Ducking the Storm

Suzanne felt her shoulders stretch as she clung to the rope for dear life, while the boat heeled over. She had to make berth ahead of the storm. Port Fredrik was by far a safer anchorage than the open coral based atoll she had been hooked to. Reports said the coming storm was at least a class 1 hurricane. She knew it would be a hard run, but behind the breakwaters and wind baffles she would be safe; not bobbing around like a barrel on the open ocean.

Scanning her sailboat frantically, she noted the few remaining lines that kept her sails attached and acting like kites, pulling the boat over in the erratic winds. Slicing through each of them in turn, hauling herself hand over painful hand across the decks to do so, she could feel the big old oak beamed schooner settle back onto it's keel.

The diesel spun props caught fully in the depths under the hull again and the old boat surged forward, creaking and groaning in protest at it's continued existence.

Suzanne trembled with release as she hauled the tiller over hard and pointed the bow towards the only safe channel through the protective reef warding Port Fredrik. Twenty wind-tossed tense minutes later she eased the old boat into a berth, tossing the waiting dock-hand her starboard mooring lines as she hiked over the port rail to tie off the lines on that side.

"Rough two mile trip there miss? You manage to make it through ok? Looks like nothing much more than a few lost lines and a sail or two were damaged." The weather beaten old man smiled an experienced tired smile at her reassuringly.

She took stock of her battered but intact body and grinned saucily, "Yeah, didn't even break a nail."