Sadness

She's not predictable, that one. I can hear her calling from my bedroom, window open, breeze bringing her song to my sun scarred ears, my forever windburnt nose. She lures me to her with heart open and foul weather gear at the ready. She shows me her secrets, her creatures, her calm.

Then she loses her shit. She foams and hits back. She rears up and deafens us with her saline screams. You can't even recognize this version of the glassy calm that was yesterday's sea.

The Bounty went down on Monday.
Off Cape Hatteras she sank to the bottom, her captain slid into the sea beside her.
They looked for him for days. They know where she lies.

How can a 180 foot boat go down like that? 18 ft seas, 40 knot winds? I've been in that (a lot worse than the video above). It sucks, but how can such a large boat succumb to a gale? What was the wave period? Maybe it was confused or so close they got knocked down. Were the sails up? Did they fill with water?  I find myself asking these questions when I know full well that it isn't necessarily the conditions that make a situation. Boats can sink in dead calm, sea flat, wind nill.

Engine and generator failure. Old boat. Relatively small crew. Cape Hatteras. Fucking crazy hurricane that would devour New York and New Jersey.

It twists my stomach thinking about the last days of the ship, the crew. The fear, the hope, the horror. That could always be me slipping off the deck or pulled out of the sea.
Yet I am always drawn back. I feel most at home when I am not totally safe.
I crave the discomfort, the fight for life, the constant awareness. 

She's not predictable. That's why I like her.
That's why I hate her.
True love, it is.
Dysfunctional, beautiful, addictive love.

I am filled with sadness for the Bounty and her crew.
Fair winds on the other side Cap'n and Claudene.