Its been a short period of time that i've been at sea. Being a seafarer it has always intrigued me what is that driving force which keeps a seafarer go again and again to the ocean. Taking into account of those who dwelled those high seas eons ago when there was only a sun moon and millions of stars to guide them.
I had the rarest of the rarest opportunities to be a part of a mission , to conduct survey, of a shoal patch off mauritius. And believe me , the last survey conducted in that area was around 160 years back by the British Navy, (HMS Samarang). And above that there's a particular description of an officer of the Royal Navy who carried out the coveted work of drafting as well as surveying it. His name is Lt. Mudge of the RN (who later became admiral of the RN).
The shoal patch is actually a huge mountain which lies in the shape of a lobster, with its western side being the calmest and the eastern side showing all the fury of mother nature. So the testing time was, undoutedly, was in the eastern front. Still i get nightmare of those huge waterwalls which rose in front of me upto a height of about 4 meters , reminding a giant elephant flexing its muscles in front of a rodent, and shouting that "you aint powerful enough to stand in front of me". Each and every day when i was out there with my men, we were tested to the limits, puked, unstabilized, disoriented, rollin and pitching like anything...altogether a "Rock'n'Roll" treat by the mother nature. Every morning i used to see from my ship the fury she's projecting, but i have to go, because everyone has been there, from those old seafarers to the new ones dating from centuries behind to the latest ones....so i have to go...and i went !
And yes that brings the answer to that intriguing question, what is that driving force which leads one back to the sea... perhaps if i say it , you might call it boasting, with all due respect to the mother nature, it is the love and affection for her, the fear and devotion to her drives me and others into her lap.
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