"Are we there yet"!!
16:51.45N 63:17.79W We are passing St. Kitts and Nevis, 40 miles off our beam. Last night was absolutely breath-taking….Stars, stars, meteors, galaxies, and more!! Jupiter, Andromeda Galaxy, Milky Way, Orion’s Belt, Betelgeuse, Ursa Major and Minor, and much more! Rarely have any of us seen a sky so dark and yet bright with bodies of the heavens. Everything was fantastically clear and readily identifiable (with some help from my iPad app, “Distant Suns” for the lesser known bodies). We saw shooting stars, or meteors, with continuous regularity…dozens each hour, and some so bright and long lasting that they seemed to be just barely above the top of the mast, and long tails! As the night wore on, or as one watch went to the next (I had 8pm to 10pm, and then 2am to 4am), the rotation of the heavens around the North Star, Polaris, was very obvious! Smooth sailing has continued since yesterday…so, when on watch, we laid in the cockpit, with the bimini removed, and starred up at the wonder of the heavens (yet checking radar and instrument regularly)….last I remember, the diameter of the “known universe” (which keeps expanding) was 400 million light years (and light travels at 186,000 miles per second…no typos there!)…truly imponderable! With days and nights like this, conditions are perfect for contemplation of life, family, and anything of true significance…with most of life being “noise” and inescapable challenges and distractions from what really matters to each of us, varied as that might be! So we continue with 15 knots of wind, beam reach, port tack, doing about 8.5 knots, and expecting to arrive at the entrance to Road Harbour, Tortola just before sunrise….we will hang around outside in the Sir Francis Drake Channel, then enter Road Harbour at sunrise, anchor, dinghy to the Customs Office, and hope to check in at 8:30am when they open….we will then weigh anchor and sail around to Nanny Cay to take our berth for the next 6 weeks! Captain Mike |