Shalina had had storms before, of course. The mediterranean was notorious for its dangerous waves, so she was not afraid when the storm warning came and she was ordered up into the rigging.
Besides, on a ship this big, how bad could it get?
Before she was even halfway up the mast, the ship sailed straight into the thunderstorm and the first thing that happened was that she was deafened by a lightning strike that just barely missed the ship, only instinct keeping her clinging to the mast after she missed the line she was grabbing for.
She quickly came to realize that although a sea, the Mediterranean was nothing like the Atlantic ocean, and where the Atlantic and Indian oceans collided, waves were something else.
Scrambling for a better grip on the wet foremast she also realized that being on a large ship is not necessarily an advantage when you are high up, being violently swung back and forth. Holding on to the wide mast was getting to be an impossibility, as was reaching any of the lines which were now flapping about, whipping around in the wind. There were only two directions, down and up.
Down seemed the safest, but there was just one problem. The mast was wider in that end. But just a few feet higher up the mast connected to the topgallant… Timing the swaying of the ship she started to shimmy upwards, holding on for dear life when she was on the underside of the mast, and working her way up when she was on the top of it.