The pyrotechnics unleashed a clinquant sparkle across the open sea that delighted many of the passengers; but Thurman saw it as yet another assault upon his crumbling resolve to continue this absurd journey for he suffered, unbeknownst to the rest of us, cruelly, under the circumstances, from astraphobia and it was the final peel of thunder that drove him from the ship and into the field of dulse, mistaking it for an island in the shifting light, and thus putting an end to his personal baptism of fire.