This is my retelling of the incident we all know of, yet, rarely do we speak about. That horrid day when the sea transformed itself from a thing of splendor and beauty, metamophosizing into a raging storm ravaged horror, thrashing all within its path.

 

Read on.

 

Wine; oysters; your love. Her.

Sunlight. A stiff breeze. Salt and laughter fill your smile; her smile.

Love! Oh love! Your love. Your love and her love. Love. So profane; surreal; profound!

You examine each perfect iris; each so blue as to shame, lapis lazuli perhaps? The blue wing of the butterfly ‘Morpho didiyour’? The blue of the madman, Van Gogh, and his ‘Irises’. Perfection, so difficult to describe, yet so magnificent to endure.

The wind begins to flex its fingers, punching the single sail; your singular sail. As white as the white caps that surround you; her. The wind, beating with fists unseen, yet so tangible.

She. Her. Your love. Is smiling with the gaiety of the youth that fills her. The radiance of her joy, such a heady tonic to your soul.

Her hair is now whipping around her perfect head like a golden mist. Your bonny cap jumps from your own, leaping and plunging like a sea bird into the cold embrace of the briny blue that surrounds your little wooden craft.

Lost in the moment, and in one another, you miss the beauty of the crags of this sandy Western Australian shore line. You no longer hear the calling of the gulls. You fail to note the darkness of deepening water. Love, glorious love, will do that to a man; to a woman; to a courting couple.

A bump to the bow lifts you from your trance, and as seawater rains down upon you, on her, and you look forward; beneath the single, perfect, sail for’ard. Sky the shade of the deepest bruises stands mountainous before you, lighting the phosphorous capped horses manes of waves; brilliant and white and thrilling. All surreal compared to the sun that drenches you.

Excitement fills you, her.

The crack of sail deafening, as the southern wind drives you on unchecked toward the now lightning filled wall of death.

Working tiller and sail, you and she no longer wear the smile of young lovers on a day at sea. The masking of your personal terror to be found equally reflected by her, your love.

You, the bonniest pair, are drenched to the bone; if she has seen the fear in your eye she has not mentioned it.

The stout wee boat you both fill has chosen not to respond to your touch. Water is now finding its way across the port gunwale, collecting at your, her, feet; reflecting the black sky above in some ghastly mirror better suited to the damned.

Rain like the leg of a chair beats you without mercy, without reason. The mild swell has transformed into six metre walls of freezing, green blue, destruction. You, and your love, no longer see sky. Or land. Or hope.

Tossed. Dashed about. Silenced by the roar of the Gods, you lash your love to the mast; yourself to the tiller. There is little more to be done. Other than pray. Prayer of those in peril on the sea, to which ever deity has the grace to listen. The grace to acknowledge. The grace to save.

Being lifted and tumbled upon itself, ‘tis not the fault of your bonny wee craft you decide as you are forced below the sea.

Forever.

You damn God. He damns you back, forever beneath the waves. Where the sea and the Styx do meet.

 

A pretty roughly put together piece I realise, but there you go, a wee tale of yesteryear, off the coast between Cervantes and Jurien Bay, Western Australia. Click the picture above, and who knows what resides within.

 

 

N