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invited us for a drink, but Gregorio shook his head: we had to go back and immediately, he said.

After a few miles the sea began to ripple and in the sunlight the small waves looked like sparkling crystals. How beautiful, how I live the sea, I thought.

The waves got bigger, the clouds clouded the sun, a little wind rose. Gregorio was right, the weather was getting bad, I thought.

The wind picked up again, the rain became a steady downpour, and the Tin Kid began to take in water that I was trying to throw overboard by picking it up with my hands open and cupped, rolling and pitching with the boat.

Gregorio gave me a bucket, I tied the end of one line to my waist and the other to the Tin Kid. "Be careful," he said. "Now the weather is bad."

Damn, I thought. And this half-world here, what do you call it? The answer was not long in coming: suddenly it was dark, the wind became an uninterrupted roar, the compact waves high walls in motion.

Often we went up we went up on a wave, we were thrown down and immediately hit by the next wave which, pouring over the Tin Kid, covered everything. In order to resist the rush of the water, I crouched, locking my head between my knees, my arms above my head. Then I resumed throwing the water over the edge with the bucket.

Gianfranco too worked fast with the bucket, occasionally pausing to illuminate the stretch of sea in front of us with the torch, so that Gregory could avoid the rocks that emerged.

Fill, empty, faster and faster... but it's like that story of the child who wanted to empty the sea by collecting water with his hands joined, water and water, the waves increase, they overlap, how did Gregorio still manage to control the Tin Kid in these waves? What if the engine...