We’ll be posting more photos once we get to Madeira on the 28th. Internet too slow to upload photos.
Clocks will change another hour forward at 2:00 am. With winds close to 65 mph and 30 foot waves, we’re swaying from side to side in our cabin. The walls and ceilings are creaking so much that it sounds as if something is about to break apart.
Many passengers are seasick. Ready-to-use barf bags are taped to the railings. No one can walk a straight line. Most of the entertainment has been shut down until further notice.
We’re a two and a half days from our first port of call, the island of Madeira, Portugal, off the coast of Algeria. We’re more than halfway across the ocean.
coming from outside the door. Tom is sound asleep. I want to awaken him, but I don’t.
I want to open the door and look outside in the hallway. I try to open it. It won’t open. The heavy self closing door requires a hefty pull using my right arm. I haven’t been able to open it once since we boarded six days ago due to my bad right shoulder.
Repeatedly faltering as I maneuver to the sliding door, I fall toward the glass, grabbing the thick drapes to keep me from going down. Pulling the drapes to the side, in the dark I can see the huge white caps, the 30 foot waves, grasping at the ship in an angry rage, as if to attack.
It’s 8:52 am. Sun is filtering into the cabin through a tiny sliver I left open during the night in the thick red drapes. The sound of the cabin creaking is a soft murmur. The sound of water running is no more. The cabin is rolling gently, a smooth roll, almost comforting as rocking a child in a cradle.
I made a huge mistake before going to bed. I hooked up the Internet on my laptop at $.40 a minute, researching high winds and waves on cruise ships. The results were ominous. Over the past 30 years, people died, ships broke apart, ships sunk.
My old fearful self, crept her way back into my psyche in my exhausted state. Shoo away, old
self! New brave self, emerge! In a way I guess she did, when she gave up and went to sleep. Old self would never have taken the Tylenol PM and gone back to sleep. She needed to stay in control by staying awake.
It’s 11:10 am. Now as I sit with Tom, still oblivious of the scary night, in our favorite booth in the Garden Cafe, the gentle rolling continues and I’m no longer afraid, not now and hopefully, not in the future. Last night I learned something, something simple.