Drifting Rev 2

Hummmmmmmmm Hongggggggggggggggggggggggggggg In the misty night air the sound of the horn was haunting and melancholy.


That sounds like a container ship! Andy and I had been drifting with the tide, back and forth, up and down, side to side, for hours now. No wind, no power, no lights. So close to home we can almost see our apartment building, but helpless. No radio, no moon, no cell.

We’d drank at least a bottle of wine between the two of us, just on the way home from our weekend at the Isthmus and hadn’t had much to eat.

Although we finished the last of our stash hours ago I was feeling dull witted and was hovering on the edge of hysteria as I heard the deep ship’s horn blasting through the darkness. I remembered a story I’d heard over and over at my sailing club about yachts being sliced in half by container ships, even in broad daylight. Not a smart idea to play chicken with a container ship.

Every muscle in my body was tensed. The sound of the waves slapping against the bow normally so comforting, were now very simply frightening and made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. Trevor was sweating through his shirt, rings of perspiration under both arms and across his neck and back. He sat at the wheel with a blank stare, eyes twitching uncontrollably as he tried to come up with a fix that might save our asses.

The wind was coming up but all it did was toss the boat back and forth, back and forth, and the sound of the lines slapping the mast only served to heighten the terror. The jagged broken boom swung wildly back and forth, just missing my head on its last violent arc.  Sometimes being tall is dangerous.

I was attempting to get closer to where Trevor was perched at the wheel and was crawling on my hands and knees, hanging onto the rails as I headed his way, leaving a trail of scarlet from my bloody knees. Trevor, look at me! I screamed. Help me! He stared blindly straight ahead, still lost in his own thoughts still trying to figure out how we got in this mess.

We’d spend a beautiful weekend getting to know each other in Twin Harbors on his gorgeous wood sailboat ""Vin Bordeaux. He was a friend of a friend, a South African guy

To be continued

©2010 Sharon J Corrigan All rights reserved

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