Musings from the night watch
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Paddy contributes this entry on the pleasures of the night watch... In a
way it would be nice to sleep through the night, but once out of bed at 0200 and
dressed ready for the deck, there’s plenty of interest. After a brief handover
you are alone, with life jacket clipped on, and no need to leave the cockpit and
the shelter of the spray hood. We keep a look out for any change in wind
strength or direction, and make any adjustment necessary to the self steering.
There’s generally not much to do to the sails at night, and things are done with
two people at the change of watch. So
there’s plenty of time for the iPod, to listen to music and a range of Radio 4
podcasts. A warm drink can be made, as long as you don’t let the kettle whistle
while the earphones are in. Sometimes
dolphins appear – long blurry streaks of phosphorescence under the water,
darting about under the bows and on both sides of the boat. Then for no apparent
reason they are gone. At the
moment we have all the conditions for prolonged stargazing enjoyed by the
ancients – clear skies with no light pollution, and a warm climate. Seeing the
sky night after night makes obvious the changes in the moon. And our increasing
familiarity with the stars and constellations makes us notice the
subtleties, and how the bright planets are slowly moving against the
background. We
have a good book of star charts and the current Nautical Almanac to guide us.
Venus is bright in the evening sky, with its light reflecting on calm water.
Jupiter currently rises before dawn and is so bright that at first sight has
been mistaken for an approaching vessel! We’ve
had much discussion of the Ecliptic: the line through the constellations that
the planets appear on. A grasp of what the ecliptic is, and how the planets move
along it in ways that seem erratic but are of course governed by the distance
and speed of their orbits, is an essential basis for being able to readily
identity the planets and to distinguish them from bright stars. This discussion
started in Finally
it’s time to call the next person. And so it's back to bed, to the sound of
the odd clonk of things moving in lockers and the swish of water along the hull.
You are asleep in
moments. |