There were a couple of other passengers like me aboard, one was a slightly chubby lip ringed, dreadlocked girl who liked to watch the sea while listening to her headphones, the other was Jason, a tall, lanky guy with greasy shoulder-length hair who liked to burn incense in the cabin we shared. Both were in their twenties and often shared whiny conversations about the environment, mixing the smell of marijuana smoke with the diesel fumes, discussing things that – out here - only existed in their minds, as they stared across the yonder less rippling water.
If there are to be serious parts to this book, then let it begin here: three weeks into the sea trip, The Forsaken Joy and its crew were put to the test, as the weather made a turn for the worse. Shortly after dinner, the boat began to rock, more than usual, and the wind got louder as it lashed the deck with rain and bits of ocean. Guitar chords reverberated against the toilet door; I sat on the bed with hands on my knees, waiting for Jason to finish nature's bidding. Suddenly, the boat lurched to the side, the toilet door threw itself wide open; yellow light from a sixty watt light bulb spilled into the room. Jason hugged his guitar, and screamed in a high pitched voice. Disconnected, I watched him like a late night television talk show rerun. He struggled to rise off the seat, knobbly knees creaking like the timber around him; I didn't aid him, not even with my eyes. He dug his claws into the walls, his fingers screeched as they fought to maintain their grip, once again the boat rocked: this time towards the stern, intuitively, Jason grabbed his guitar before it slid to the ground, as he straightened his knees to balance. The next part was horrible, as my visual cortex could only digest the action in glorious slow motion: just when it seemed that Jason had won the bout - as if in retaliation - the boat began to rock from port to starboard, batting Jason from wall to wall, his arse clapping against the walls like a ping-pong ball in a frenzied game of table tennis. An unexplainable force seized me, and I heard myself yell hoarsely at him, “Stop messing about and get your pants on!”, the neck of the guitar snapped as it caught the wall with his weight behind it, instrument and man collapsed into a pile with a clang, “Hurry up for god's sake!”
I got up to the cabin, a large fish thumped the window as another wave washed over the boat, Jason appeared a little while later. Curvey was wrestling with the helm like a rampaging ape. The wind roared outside, and we grabbed onto whatever was available to stop ourselves from being thrown about. “I've had it with this,” shouted Curvey at the front pane of cabin glass, as he rolled his fat arms around the wheel, “I'm retiring as soon as we dock.”
To be continued ...
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