It’s past ten in the evening, twenty-two hundred hours. We are five of us careening across the North Atlantic on a seventy-four-foot catamaran. This is day seven, and I have the eight-to-midnight watch.
The wind is steady at twelve. We’ve deployed the working jib, and the mainsail has one reef in due to higher winds earlier in the day. Better to be under- rather than overpowered, especially at night. While catamarans are known for their comfort, we have had a couple of rough days at sea— the kind where the twin hulls slam so hard into the waves that a panel falls from the ceiling next to my bunk, grazing my arm before it thuds to the floor.
If only the captain had gotten off so easy. The hatch in his quarters blows open and seawater pours in, soaking everything.
When a relatively small boat is tossed around in a mighty ocean, the up and down motion defies gravity, and the sounds can be deafening. You focus on not being sick and not getting thrown off your feet. Big things can go unnoticed.
You might, for example, wake up in the morning only to find that the furniture in the salon has staged an unscheduled nocturnal performance. While it would be safe to assume that fellow crew have secured the fragile items, in this case you’d be wrong. The furniture, apparently, has repositioned itself of its own accord, with no audience to admire the maneuvers. The unlikely star of the show is the double-paned glass dining table which, in an unprecedented act of choreography, has rotated off its pedestal and gracefully landed between a chair and the settee.
It’s as if the fat lady stopped singing and instead executed a quadruple pirouette center stage.
The next morning the crew all assign credit to one another for having saved the table, but apparently, the table has saved itself.
With wet mattresses pulled up from below, sheets, coverlets, and pillows hoisted onto the aft deck, the vessel has an air of Armageddon about it, and every time I get up to move, I do my own rendition of Charlie Chaplin.
Tonight, however, the seas are calm—cooperative, even—with a slight swagger left to right. I’m high up on the fly bridge where the only noticeable light is from the laptop, the steaming light, chart plotter, and instruments at the helm. As I close the laptop, a blanket of stars reveals itself, with a density of design to the south and west. This time of night, long after sunset and before the moon has yet to rise, is the sweet spot for stargazing.
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What a wonderful adventure!
Captivating reading.