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I was Deep Sea Fishing this afternoon. Couldn’t get Salmon, as there was some restriction and we moved 7 miles north up the coast.

After I caught my limit of Rock Fish, I thought “Got a few hours to kill. Might as well clean my guns”.

So I’m about 2/3rds through when all of the sudden I feel a sudden gust of wind and the boat kinds bumps.

I laughed and went back to cleaning. Next thing I know a swell comes toward the boat. I mean I can see thing rise up and I grab hold of the rails, port side, to brace myself.

Not thinking, I left the guns on top of the ice chest I was using as my bench for cleaning the guns and this wave. No this massive wave, must’ve been 10 feet high washes over ralings and the deck.

These are open railings and I’m scared. I had one of my carabiners for mountain climbing and had hooked myself onto to the railing.

Damn good thinking.

This thing hit the boat like a Mac Truck and then it was like this river....It flooded and flooded and flooded. Just washing across the deck.

Well, the ice chest I had been using was lashsed to the railing as I now was and just bobbed as the wave kept coming.

I honestly thought the boat was going to be swamped...and then it stopped.

The boat rocked back and forth.

I’m wet, no, soaked to the bone and I look around to check on everyone. They are white as a ghost and look like someone was coming at them with a chainsaw. Scared.

I look down at the carabiner hooked onto the railing and attached to my belt. Realizing I was safe, I look toward the sun and started laughing, a little at first and then uncontrollably.

Looking back it’s so surreal, like I was losing my mind.

Then with horror I start looking around and they’re gone!!!

I can’t see my guns! Oh no!

Left. Right. Across the deck...I don’t see them.

Dear Gawd!!!

I unhook myself and frantically, frantically I’m running around the deck. I pop open deck lids, as if somehow my guns had become sentient and escaped down the hatch.

I catch my breath. It feels like I’ve been punched in the gut, in the lower ribs, in my chest.

I sink to my knees, realizing a simple truth that I couldn’t release myself from. I mean, I’m sane but, this doesn’t feel of this world.

Sadly, reality becomes part of my consciousness and immediately I open the lid of the ice chest my guns hitherto had been resting on. I grab a beer, pop it open and start gulping.

My eyes well up with tears and my breathing shallow at first, develops a wind as I cry, inconsolably, like a teenage boy who has had his heart broken by his 1st girlfriend. The one who cheated on him and there was no reason or logic behind it, just pain, deep, deep pain.

My mouth open wide, no sound can be uttered...They are gone.

My guns, my babies, those beautiful blue ones, the chrome ones and my gorgeous stainless steel babies are gone.

Davy Jones has come from his locker at the bottom of the sea to claim my babies. They don’t belong to him but, he took them nevertheless.

I go numb...

They’re gone and there is nothing I can do about it.

Each one was unique and I loved them in their special way. I honor them and can’t bring myself to replace them. It would insult their memory.

I am defenseless .... soft...melancholy...