Passage to the Ionian coast of Greece
Alan's Log:
Joan's Log:
June 2008
ROUTE FROM POSITANO TO PAXOS, GREECE
Not to be used for navigation.
Why I Love Night Watch
We sailed from the Amalfi coast of Italy to Paxos off the Ionian coast of Greece in several overnight hops for a total distance of 650 Nautical Miles. Joan usually does the after dinner watch while I take a nap, then I take the night watch.I get funny looks from non-sailors when I mention this, but I LOVE night watch. In fact one of the few bones of contention between Joan and I is that I love night sailing and Joan hates it! Other sailors nod and get what I mean, but to non-sailors a night watch is a thing of boredom, tiredness and occasional terror in the great unknown.
I do not see it that way at all. At night offshore the world becomes orderly again. Everything is reduced to simple mathematics. There are no extraneous inputs, just the lights of ships, stars, perhaps a moon and the blip of a ship making its orderly progress across the radar screen.
In the early night, well after the sun has set, but before the moon comes up, it is really dark and ALL the stars are out. It is startling how many stars I can see. Not just the ones I know and can identify, but for each of those there are a hundred, no a thousand, more. Then the Milky Way which looks like a cloud with its promise of infinite galaxies beyond.
It is so dark that the phosphorescence in the water puts on a special display. There are large blobs 4-6 inches in diameter that only glow when they are hit by Moonstruck's wake - then there are the small random flashes everywhere that only show up well when I turn off the lights. With all Moonstruck's lights turned off the night simply pulses with its own natural light. What had been so dark gradually gains mass and texture as my night vision builds. I look into the water to try and see more phosphorescence. After a while I see two streaks of pale, pale blue light, separated in time and by a few feet. They reappear further up the boat then disappear for good. What was that? Did I imagine it? The only explanation I can think of is two large fish (I would say dolphins, but unlike dolphins they never broke surface) streaking past Moonstruck and setting off the phosphorescence in the water around them.
Now on the horizon I can see the lights of the ship that I had previously tracked on the radar screen, it is 10 miles away, and I don't have great eyesight, but I can see its lights and I know the light pattern well enough to be able to tell which way it is going and whether it is a threat to us without the radar.
I have turned off all the lights to see this show. The navigation lights, the instrument lights, the radar and chartplotter and even the VHF radio, all are dead. Moonstruck is completely blacked out. I feel a sudden chill of fear. What if somewhere nearby, someone else has done exactly what I have just done and is right now steaming towards me, all lights out, looking up at the stars or down into the water! I quickly turn on the nav lights again destroying my night vision.
By this time I have become a little bored watching the phosphorescence and the moon comes up, brightening the night and ending the phosphorescent display. The moon rising always takes me by surprise for a few seconds even when I expect it and know roughly where it will come up. Unlike the sun, it does not announce its arrival with a gradual brightening of the sky around it, it simply pops up over the horizon looking for all the world like the light of an extremely close, fast-moving oil tanker! A minute or so later its shape identifies it and it clears the horizon. Here in the Ionian sea, the moon is orange as it comes up over the horizon, glowing amber from the dust of Africa in the air.
Now that the moon is up the millions of stars have become invisible and I am left to look at my old friends, The Plough (the big dipper in the US) and Orions belt. Now is the time to put some good grooves on the itunes player and really, really think about the lyrics. Tonight's pick; Sinead O'Conner and Foo Fighters (including their breathtaking acoustic live version of Everland, dont ask - buy it!). Some singing inevitably follows and a little dancing to keep me awake for an hour or so and then its time to pop below for a couple glasses of water. In the heat we drink gallons of the stuff a day.
Another oil tanker works its way across the radar screen. I like oil tankers. They are made of miles of steel and show up beautifully on radar; they move in very straight lines and usually keep a good watch. It is easy to predict their course and determine whether we are on collision course and will need to change course to avoid them. As much as I love oil tankers I hate fishing boats. They have random lights that are more difficult to interpret (they use bright lights to illuminate their work on deck and in some cases to attract squid); they move in a random fashion and change speed and direction constantly. Usually we do not need to take avoiding action, we just keep an eye on them as they just gyrate myopically around like moths, eventually moving out of range. Somethimes however they stay on our course and we will have to make a large detour to avoid them because of their nets and their proclivity for changing direction just when we think we have them figured out.
I haven't mentioned the sailing at night. Often at night we are motoring. The daily winds usually die at night and we grind along under diesel power. But there are nights when the wind blows from just the right direction, at just the right speed and at night Moonstruck seems to leave the earth and take off into the stars. The motion is gentle, there is silence all around except for a slight creaking from the sheets (ropes) and a swishing sound from the bow wake that turns into a hiss when we slide down the front of a wave. Times like this are truly magical.
One thought naturally leads to another and so I think about how much I love my wife and how incredible it is that she is sharing this adventure with me (except for the night watch bit). She is below; sleeping I hope; night watch is the only time we are apart from each other these days. How different our lives are from how they were a few years ago. I spend 24 hours a day within 15 feet of my wife and as mind-boggling as this thought is, 99% of the time it's right where I want to be.
By now it is close to 5 a.m. and it is getting light. Time to wake up Joan and get some sleep.
NEXT....Moonstruck on the Ionian coast and a VERY fishy story.