It was a quiet, cloudy day back at Swell on the mooring in front of the Riou house; Swell was unable to go anywhere while the machine shop fabricated the new motor mounts. The surf was down, and, for the moment, there was no one knocking on the hull. I puttered around contentedly. It had been a loaded week between the leak discovery, the uncertainty of my visa situation, fulfilling the government's paperwork obligations, and removing the broken motor mounts, while simultaneously being surrounded by a flock of new friends at George's house and on my new favorite sailing family's catamaran, Shimmi. It felt like I hadn't taken a breath in a week. When I get rolling with that kind of momentum, the universe usually throws out a few reminders to 'SLOW DOWN!'.
The first had been a terrifying moment at Teahupoo a few days prior--caught inside on a freak set, double the size of any other wave that morning. (I won't go into detail so as to spare my dear mother the agony, but basically I saw my life flash before me when a massive west bowl death lip crashed right in front of me...and then two more after that) To say the least, the incident had ROCKED my world and instantly hitched my 'runaway snowball' of momentum. Over the last few days, it had seemed that the backs of my eyelids were solely featuring visions of that approaching set wave every time they descended over my eyeballs.
But I was now feeling recovered from that adrenal blindsiding, and energized to tackle some of the never-ending 'to do's'. I came out of the cabin to shake a rug and noticed a thick glob of clouds creeping down the valley to the northeast. The dark mass moved like a stalking cat--slowly, steadily, with purpose--until it filled the sky all around to the west...and then it pounced.
To be continued...
Liz Clark sails solo around the world on her 40-foot sailboat, Swell, in search of people, places and waves. She sends us travel updates, stories and photos several times a week.
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