Alive!

She was alive!
A wave crashed over the bow; spattering her with frigid spray. Above her the sheets thundered as the gale tried to pull them free of the rigging like the giant invisible hands of a destructive child while the heaving ocean fought to wrench the wheel from her freezing fingers. She blinked away the rime on her eyelashes as the yacht nosed over into a cavernous trough, carving a path through the slate coloured water.
The wheel jerked, almost slipping her grasp as the boat fought to turn suicidally side on to the waves but she held grimly on keeping the prow straight at the towering mountain of water looming over her.
The yacht tilted back as it fought its way back up the white capped cliff-face – more spray peppered her face; ricocheting off as tiny frozen shards.
The yacht eased over the summit just as lightning split the darkness and for one crazy moment she saw the ocean around her in its wildest temper tantrum – a vision from Dante’s most terrifying nightmare.
Terror as chill as the water around her gripped her heart and she screamed into the face of the storm, tasting the frozen saltiness in her mouth. She screamed again; not a sound of fear or even defiance but one of joy. She was surrounded by the pure, limitless power of the ocean, basking in the raw, primal energies. She was part of it and it a part of her; they were one. Laughing almost hysterically she fought the ocean in the yacht – a tiny piece of flotsam at the mercy of the heaving maelstrom around her.