Читать книгу Little Ship of Fools. Sixteen Rowers, One Improbable Boat, Seven Tumultuous Weeks on the Atlantic онлайн

5 страница из 92

Meanwhile, the fog was so dense, the night so black, that even with the deck lights on we could barely see our own feet. Nevertheless, within minutes we had unpacked the sea anchor, a colossal underwater parachute, and had pitched it over the bow on 200 yards of line. Even on a night so unruly, the anchor could pretty much neutralize the drifting of the boat.

By the luck of the draw that night, I was among the first four chosen for watch duty and was given the initial shift alone. And so I took my place on the bridge while a dozen others slept in the cabin and my watchmates took to the holds.

For the next few minutes, I did what I always did during cold nights on watch: enacted a tiny private indulgence, let us say a comfort, by wrapping my hands around the flimsy metal stanchion that supported the running light atop the cabin. And there I stood, as tranquil as Aquinas at prayer. While the light’s plastic housing shed no warmth, the chromed metal post that held it aloft transmitted a matchstick’s worth of heat from the electrical activity inside. But compared to the weather, it was as soothing as a woodstove in the Arctic, perhaps the only item warmer than the human body within a hundred miles of the boat.