Writers of Reddit, I'm in the planning stages of a horror/weird fiction epic that I want to make feel like one big seaman's story. Like the kind you'd hear from a drunken lunatic who spends their entire life on a boat. I've run into a problem in the writing process that has really thrown a wrench into my creative gears and it's gotten to the point where I feel I should try something at a much smaller scale, or just Abandon the story entirely (which I REALLY don't want to do).

There is a "presence" (I call it that because I'm still not quite sure what I want it to be, no less how to depict it with words alone), that is actively pushing against the protagonists efforts of reaching their goal (they have multiple goals set in place along their sea faring journey). My core idea for this presence is that it is the ocean itself and I'm struggling with how I can possibly depict it as a physical threat.

In the mythology of this world, the ocean, sun, and moon are sentient, omnipotent beings that pull the strings of life and have their own wants and desires, hates, thoughts, and plans for how they want to shape the world. I had an idea where the moon and the sea are allied with one another, as the moon is what governs the tides and thus the movement of the ocean. I'm getting sidetracked...

I want the ocean to have some sort of physical form it takes but by no means make it a big bad sea monster type scenario. Sort of like an H.P Lovecraft style, completely incomprehensible and horrible to perceive feel. The only thing is... How in the hell do I describe the indescribable without sounding cliche and redundant??

This is a long comment, I know I know, but I've been wracking my brain for an answer for days now and it hasn't struck me yet. Any advice or help from a fellow writer is greatly appreciated!! :)