A MYSTERIOUS MIST

I made my way up the three step ladder and out of the berth to be greeted by a unique, but once again, lovely morning. Still sleepy from having dealt with low batteries a few hours before, I sat in my usual spot on the settee and gazed at the immense sea, framed by the galley door. And then, I saw something remarkable, something I had really never seen before. A mist very lightly wafted across that galley door frame. "How strange" I thought, "I have never seen that, a mist right out of the Scottish Highlands or the early morning mists of Vermont." And then another and then another ..each one disappearing into nothingness.

Accepting the extraordinary, I continued my early morning rounds, got up from my galley seat and exited into the cockpit. There, I was mortified at what I saw. Not thirty feet off my port side ..I had just missed hitting an immense rock. And, with the mind working in milliseconds I thought "But how is it possible, a rock 2000 miles from shore?" And I looked again .and

it moved ..it was a huge whale, just one foot under, its back breaking the surface of the water. And there were the mists .every five seconds each one receding further into the great distance behind