Heavy Seas

The deck presses up against your feet as the wave heaves the ship’s massive bulk upward. You feel the sensation of being pushed down into the deck as if a heavy weight suddenly added to your back. The ship rises on the wave, heaving you up with it until the bow reaches the peak and the ship stops rising. The ship stops rising, but you don’t. The force of the ship climbing imparts enough momentum that you continue, just a touch, as the ship starts to fall away.

You feel the ship fall away beneath you, your toes extend, reaching for something solid as the deck drifts down without you, leaving you floating weightless, a few inches above the deck. The waves acting on the stern push it up, levering the bow down faster than the gravity that is pulling you, and space between you and the deck grows. A few eternal seconds you hang there, in mid-air, as the mighty hand of Poseiden reorients the ship in space around you.

You hover there in free fall, disconnected from the ship as it is levered and torqued about its three axes, and you know that you and the ship will meet again soon, hopefully in a similar orientation as before. If all goes well, the deck remains beneath your feet when you re-establish contact with the ship, but you are just as likely to be standing on a wall, with the line of gravity pointing in some obtuse direction. Catching your balance is what being a Mariner is all about. The more experienced salts, don’t even bother to stop drinking their coffee.