A friend and I took the ferry over to the mainland yesterday, and went shopping in the city - it was great fun. My friend took me to a huge fabric store with so many bolts of material and every notion imaginable, from thread to lace to silly wigs, that our few hours spent there barely scratched the surface of their inventory. It was wonderful. Then we went to a specialty cheese store, ate lunch at a Greek restaurant, did some more shopping, and took the ferry back home to our island.
The trip over was smooth sailing; the trip home was a little nerve-wracking. I've ridden on these boats for 30 years back and forth to the mainland, and last night was the very first time I've had even the slightest feeling of nervousness. These are not small ferries, they're huge boats which are "over 130 metres long, and can carry 362 vehicles, and 1500 passengers, travelling at 22 knots" according to the website. I've been lucky, and hadn't yet experienced as rough a sailing as we had last night; the restaurant and elevators closed down shortly after we got out into open water, and passengers were asked to remain in their seats unless they had to use the washrooms. We were sitting in a bank of seats near the gift shop, which closed down at the same time as the food service - items were crashing off shelves onto the floor.
The boat was rolling from side to side, now and again smashing down into a wave with a report your could hear all over the vessel - WHAM! I was grateful for the darkness, as it made it difficult to see just how much of a roll we were experiencing - that is, until I said to my friend, "Oh, look at the moon" and just as we did look, it disappeared from the window frame at the top, then reappeared and was quite far down the window when it began its next ascent. We started to laugh, and agreed not to look at the moon anymore, because doing so made it possible to gauge the depth of the sideways roll. I had one moment of nausea at a particularly deep rolling motion, but other than that, we kept ourselves occupied talking about anything that came to mind. I've never before been quite so grateful to reach the dock.
When we went down to the car deck, all the vehicles were thickly covered in salt spray, so much so that it took a fair bit of washer fluid to clean the windscreen.
A wild ride, but a safe arrival.
It was blowing a bit of snow during the drive home, but today is glorious - sunny and warm, with no hint of snow anywhere but on the far mountain tops.
I'm feeling peaceful, grateful, and serene. And I owe it all to Al-Anon.
I've been in many of those situations on research vessels. Strangely enough, I didn't feel nervous. I suppose that I had "faith" in the captain which may be ill-placed after accidents like the Costa Concordia. But maybe even back then, I knew that I was powerless over a lot of things.
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