JOURNEY - on Mastering Ukemi by Daniel Linden (classic books for 12 year olds .TXT) 📕

heart filled with the joy of having him nuzzle my face and settle down on my lap. I scratched his ears and ruffled the fur at his throat. It eased how badly I missed him because he had died so many years ago…

I bolted upright. My heart beat in my throat and I struggled to get to my feet. Stupid! That had been really, really stupid. I had fallen asleep. That is the worst thing you can do up here because freezing to death is very much like going to sleep. There are two hundred bodies on Mt. Everest alone that just wanted to rest and never stood up again. Damn, I knew better. I picked up the Chinese rifle and threw it as far over the cliff as I could, but I never heard it make a sound. Turning, I started up the mountain. Somehow, still, I was so very grateful to have been able to snuggle with my old dog once again. It had almost been worth it.

I kept going; that’s all I can say. I took one step, a couple breaths, one more and more breaths. The higher I climbed the harder it got to breathe. My knees hurt so badly I could hardly bend them and my face began to throb where the rebel leader had hit me with the gun butt. And then it began to go numb, which was worse. I was just a mess, but kept going. Eventually I learned that turning my body with each step meant I didn’t have to bend my knees so much and then the pain only throbbed with the shift of weight. I felt ridiculous, like a ship at sea rolling in the waves.

Eventually the snow came so hard that it completely obliterated my companion’s tracks and for half of every switchback I had to break trail as well as climb. Then the side to side shuffle became a plow, drag, step motion that was nothing less than exhausting. Hours passed and still I climbed.

I remembered back to a trip I had taken to Key West with my boyhood friend Bill. We decided to go out to the Marquesas one beautiful day. I had a fine 23 foot inboard that was just made for these kinds of seas and we ran all the way out like we were in a big lake. After 30 miles we made the Marquesas and found the channel that takes you inside. It is a ring of coral islands that has a fantastic lagoon inside that is as still and calm as a swimming pool. We anchored, swam, built a fire of driftwood and then went out and took a Hawaiian sling and gathered a dozen lobsters which we steamed in seaweed over the coals. We drank cold beer, and ate lobster and grilled grouper; what a fantastic day that had been. But when we finally pulled anchor and came back out of the lagoon we found that the seas had risen on steadily freshening breezes from the east.

We beat our way east for nearly an hour before the first rains hit us. I was very much concerned that we would strike a coral head or rock and break the ships hull because after each wave passed we sailed right down the back side of the wave and into the trough. I kept edging us further and further south to try and keep us in deep enough water away from the patch reefs. My depth finder couldn’t work with us constantly rising and falling. This was the very same ship graveyard where the Atocha sank along with many other Spanish galleons. I had no desire to join them. I steered a compass course into a driving rain and black seas.

My friend Bill had taken ill; he never did develop a seaman’s constitution and the best he could do was just hang on. Hours seemed to pass and I began to worry about fuel. It takes a lot of power to lift 4,000 pounds up the side of a wave; far more that merely running before a following sea. We climbed and fell. We climbed and fell. Finally after hours I saw a brief glimpse of a light ahead. Was it another boat? Was it an island? Was I completely lost and completely off course?

“Bill,’’ I hollered. “Look at the light! What is it?”

I had to wrestle the helm with every blow from the pounding waves. He looked out over the windshield for a moment and we both saw the light at the same time.

“Sand Key!” we shouted simultaneously.

There is a wonderful old lighthouse at Sand Key, just south of Key West harbor. It will guide you into the shipping channel. We could see it and now knew we were on the right course. For another hour we pounded the waves and I kept looking at the light. It would blaze and then go black and then a few moments later blaze out into the night once again. I knew we needed to get just beyond it and then we could turn hard north and make for the shipping channel and quiet of Key West harbor and a safe berth. We pounded into the waves but seemed to go slower and slower and then miraculously we were past and turning toward Key West where the bars would still be open and the ground would not shift and…

“Sensei! Sensei! Where are you going? We’re right here. God! You made it!”

Suddenly, then, I was back on the mountain and the Key West light became a flashlight blinking and fluttering with the driving snow. Hands found me and guided me to the shelter that was now marginally warm with the bodies and the candles burning. Hands rubbed the snow from my face and off my head and brushed down my body. I was eased onto a bunk but found I could not speak. Christian kneeled before me and worked and worked to get