Night Watch

We just sailed from Yelapa, which must be blogged with photos, to Bahia Chamela, about 90 miles south. Ninety miles requires an overnight passage for us, which it turns out, we all love. The winds and seas in Mexico have made for very easy and comfortable sailing (and unfortunately a bit of motoring when the winds die completely). We left our anchorage at noon so that our arrival would be during daylight. The boat was ship shape, the heads cleaned, the floors swept, every last thing put away, and even fresh baked bread before we left. Maybe passage making is so wonderful for me because all the chores are done first! ...

Q: How about pulling watch all alone with the family below… How is Victoria handling the watches… how long are you on deck for at night? Are you clipping in? How are you staying awake? What was the sea state like? A: My first overnight passage was from Monterrey to Morro Bay California, early on in our trip. By morning I [Victoria] was so entirely exhausted that after dropping the anchor over the bow I just lay down to take a nap right there on the foredeck. I couldn’t even keep my eyes open enough to get back to the cockpit to sleep never mind peeling off my 14 layers of warm clothes to crawl into bed. ...

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. ...