Looking back in time at a journey to make port in a fearful storm, steering my 30foot Seamaster, with my dear Tilly and my sons Len and Nicholas on board, and wondering what would happen if we were to founder in those high waves, fierce wind and driving rain.

A poem as to the awful possibilities of having placed my nearest and dearest in the most awful danger

Three cruisers of my club were on way to Calais when a violent mid-channel storm caught us out. Soon separated we had to fight back to the Thames Estuary.

The bowsprit sank into the angry waves,
pointing like a finger into Neptune’s deep,
and the resting place of mariners graves,
that awful place where mermaids weep.

In chapels of green shrouded caves,
where brave young men forever sleep,
so far beneath those tossing waves,
surrounded by those, that silent creep.

This screaming wind, like a cry just spent,
or is it gulls in these windswept skies,
or long lost sailors, their souls in torment,
or was it me, with my fearful sighs.

The bows rise again, there's land in sight,
never again will I take a chance.
my love of the sea, put my family in plight.
No more to try for France.