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fun mood tonight; the incident with her toenail had been forgotten, and I had been forgiven.
I thought how nice it was to have a woman's touch in so masculine a world as a boat at sea.
She was pulling her weight as much as any man her size would, and she added a touch to
the cruise that only a woman could. I noticed the light in her eyes, reflected by the yellow
paraffin lamp, and that night I felt very close to the pretty young girl.
Herman would do the first watch this night from his bunk. It was still wet and raining above
decks.
“Tomorrow we will try to motor into one of those storms and see if we can get some sailing
done,” I suggested to my friends. “We were in the heart of an electrical storm today, and
there was no damage done to the boat or her crew. There appears to be a lot of energy being
expended in these local storms, and if we can propel ourselves by the wind that is being
generated, we could make some good headway.” They agreed and thought it a plan worth
trying. I decided to turn in for a few hours and as I crawled into my bunk, I offered thanks
to Neptune for the gifts we had enjoyed today.
I was delighted to see the girl slipping into the bunk next to me, and I quietly drew the
curtain between the forepeak and the main saloon. The pattering of the rain on the deck
outside allowed us more freedom from the awkward silence we were used to. The girl was
insatiable and experimental in her lovemaking, and when we were spent I lay exhausted
next to her, completely satisfied and smiling.
When Herman woke me up for my watch, he said softly, “There is a huge light out on the
horizon to the east of us. I can't make out what it is; it isn't moving though, and I have
been watching it for quite a while now.”
“OK, thanks bud,” I replied. “I'll check it out, and thanks for the coffee too.”
I saw the loom of lights and was confounded. It seemed too big to be a ship, and I knew we
were hundreds of miles from any islands that I was aware of. It appeared to be gradually
getting larger, and after a while, I went below and tried to call it up on the VHF radio in
case it was a boat, without any luck. I went above and hauled up the mainsail, took the
flashlight from my pocket and waved it all over the sail, which would be visible to anyone
for miles around. I again tried to call the ship, and still there was no reply.
Soon, the loom materialized into a huge, floating, canning factory ship which motored
slowly passed the yacht, shining its bright spotlight on the boat. “Well, at least they now
know we are here,” I stated. “I would hate to be netted and canned this early in the trip!”
The following morning dawned hot, humid, and windless again. We noticed that there were
isolated storms about the horizon and decided to use the motor to enter one of these loc-
al storms. We had the main and jib ready to hoist at the first sign of wind. I was a little
