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

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As I absorbed the benefits of this pitiful dollhouse furnace, a wave exploded over the bridge, putting me ankle-deep in brine. As the flood dropped, a small dark shadow fluttered in behind me, pushed by the wind, and a little black bird, a storm petrel, thwapped off the cabin door and was suddenly at my feet on the bridge, apparently as surprised as I by the turn of events. For nearly three weeks I had watched with great respect as these delicate bat-like irregulars bopped along the wave tops, pulling up tiny surface fish with their dangling and witchy feet. What I did not know at the time (it would have increased my respect significantly) is that these four-ounce strafe-artists never alight, either on water or land, except for two or three weeks a year during which they fly to distant islands to breed. Immediately, my little visitor was aswim on the painted plywood, thrashing its limp legs, while its weight rested on its spread wings and belly. Initially, I believed it must be injured—or perhaps just exhausted. I knew the feeling.