What’s it like to sail at night? CRAZY.
One of the questions we get most often from non-sailors (or Muggles jk jk) is “What do you do at night? Do you stop the boat?”. Also, most times as the person is asking the question you can see on their face they are realizing there really is only one answer.
Just keep going.
Prior to making our way to the Caribbean, Greg and I had only sailed at night a few times. Like a handful of nights and only twice all the way through the night.
Yep. That’s it.
But you have to start somewhere right?
Now I guess we can say we’ve sailed through more than a dozen nights – which isn’t really that many either I guess. By the end of this season I’m sure we’ll have a few more.
So, what is it like to sail at night you ask? Well it depends on who answers. Greg and I feel very differently about things we can’t see. I really love swimming but really only when I can see the bottom of the thing I’m swimming in. Greg actually I think prefers not to see. Weirdo. Basically if he can’t see it – it doesn’t concern him. For me, if I can’t see it, I turn it into something 1000x crazier than it ever could be in reality. Don’t even get me started on my hypochondria tendencies (I currently have a sore throat and there is a voice in the back of my head I have to silence that murmurs “throat cancer”…yes, I am a little crazy).
Ok so I am a little off topic.
My point is that for me sailing at night goes like this.
The sun goes down on another day of sailing…blue sky turns to purple, pink, orange and red and the sun slips behind the surface of the sea. The stars start to peak out from the dusky blanket above and, if lucky, a slip of moon rises over the horizon. Everything is peaceful, settled, transitioning…
AND THEN
Every wave grows by a factor of 10, every gust of wind sounds like a freight train, and every move the boat makes feels like it’s on the edge of breaking.
Awww so pretty! What a lovely sunset. Ya. Sure. Here we go again.
This is a fairly consistent depiction of how I feel from the hours of 9:00pm until about 4:00am. Why those hours? Well before 9:00pm it still kinda feels like evening time – people are up (not all but some) and you are still awake-ish…depending on how many nights you’ve been doing this. 9:00pm is a friendly time. When I was a kid 9:00pm was when the best of the TGIF line-up was on. 9:00pm is just fine.
4:00am is pretty good too. You are sleepy but you know your shift is almost over and you can sleep during a time where you will worry less. You are thinking of what to make people for breakfast. You are ready for a new day. You are only an hour or so away from dawn – not sun-up of course – but that sky lightening that brings with it the feeling that you survived the night and now all will be well.
Between 9:00pm and 4:00am it’s anyone’s guess. Freighters? Fishing boats that don’t have AIS? Squalls? Storms? (yes they are very different – the former lasts 30 minutes or so and brings some strong gusts at the beginning, maybe with a wind direction change; the latter brings hours of lightening, thunder, huge waves, crazy high winds and feelings of pending doom) Whales that are swimming too close to your boat? Half sunken shipping containers? Random debris? WHO BLOODY KNOWS BECAUSE YOU CAN’T SEE.
Red light preserves your night vision but even so, it’s dark. Still pretty early in the night in this photo since there is a light on down below but you get the idea of the night-office space. The crew spend a LOT of time in that position, in that space, in the dark. Like 10 hours a day or more.
Moon or no moon it is dark. We have radar and AIS so we can “see” some stuff – you haven’t lived until you’ve tried to determine if the tiny dot on your radar is a reflection off a wave, a small squall or a boat heading for you that doesn’t have AIS….(she says sarcastically). That said, I can’t bloody imagine doing nights without those things. How many times in the olden days did boats just run into each other at night? Why does it seem like at night there are always at least 2 freighters always headed right at you? The ocean is huge – why are we all on the same highway?
One of many many many snaps at night…3 freighters and some squalls? Don’t mind if I do! Oh ya but one of those ships keeps popping on and off AIS so you never really know where it is! Fun! (note: it’s the highighted one on the top left of screen)
Sounds exciting doesn’t it? Sounds like there is no way you could fall asleep doesn’t it? WRONG. Guess what? Looming toward danger blind is still not enough to keep you sharp as a tack. Nights are harrrrd. I am blessed with not needing much sleep – and I am really freaking tough. Not bragging – just truth. I can take a freaking beating day after day and keep going strong with a smile on my face. But in the witching hour it seems no matter what is going on…the BFG swings by and blows his creepy old guy dust in my face and my eyelids weigh a thousand pounds. As a pure extrovert there is an easy solution to this. TALK. But guess what folks? My watch buddy was Greg. ZERO TALKING. Mr. Introvert / Quiet Guy is great when I just want to talk and talk and talk to myself. But he sucks the big one when I need him to talk to me to keep me going. So, what did I do? Well a couple nights I tried listening to a pod cast – not a scary one or an intense one because I am already vibrating at a pretty high level at night, just something dorky or chill. But not being able to hear what was going on bugged me so no. One night I watched a few eps of Schitt’s Creek (great show) and that was good except a) I lost my night vision and b) I wasn’t really looking around much more than glancing. So, the winner was reading. I love reading before bed. I read before bed usually for an hour each night….can you spot the problem here? READING PUTS ME TO SLEEP. So, I had these moments of reading, nodding off, jolting up, reading some more…all the while Greg’s across from me looking at me like I’m crazy (silently of course – thanks Greg).
We also tried to keep ourselves awake doing this (and important job)…downloading then next weather report and adjusting our course accordingly. Downloads at 2:00pm and 2:00am every day for 2 weeks.
Don’t get me wrong – that guy got tired too (he needs waaaay more sleep than me) but his tiredness always seemed to be when I was alert. In those times I’d just let him sleep in the cockpit while I did our job (he was working really hard and did I mention he requires sloth-like levels of sleep?).
So, to sum up:
Night makes everything louder, faster, scarier but what the eff are you going to do? Stop in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean? (answer is no here folks)
Megan sleepy, Greg no talk. Greg sleepy, Megan wide awake and does watch alone.
Pray for dawn and when it starts to break, go to sleep.
Much love,
M
P.S. Yes yes yes, the stars in the night sky are beautiful. We saw shooting stars most nights. And Jupiter was really big and red, Venus was pretty too. And one night we saw bioluminescence (glowing bits of stuff in the water that look really cool as your wake moves them around) and, sometimes, it feels peaceful.
But mostly everything above.
DAWN!!!!
