Sailor games

 The ship rolled and pitched its mighty propellers, fighting to make headway in the vast Atlantic Ocean. For three days and nights, even the most seasoned sailors strapped themselves in their racks with no chance of eating, as the galley was a war zone with flying pots and pans, making cooking impossible. But we were an American ship of war, and duty stations had to be manned, even if it meant securing your body to the ship with a rope.

Being hundreds of miles from the nearest port, with sixty-foot waves pounding the ship, was as close to hell as I've ever been. After the end of the second day, the seas settled down a little, but the old salts said it was just a lull and more would come even worse than the first.

With spirits low, an old salt said we should play the blanket ride, which meant sprinkling baby powder along the deck for fifty feet or so and folding a blanket just big enough to sit on. Then, you wait for the ship to climb to the top of a giant wave, holding on for dear life. As it went nose-first over the massive wave, you'd let go and race at a high rate of speed down the fifty feet of the deck like a kid at an amusement park.

It was a lot of fun and took your mind off the severity outside. That is until I was racing down the passageway at breakneck speed, a hatch door opened, and the captain stepped out. I knocked his legs out from under him, and my life passed before my eyes.

He stood there looking at me for what seemed a lifetime, then reached for my blanket, asking me if I thought we had invented that game. The captain rode the blanket game alongside us for the next few minutes, laughing like we'd never heard him laugh.

The seas calmed at the end of the third day, and the storm had passed. The ship sustained minor damage, but we returned to sea after four days in port.

The ocean can be a brutal lady if she wants to, and the things you go through are sometimes biblical. But once you've rung more saltwater out of your socks than most ever will, you may understand why a sailor is always a sailor who listens for the winds to blow and the blankets and baby powder to come out to play.

Mike 2025