Doing it for Real

Brian Lux

'All hands on deck,' shouted the skipper down the companionway. The urgency in his voice had me wide awake in my bunk, listening to the waves smashing on the hull of our yacht, which was being thrown violently in the turbulent sea, the lee cloth preventing me being ejected from my bunk and possible injury.

We had practiced our reaction to this dire emergency command many times, never expecting it to be ever needed. ... (continues)