The wind and sea blew with blinding white fury
Dishes flew in the mess deck
Took a sea-legged sailor to leg on 
But used to a rock-to- sleep
We were rocked to some approximate stomach jarring ragged sleep
Two a.m. I was crashed against the bulk head and slammed to the deck
My big toe bled like a coward for some reason
I could not stand and helplessly tried to hold onto my bunk
The ship was dark
My wife and one year old son flashed through my mind
I foundered down the passage-way pushed and shoved by an invisible bully 
who laughed cruelly as I stumbled 
The Chief Engineer wearing his silly white cotton gloves was building a 
structure against the hull where a football sized hole was gushing water
through. 
Wet we splashed and waddled trying to fashion the structure. 
The bridge was instructed to roll the ballast tanks to list the ship
I helped as I could to jam a life-jacket through the ragged gash and nail a 
support to keep the bright orange jacket in place as it leaked and gushed
The sea was an incongruent mass of unnavigable mush
The ship jerked and yanked, rolled, yawed, and pitched furiously
Nothing to do but hold on and pray
Twenty-four hours later we straggled into Yokohama
Listing like a defeated boxer 
We tied-up and tried to adjust to stability and land. 
Later we straggled to the seaman’s club and sat emotionless at the bar
I said to Lee, “that was some storm, huh?!” 
“Oh that. That was just a little weather.”
Three boiler-makers later Lee asked the bartender for the telephone. An 
International Call back home to Nebraska. 
In 1979 when you sailed you were gone. No email, no phones, no 
computers. You were Robinson Crusoe forgotten a world away from home. 
You wondered if your wife and kids even remembered you.  An international 
call cost 4 dollars a minute, probably twenty dollars equivalent to day. 
Lee called home:
“Honey?  It’s me. We’re in Yokohama. Hi. Yeah.  I just sailed through the 
worst storm I’ve ever been in in 35 years going to sea and I just wanted to 
hear your voice. I thought I’d never hear it again. Love you. See you in 
about ten days.”