The Devil's deep blue sea

I should've know the first 10 days were too good to be true. Such peaceful and mild waters I thought. Is this the mighty north atlantic? Ha. Snoozing slowly up to the Azores. Then the fearful anvil and hammer struck and questions were being asked.
what am I doing here? Alone..alone. hey pauli? The waves were big, dark, mad, and coming from six directions. One wave growled at us. believe it or not. Lila impressively and sometimes violently slipped over them. Here was when a boat design revealed itself. So we were ok but there was not any room for error anymore and no going back. Earlier in the day a mainsheet block shackle had zzzinged away. My preventers saved the situation and I repaired this time without metal. Also at night another shackle worked loose. this time on the anchor and the sounds i though was a rope banging on the hull was my 30kg anchor set loose on a badly lashed rope. why the hell i left it up there! Mainsheet slides were leaving the track one by one and I was lashing them to the mast one by one. There were moments of peace when the wind dropped to only 30 knots. Imagine that. And moments of fear when the wind edged upwards and I couldn't imagine how the waves will look like if that wind goes over 40. I was reading books but also praying for the first time in a while to all available powers. Suddenly life, love, peace and forest seemed in short supply. As Castenada said, our death is always cruising hidden behind us, it's just that at certain moments it switches on the headlights. 100nm north of me a yacht was dismasted. And all this occured in an area where there are supposed to be 0% gale force winds. I was a good boy and now my camels were being slaughtered before my eyes. A secondary low formed while i was slowly struggling to get through a high pressure ridge. i was being taught the practical mechanics of where not to be caught between the embrace of a low and high. I thought i should run from the low but I was just getting nicely inbetween the hippo and the water just where she was picking up speed on her stampede home. And that lovely coriolis twist was making certain checking out was unlikely. One of the worst nights we were running with tripple-reefed main, storm jib and engine running to better our escape angle. the gale didn't let up until a week later and not before serving up the vicious squalls dessert.

a few days later when we were breathing easier running near 35deg north the unbelievable. another warning of a gale approaching. Again we turned south-east into the wind and ran, ran, ran wide-eyed. Not again! But this time we were more determined, a little wiser, faster and luckier. We ran and ran and that bucking long arm of the low and high swept on by and the island volcano told me i was an animal from the land and there my peace lay.

But I got the chance to forgive all my enemies, re-flect on a few important things, read a few good books and make peace.
salaam salem alekhum salaam