A Pearl in the Storm by Tori Murden McClure

Author:Tori Murden McClure
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2009-09-14T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13

The Weather Is Weird

September 2, 1998

latitude north 47:33, longitude west 30:14

days at sea: 80

progress: 3,122 miles

THE OCEAN WAS WRONG.

By all appearances, the weather was lovely. A bright blue sky stretched above me. There were no ominous storm clouds on the horizon, but something wasn’t right. Rowing through ocean swells was like dancing to different tunes. Now the timing was off, and a sense of discord made me uneasy. I checked the barometer. It was steady.

As I rowed, long crested swells rolled in from the direction of the United States. I paused for breakfast. As I sat in the cockpit with my back to the cabin bulkhead, an unusually large wave washed over the top of the boat and landed in my granola. With a cold waterfall running down my body, I shouted, “That was rude!” I stood to look out over the cabin. Nothing. The ocean looked as it had a few minutes before except for the big angry wave stomping off toward Europe. I tossed out my sodden granola and went back to rowing.

A few hours later, I heard the distant sound of rolling surf. Shoal water? Can’t be. I’m well beyond the shallows of the Grand Banks. A row of dolphins preparing for a cavalry charge? Not so lucky. Behind the boat I saw a wave towering over all the others. It was moving fast, overtaking the smaller swells that stood between me and it. I wanted to run. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. The wave was thirty feet high or better. I pulled in my oars, fearing the wave would shear them off at the oarlocks. The boat dropped into the trough at the base of the wave. Then the water grabbed the stern and yanked it skyward. The angle of the wave was so steep I worried the boat would topple stern over bow and land on top of me.

An instant later, the water under the back of the boat disappeared. For a split second the boat seesawed on the brink. Then, as if the person on the other end of the seesaw had jumped off, the stern fell and the bow flew up. The boat and I slid down the backside of the wave like a log down a waterslide. When we hit bottom, a loud crack came from the rudder, and the boat spun in a half circle. Two rogue waves in the same day? What is that about?

A minute passed, and the mighty wave was gone. The uneasy rhythm of the ocean returned. I shoved out my oars and returned to rowing. Big waves from the west came every few hours. A set of large corrugated swells would precede the big breakers. Initially, the sets contained just one big wave, but as time passed the sets contained two or three giants. Throughout the night, the frequency of these waves increased and they tossed me around the cabin. Even strapped down by the makeshift seat belt, I had to brace myself to avoid injury.

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