Cape Horn to Starboard by John Kretschmer

Author:John Kretschmer
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781580805209
Publisher: Burford Books

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HEADWINDS AND HEADACHES

WE ALTERNATED STEERING AND pumping in hourly stints. Around midnight, after we’d emptied most of the water out of the boat, I staggered below. The cabin was a shambles with gear spewn about everywhere. The destructive force of a single wave had turned our orderly little world into a chaotic nightmare.

The cushions on the berths were soaked, our sleeping bags were soaked, everything was soaked. I spread the storm trysail out on the cabin sole and lay down. I propped my head on a soggy cushion and pulled my foul-weather jacket over my head. Eventually, I drifted into a fitful sleep.

I dreamed to the eerie rhythm of a John Masefield poem. The sea ballad “Cape Horn Gospel—I” tells the tale of an ordinary seaman, Bill. Early in the voyage, poor old Bill dies, and the crew wraps his bones in a tarpaulin and pitches him over the side. Later, as the ship nears the Horn, old Bill’s ghost comes back aboard.

I’m weary of them there mermaids

old Bill’s ghost says to me.

It ain’t no place for a Christian

below there—under the sea.

For it’s all blown sand and shipwrecks

and old bones eaten bare

and them cold, fishy females

with long, green weeds for hair.

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