[Continued from "Morning Maneuvers (Our First Journey, part 4)"]
While we were ashore, the wind shifted to the north. Our new mooring, sheltered from yesterday's south wind was exposed now, giving us both wind to push the boat around and waves to rock us, the promise of a bumpy night's sleep.
Now normally a boat hangs downwind off of its mooring, the wind pushing the boat away from the mooring buoy. But our boat was turned around backwards.
The current flowing along side the island caused our boat to stream away from the buoy stern into the wind. Then the wind, playing its part, pushed against our stern until the bow of the boat tapped the mooring buoy. Outside the boat, it seemed like a gentle tap, but from inside the reverberations of the tap were jarring and resonated through the hull.
Occasionally, the vagaries of wind and current would push the boat around the buoy. The metal ring atop the buoy would pluck a harsh note or two on the bobstay as it passed from port to starboard or back again. Then the banging would resume, “Kong, kong, kong.”
We turned up our diesel heater to stave off the thirty-degree weather and tried our best to sleep.
Amidst the motion and noise, I grew queezy. I've never been seasick before, not even a little bit, but bouncing around in the point of the bow of the boat, my stomach started to turn. With no other option at hand, I retreated to the center of the boat. For those unaccustomed to life inside a boat, the boat moves mostly around and imaginary point in its center, and like a see-saw, moves much less in the center than at the ends.
I started to get some rest, but it was short-lived. There had been a faint smell bothering me for some time, an odor that Jiayu could not detect when I asked her about it. But this time when I woke it was too strong to be ignored. I woke Jiayu and asked her to come into the cabin and help me identify the smell.
She climbed out of bed, stepped into the main cabin and immediately said, “Diesel!”
Sure enough, a breath of fresh air from outside, and then a sniff inside made everything clear. Our stove was filling the cabin with unburned, vaporized diesel fumes. It had started slowly and like the boiling frogs I've heard about, we didn't notice it at first. But the source of my nausea was now evident, the fumes were sickening.
We had no choice. We shut down the stove and opened both hatches and all the ports, venting the fumes and all of our warm air, replacing it with fresh, sub-freezing air blown in by the north wind.
We huddled together back in the bow of the boat, almost sleeping until the wind kicked up again banging our halyards against the mast. For a short while, we simply left them to make their noise, but finally it was too much. We went on deck to retie them. I wondered more than once if I wasn't a complete idiot for deciding to journey by sail.
After all of this, the kong, kong, kong of the boat on the mooring buoy was almost comforting in its familiarity, or perhaps it was simply fatalistic acceptance. We got what rest we could and woke a few hours later to the bare fact that we had no heat source for ourselves or our food. It was time to cut our trip short. It was time to go home.
[continued]
在岸上漫步的同時，風轉由北方吹來。新找到的繫泊浮標不再有南風的遮蔽，隨著浪潮推擠著我們。今晚又要睡不安穩了。
通常船會自動移靠至繫泊浮標的下風處，但是我們的船卻180度大轉向。
小島的水流將我們的船推離浮標，然而風卻由船尾吹來，將船頂向浮標。從遠處看，我們的船首輕輕的，一次次的親吻著浮標，但是在船內，刺耳的撞擊聲卻一聲聲的迴響在船艙內。
偶爾，風和潮流的交響曲將船從浮標的一側推至另一側。浮標上的鐵環刮過船首，發出一、二聲尖銳不滿，然後我們回到規律的「鏗、鏗、鏗」。
我們將柴油暖爐打開，以抵抗外面幾近零度的低溫，盡量讓自己入睡。
在船的晃動與噪音中，我開始不舒服。我從未暈過船，然而，船首的床不規則搖動卻讓我的胃翻滾。由於船的結構像翹蹺板，兩端晃動最為厲害，所以我移動到船中間休息。
我的休息猶如曇花一現。之前，我一直聞到一個令我頭昏的氣味，但Jiayu卻毫無知覺。但是這次我被此氣味嗆醒。我叫醒Jiayu，讓她到船艙中央幫我聞一聞。
她睡眼朦朧的從床上爬下來，一走到艙中便大叫：「柴油味！」
我們探頭到艙外呼吸新鮮空氣，再回頭到艙內就一切真相大白。暖爐吹出來的是燃燒未完全的柴油氣體。我們如同跳入溫鍋的青蛙無知無覺。我的暈眩原來出自於此。
毫無猶豫的，我們只好關閉暖爐，大開前後艙門和側窗，讓艙內的溫暖隨著有毒氣體一起飛散風中。取而代之的是北風帶來的幾近零度的新鮮空氣。
我們倆躲回船首瑟窣著打著盹，直到北風再起，繩索敲打著船桅發出聲響。我們嘗試忽略此噪音直到不能忍受，只好上到甲板重新綁緊繩索。在這之間，我不止一次的懷疑自己是否太過無知才會想要過船上生活。
在這之後，即使船擦撞繫泊浮標發出的「鏗！鏗！鏗！」都逐漸變得熟悉，也或許是我們置之死地而後生，居然也睡了幾個小時。我們在沒有熱源、沒有食物的狀況下醒來。該是返航的時候了，我們決定回家。
（待續）
