But we were ready. Several days before the skipper had seen this brewing, and one night the crew gathered around the nav station for dinner as he clicked through the satellite images and grib files, explaining what was to come.
The night before was the proverbial ‘calm before the storm’. Audrey and I sat on deck and she admired the bucolic scenery as a crimson swathe of sunset burned between the sea and the brooding sky. “We have petrels. We have dolphins (a small pod of Duskies splashed alongside). We have sunset.”
“And we have storm,” she added, her arm panning the sky.
Since then the wind has increased and canvas decreased, as we took in all the reefs on the main, furled down the headsails, until ultimately, last night just after midnight, we hove to. Now we are drifting – deliberately and slowly –out of harms way, waiting for the storm to pass. It’s quite civilized: we stand two hour watches, read, rest, and enjoy meals together. And watch the sea. The swells seem to be born right before our very eyes: huge charcoal grey mountains pushing up from the sea; white with spume; rushing by, one after another after another …
