The Desolate Turtle and Other Stories from the End of the Rainbow

Gertha4
Simon Ridley
Sun 8 Jun 2014 19:02
LAT 41.17 N LON 20.06 W
 
Well hello there! And sorry I’ve not been about to blog. Been a touch busy emptying my intestines into the Atlantic ocean. Matty too, though she’s far more civilised about it than I am and has been using the facilities. Shoes and boat for me, I’m afraid. Anyhow! Now that we’re out of that ‘orrible, boiling mess of a sea (and into big swells and intermittent squalls), I can share with you a brand new story:
 
Once upon a time there was an Emma, and a fair and brave maiden was she, nursing back to good health the two younger crew aboard that mighty vessel, Gertha 4. And one day, after quite the evening of appalling squalls, as our heroine sat her watch with the proper dedication, and as the two sicklings slept with their arms bent over their foreheads and as the skipper rested, finally, after that bumpy first night back at sea, only then did Emma see, to her delight, the end of the rainbow! And what was at its end? Gold? No. A small leprechaun? No. A middling-size leprechaun? No! What then?! It was of, of course, Gertha 4! So, distant family and friends afar, next time you see a rainbow, pray for us folk at the end of it in our vessel, scoffing down burritos and cakes and washing it all down with endless gallons of tea and coffee as we edge ever closer to that green old island.
 
In other news:
 
I was on my watch yesterday. I was sure I saw many things, but of course I didn’t. As Simon says:

”Look at the sea for three hours and you’ll start to see camels walking across it.”
 
And so it happened that I didn’t see a shark. Nor a whale. Nor, alas, a narwhale. Not even a dolphin or a Kraken were beheld. Nothing but tops of waves, undulating away and off into a valley. Until:

”A SHARK!” I called. Yes! It was a shark! “Oh no, wait! It’s a turtle! Yes! It’s a turtle!” Waving at me as he was, his fin appeared as the dorsal of another. But what’s that with him? “He’s got a....a...he’s got a Frisbee! It’s a turtle playing Frisbee!”

And so it was. And we watched him bob away on the surface, trying desperately, it seemed, to reach for a kindred flipper on the strange, uniformly round fellow he had happened upon, out here in the middle of nowhere. Who knows how long they had been bobbing together, or if he had expunged even a simple acknowledgement from the little round fellow.
 
And that is the tale of the Desolate Turtle.
 
CORRR! These sea-sickness pills don’t half make you drowsy (and p’rhaps a little giddy am I as the foulness recedes).
 
And with that, dear reader, I bid you good night!
 
GOOD NIGHT!
 
Anthony