Hour after hour we tossed about in a savage ocean, the Santa Rita no more consequential than a speck of lint in a vast washing machine. There was no horizon. There was no sign of anything sentient. There was nothing out there but wave after wave of black, rolling water with its deafening roar, accompanied by loud cracks of thunder and sheet lightening coming from all directions. We dared not think about how long our thin-skinned hull could hold its own against the fury of the wind and the pounding of the waves.And then it all stopped. The rain tapered off. The wind died away. The ocean flattened. Bernard tumbled into the cabin. He collapsed on the floor next to Stefan and fell into a deep sleep. Almost two days had passed since this nightmare began, and then it abated as abruptly as it came. We were alive. We had not only survived the storm from hell, but we were nearing Indonesia where we would no longer have to face the threat from India's southwest monsoons. When Bernard awoke, I brought him a coffee and sat on the floor beside him. I loved this man so much. I stroked his back, his arm, his hair. Bernard never responded to words, never trusted them. But he understood touch. He put his free arm around me and held me against his still damp slicker. We drank in the warmth of each other's bodies until he was ready to get out of his wet clothes and re-chart our course.I went on deck and surveyed the ocean with awe and a newfound respect. I wondered at the tempest we had endured. It seemed as though the entire ocean was out of control. But it wasn't. Only the surface was in turmoil. The ocean by its very depth could not have moved. I felt the presence of a vast stillness that lay beneath the surface. There is a constant in the universe, I thought. Only the playbill changes. The stage set remains. Underneath there is something subtle and profound and eternal.