Bailor, call me.

It is not supposed to be this way; it is supposed to be this way. This is the way it is.

My close friend Anais Nin II C discovered last night a little pin - I imagine red or blue or something primary and childish - plugged into a giant map somewhere in her parents house, it marks Helsinki.

She placed this pushpin there 9 years ago, knowing this is where I'd be the night she was back at her mom and dads rummaging through whatever it was, or doing whatever it was. The details, except for the one, are unimportant.

She sent me a telegram this morning, it arrived over the teletype on the ship: "Found you," so I am supposed to be here. This is where I am right now.

But this week I am leaving. I am all but 100 percent sure that my life is in danger here, on this ship, if I stay on this boat. I nearly died today. . . I will get to that part, a little later.

Or hell, might as well start right now: We have been sailing for two days straight. To be accurate we have sailed for about 7 hours total - perhaps less, probably less - and the rest of the time - due to weather, poor winds, or general apathy - we used the diesel motor to chop our way through the icy, still icy cold Baltic.

We truly left off after spending a night at a little resortish sort of island outside Stockholm. We had two friends with us, and so Pete made chicken fried rice as the beers were cooling in the dock waters.

This was a beautiful, very power-boat vacationy feeling. With the sun on our backs, a beautiful city scratched from our lists ( lists ... that sounds awful and red-faced touristy.... and any way, I would have stayed much longer ... really it was only a sort of flirt with the city - she kissed us and then left in a taxi, taking only our email address - jesus, what's wrong with me ... future writers - never use email in a sentence, it kills it - although teletype seems to work . . . )

Here is what I am trying to do. I will let you in on my formula for this post. I was hoping to shape the arc of narrative like the sun sets in the Baltic. A high beautiful sun will shine over Stockholm well into the afternoon, and will gradually sink, of course, reaching its nadir just above the horizon and it never truly sets... it remains above the surface, its glow does, and then starts up again.

I have drawn little pictures of this to outline little stories I am working on while here - they look like a bunch of overlapping small circles, drawn in messy pencil, flowing in one of those math patterns, whats that name again - like a U or the skull of a bull. So that's what I was going to do.

The apex obviously, the best times, were that day leaving Stockholm. With all the city's tease, the salty breeze and wide-open seas (oh god...). And the down, the putzer, well, that was nearly dying today only 100 metres from port in Helsinki.

Oh, yes, by the way: nearly died today in Helsinki.

Where to begin (clearly this deserves one of those traditional narrative arcs - it deserves a cup of tea, some cigarettes and two comfy seats. But as we are all here on blog world I am keeping it brief - I still need to sleep, talk to embassies of Soviet and Teutonic powers and then consume some Finnish art, food, people. (Consume people. Yes, OK for now).

The day after we left Sandhamn, that little gem resort place, the seas started up on us, but at first it looked like a good time to start sailing. We put on our life coats, and latched our selves to the ship and in a few minutes, Pete's got me lifting the sails. We are making good speed, about 5 knots, and I am feeling only slightly sick. Wow, the open sea, the dark grey mass and weight of cold, long, who knows - there's something there that your mind comes up against and can't help but be satisfied with: How simple everything looks, yet there's a real and figurative hidden power. As we know the sea is a tough enemy and I'd rather not fight it much, if I could avoit it.

I head in after I start getting too cold, and figure Ill learn more a little later. But being inside the boat, and with the waves picking up, the pressure dropping, the sickness starts to get me. Now, when I fist was leaving for this trip, I figured I'd be able to out mind-control this seasickness shit. But it is impossible, or at least , it was for me... I lay down for a bit, and every time we keel over to starboard, the side my bed's on, I see the ocean coming right for me through the window, a huge jump, a gigantic splash, water coming through an unsealed porthole in the roof, I am trying to sleep, and forget about this dizzy feeling, wearing all my rain gear and boots in bed... shivering. Pete comes in and tells me plans have changed. Gravely. I take the news.

The UHF and SATNAV is warning of ultra fast Gale Force winds where we had planned on docking for the night (about half way to Helsinki), so instead of risk it with the water hazards in a storm, the skip says we are gonna sail straight through the night. I tell him I don't think its a good idea, I won't be able to help watch, which I'll need to if we pull an all nighter. . . I just want the whole world to stop spinning, nauseous and desperate (the two are practicaly identical feelings) but Pete tells me in his Liverpudlian-Ringo accent "That's fine Tobin.. I happen to disagree..." He is the captain.

I get up in a while and vomit for a little bit, feel fine for a while and puke again. Sleep again. Around this point I do a night watch, and things are a bit blurry. I do remember one part before or after my watch, getting up and walking towards the upper deck where Pete was, standing there with his arms spread out. A stern grimace, very seaman like grimace, across his old grey and white face. His giant falses sticking out past his blueish lips like the bare bones of an old wreck through the sea.

"I noticed we were headed right for her, so I took some evasive actions, there," he says to me, without even looking my way, arm outstretched gesturing towards a ghost like, humungous cruize ship, towering above,lit up like a Titanic draped in Christmas lights. The image is startling and sublime, robotic and terrifying.

Another part of the spell-bound eve, of which I was surely not going to make it through, I remember vividly thinking of my notebook being destroyed in the wreck, and the words, the all-important words, would all evaporate into the cold black water like tiny swirls of blue smoke.

There was another point where I came back into the cabin after swalling four or five gravols, and I found a french woman sitting on the bed opposite mine, smoking long cigarettes... She was beautiful, of course, black hair, a white round brimmed hat, pale skin and red lipstick ... and I remember not being too shocked to see her, I just said "You know you arent supposed to smoke down here," and he she smiled, exhaling, extinguished one cigarette in an invisble ashtray and lit a new one. I went back to sleep.

*** There's one part I am leaving out. I'll get to it now.

Nearly dying might have been an over statement. But, what a pathetic way to perish, you'll see, after all that high danger and seamanship. Upon entering the city marina of Helsinki, Finland today, Peter was top side in the cockpit, away from the GPS stuff, and I was also on deck, preparing the lines for docking.

He must have missed, or dismissed the cardinal buoy to our west, which indicated the huge hazard lying only 1 metre beneath the surface. He yells Woah, and slows the ship, Whats the problem, I ask, and he tells me: "The depth boy, it went up for a second..."

I presume everything is OK, I guess he does too for he keeps going... SMASH, one giant bump, a few rolls, we have hit something, and hit it hard. We are immobile. We can see the port, the docks, only about 100 feet away - even closer is a bay of giant concrete dividers, which I imagine I could swim to, hopefully before catching hypothermia.

Last thing I want to do is jump in the water, but Pete is tellng me to prepare the life ratf. She's rocking back and forth, and I am running from Port to Starboard and back trying to level her out;

"Jesus christ motherfucker" Pete slams his fist, those sharkish teeth coming out.

We finally get it freed, and enter port, for some reason with our mison sail still flying, which docking difficult, and us look very very stupid. He tells me it feels like a wire is wound around his heart, squeezing it. I am very worried about this situation... before getting back on hard land, he tells me

"Well thats it, then, you be wanting to get out now, take care of you."

This is no good. A damaged ship and captain. No place to go and no will to go back home.

There is hope, that unhuman feeling, hope. And happiness, that boring, human feeling. Hapiness.

The sun has nearly sunk, and it rises.