What does a force 10 gale with gusts of 70 miles per hour feel like when you are on a boat in the sub arctic?  Terrifying.

 

The swells and high waves began during the afternoon and I found I was better prostrate.  I missed cocktails and the offer to send dinner to the cabin sounded good to M and me. Though M lost two loaded wine glasses when they crashed to the floor.

 

We were informed over the loud speaker that we would be out of the storm in four hours.   I looked out of the window, it was still light, and I could see the water below the window churning like a washing machine with the agitator on heavy duty.  Each wave was crested with a white foaming angry cap of spume.  I returned to prostrate pose.

 

With darkness the rolling from side to side increased.  Now there was another element, a deafening judder jerked the bed and then the20boat seemed to dip with a thud.  As the rolling increased the bed tipped backwards, the blood rushed to my head, my stomach muscles flexed as I was tossed backwards – then forwards.  Then another terrifying and loud thud.  Rock and rolling I though I had heard earlier in the cruise.  Rolling from side to side I thought grimly – the rock was the terrifying crash.   Everything was falling.  The minibar flew open and cans of coca cola shot across the floor like missiles.  Mini vodka bottles crashed into bottles of Heineken.  Glasses fell to the floor and joined the bottles and other flotsam on the floor sweeping back and forth with the rhythm of the ship rolling like the tide ceaselessly and unstoppably ebbing.

 

M and I clung to one another.  M made some comment about not understanding the way the ship was reacting, which unsettled me.  I made some flippant comment about a new experience and he said "Its good you have not lost your English sense of humor."=C 2 Around 2:15 I said I was going to investigate.  Why lie in bed wishing I had paid more attention to lifeboat drill, being tossed around surrounded by the tide of flotsam, which was clinking and rolling endlessly on the carpet around the bed.   At the end of the corridor outside the cabin I stopped at the door to the deck.  I could hear the wind moaning as it whistled past the door.  I did not open it.   Went downstairs into the breakfast room.  Plates were smashed on the floor and knives and knives and forks were rattling back and forth.  One marble topped table had come apart and as the marble crashed to the floor it had smashed more china.   Jewellery and other tempting items in the gift shop were heaped on the floor of the showcases.  There was a heavy metallic banging, which sounded as if a lifeboat was banging against the side of the ship.  I went down another floor.  There was no one around.

 

Back in the cabin I picked my way through th e swirling tide littering the floor I said to M – "I'm the only fool who is out there – everyone else is in bed."  Just then the ship lurched and a shower of spray hit the window.  Time to return to prostrate

 

It was around 8:00 am when we finally heard about the hurricane force winds that had buffeted the boat for over 12 hours.   Some cabins had lost their TV's; in another the bed came off its moorings.  Some cabins had three inches of water.  Everyone was shaken, tired and everyone had a tale to tell.   TTFN

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