Tossled

Yes, you are correct. I made up a word. It's my attempt to capture the way my experience when we were anchored in Monterey Bay. I think it works. You be the judge...

We had a pleasant enough stay - four nights - at the Monterey Marina, but at 35 bucks a night, it was reaching a little too deeply into our pockets. So, like some of the other boats in the Coho Ho Ho rally, we anchored out on our fifth night in the bay. (By the way, one of the main reasons we stayed so long in Monterey was to wait for our cohorts who were lagging behind us by several days. I'm not saying it's their fault, I'm just blaming them.) 

It didn't take too long to realize why the guidebooks recommended docking rather than anchoring in the bay. (Note: Our buddies who had already spent a night at anchor didn't mention a thing in warning to us. Hmmm. Friends? I think not!) This anchorage is the rolliest I've ever had the displeasure to drop the hook in! It was so bad that my water bottle kept flying off the shelf by my head and crashing into my gut. I learned fast (can you believe it?) and after the second time, I moved it to the floor for the rest of the night.

The side-to-side rolling was truly unbelievable. It made it quite impossible to sleep. I lay there just waiting for it to stop or for the alarm to go off. It was a lot like when I went on glacier climbs and I would just lay there, unable to sleep, waiting for the alarm to save me from myself so we could get on with the business of climbing that mountain. The anticipation. The worry. The unsuccessful counting of sheep. Aaah! (Here, it's not the mountain I want to climb but the coast we want to sail around.) It was so rough and bouncy I couldn't believe we weren't back trying to round Cape Blanco, where I had to sit on the floor to put my pants on! We were tethered to the floor of the bay for gosh sakes, so why so rough???

So with nothing else to do, I began thinking. (Yes, dangerous, I know.) I began wondering why some people tolerate this disturbing action better than others do. Could it be that babies who were rocked in one of those cradles that rock side-to-side actually find this motion reminiscent of when they were first out of the womb and safely cradled near their mother's nurturing side? Could that be why this motion has the opposite effect on me, because to the best of my knowledge, my parents didn't own a cradle like that? Would my brother or sister know? Did Brad's parents use one and that is why he takes so well to this? Is it too late for remedial cradle training??? Well anyway, it's just a theory...

Then I thought, so this is what it must feel like to be a blade of sea grass in the surf zone, about 10 or 15 feet from the beach. The unrelenting motion of the water lifting me higher and higher as it pulls me in toward the sandy beach, stretching my tether to the max, then briefly the tip of my blade experiences the feeling of weightlessness as the rushing water reaches its apex and seemingly stops for but an instant before it abruptly sucks my undulating blade back out to sea with a rush and a gurgle. My, what a ride! But wait! Let's do it all again and again, ceaselessly, but with a slightly different rhythm and flow rate just to keep things interesting. And let's do this minute after minute, hour after hour. And don't forget to throw in a rogue wave every ten or twenty minutes just to really shake things up!

I don't like being a blade of sea grass!  So glad to be out of there!