Diary - Night Skies

What can I recall of the previous few nights – and days – as we sail across the Atlantic?  There is a repetitiveness to your activity and yet there is no boredom; the sea and sky are a constant – the constant – of your journey.  Each day and night they bring their own attractions or challenges to distract you.  Nature is capricious; she can be calm or wild, your friend or your rival.  Some days you relax in her wonder while on others you must wrestle your will upon her.  Against nature’s unpredictability our small boat floats along, a tiny bubble of organisation in the expanse: our ordered shifts, our regular checking of the boat and its structure, our periodic weather checks, radio watches and meals, all are planned and predictable as a counter to the changeability of all that surrounds us. 

I take over shift from Mark Thorpe, then spend my time alone before Graham takes over from me. These shift timings and our slow, steady progress westwards have seen my changeover with Graham move from taking place under starlit, night skies to taking place under the purple, blue of early morning and the beginnings of golden, orange sunrises on the horizon behind us.    

I am content at night alone in the cockpit, clipped onto the boat by a safety line and protected from the cold of the night by my foul weather clothing.  The sound of the wind, such as it is, the hollow lapping of the water against the hull and the metallic clink of halyards and the boom as they move, affected by the breeze and rolling of the boat, are the only sounds that accompany you at night.

I recall standing alone behind the wheel staring up at the clear, dark skies where everything is sharper, brighter, richer - and there are more stars to see - than anywhere back home because nothing is lost to light pollution.  The moon waxes and wanes as the days go by and there is the ever-present but rare occurrence of a conjunction of Venus and Jupiter, two bright lights high above the mast; I watch the navigation lights atop the mast as they draw lazy circles around the area where the planets sit in the sky above me.  I see shooting stars – brighter, more colourful and longer lived than those back home.  I recall one particularly spectacular one, large and green and trailing what appeared to be a blazing green tail as it arced across the sky to my right, so low it appeared to almost come down in the sea.  And I recall sitting in the cockpit with Graham, laptop open as the red glow of the screen showed us a star map allowing us to pinpoint planets, stars and new constellations.  Occasionally too there is a light show below as a fleeting, blurry trail of green light shows the path of a fish under the boat, the result of the agitation of luminescent plankton in the water.  You can only wonder at the story it might tell: what and how big, whether pursued or pursuing?  Each night so little changes and yet each night there is so much to engage you.

By day there is less solitude and reflection but more warmth.  The days are hot and the sea is a deep and transfixing blue.  Other crew members are up and about; there is fishing and conversation and cooking.  Mostly it seems to be sun and blue sky but on grey days of bad weather and overcast skies we watch for lines of squalls moving across the water and then debate over how quickly they are moving, whether towards us and when the sails should be reduced to prevent us being caught out by the sudden strong winds they bring. 

 
This 41 foot of boat currently contains the totality of our existence; there is no escape.  Maybe that is why, for me, the seclusion of the night shifts and the wide expanse of dark skies above has such a hold and attraction.