A quick scan convinces you that, if you've got the strength and stamina to sustain yourself, you can climb from here to the captain's wheel without touching a single worm.
You've the fortitude to leap up, grab on, and swing your legs around it so you're hanging underneath it, like an ant on the underside of a branch. Taking a deep breath, you start shimmying along the horizontal wooden pole, aiming for the nets of rigging not too far along.
Suddenly, a fiendish gust of wind blows up, setting your eyes watering and your body reeling. You fight to hang on.
"Vatch, do something!" you bellow as your grip slips. The wind proves too much, and down you fall into the mass of worms, already a foot deep now and still rising.
You try to scramble to your feet, but you can get no purchase. Their clammy bodies are everywhere, and surrounded as you are their chorus of song is beyond endurance.
Onward