found myself in water made very light by the millions of bubbles of foam from the enormous breaking sea that had capsized my boat. In a flash, I had glimpsed the cabin hatch cover, ripped off its tracks. With an opening like that, and her keel out of water, Marie-Thérèse II could only go to the bottom. Yet I felt no despair, no bitterness. I just whispered to myself ‘This time, old man, your number is up.’ And I remembered the page on destiny in Wind, Sand and Stars, on the absolute need to follow one’s fate, whatever its outcome.
