San Francisco cargo

It was dark and it was stormy . . .

Nevertheless, the boat sailed onward.  If he was going to reach the safety of the harbor, he could not shorten the sails.

All Ray's instincts told him it was going to be a bad storm.  His boat was running with the wind and the six-foot swells were moving the boat quickly through the dark blue water.  The sun had set and there was a faint golden glow below the far Western edge of the dark clouds.

Overhead the clouds were gray, black, and ugly.  The night stars were gone from view, like naughty little children being sent to their rooms.

Out east, over the mountains near the shore, the clouds were dark and ominous.  Familiar landmarks were hidden as if they never existed.  What a night this was going to be.

Even making it into the bay at San Francisco was no guarantee of safety, but ". . . any port in a storm was better then the open sea. . ." his father used to tell him.

Now the wind was picking up and he called below to his wife.  He needed her to come up and hold the wheel while he went forward to batten down the life raft a little more.

Carolyn was a great sailor also, having grown up on the east coast; she was out sailing ever since she could walk.  Her father had captained one of the great clipper ships that had sailed the high seas around the world.  As she took the wheel, she yelled to him "Be careful, the rain is making the deck slippery."

In a flash, a wave lifted the stern up and in a second he was being thrown forward and up over the railing.

Call it luck or instinct, but somehow he reached out in the last second to grab the railing with his left hand.  Instantly he was in the ice-cold water, being dragged along.  He didn't even think about the ice-cold water.  No matter what, he had to hold on or die.

She had seen it all but was helpless at first.