the memory. We have a masthead tricolour light (red, green and white,for the nautically challenged). In the middle of one of the really severe squalls sometime in the last few nights, I was hand steering, Berri was surging and crashing along at nearly 8 knots, rain in sheets, spray rushing past, all reflecting both the cockpit instrument lights and the tricolour and surrounding us in a glowing pulsating cocoon. All together, freckle clenched exhilaration. I looked up, eyes slitted against the rain, to check the wind indicator at the masthead and there, streaming away from the masthead and away into the blasting night, was a lovely string of ruby jewelled water reflecting the red sector of the tri. Living moments.

Tonight is almost clear - Omar's bowl of night in all it's gorgeous magnificence. Old old cliche, but it really does bring home how infinitesimally, gobsmackingly tiny we are in the scheme of things.