Tropical Night Watches

Sat, 05 Nov 2011 15:24:16 +0000

this post was written on our passage to Cabo San Lucas

Night watches are a fact of life for passage makers. It is the subject of many forum posts, articles, and dockside conversations.

I have loved every night watch that I have stood, be they starry and clear or foggy and tense. On one hairy night I had my spinnaker wrap around my forestay like a giant hourglass. There was one night (coming into Isla San Miguel) where visibility wss reduced to 1/4 mile or less and I had a white knuckle grip on the dodger for 3 hours. But there have also been countless nights where the stars fill the sky so impossibly full that I feel like a child again, looking at a universe full or wonder and possibilities. I have had nocturnal visitations from unidentified marine mammals, seen my wake lit up by bioluminescence, and seen a dozen breathtaking moonsets.

Moonset on Forgeover

Tropical Night Watches