The sky is on fire (part 11)
Thursday June 16th
Another dream watch last night on the 1–5am shift. Low winds but still enough for sailing with, a moonlit then starry night sky for company, then a bright sunrise at dawn… perfection. I was grumbling on these pages a few days ago about having lots of breakages on my watches. Over the last few days the sky has been frequently overcast, but I have had a lot of watches where it all cleared up enough to see beautiful sunsets, sunrises, and the moon and the stars… I’m bursting with gratitude for my good fortune at being out here to witness it all.
It was my turn to go up the mast this morning, to fix the gib halyard and get the gib sail down. Being hauled up to near the top of the mast was fine, the views when I took a few moments to glance around were fantastic. I managed to tie some line around the top of the gib, and connect the halyard onto it, which meant that we could pull the partially fallen jib back up to where it should have been, which was great. However, doing that last bit of work, I was suspended out in thin air between the mast and the jib, and even in the light wind we had, I started to spin and got a bit freaked out. .. I shouted a few curse words, half in fear, half in helpless anger to be dangling up there out of control… very therapeutic really, the shouting… once I settled down a bit I finished the work, then called it a day. Not a bad result overall, if a bit freaky there for a few minutes.
After a half hour of letting the adrenalin run out of my system, and another half an hour distracting myself by practicing a newly acquired basic skill (rope whipping, to prevent the ends of ropes from fraying) I spent a bit of time considering what had happened up the mast, and what I had learned from it — and volunteered to go up again the next time to put some lessons into practice. Part of the trip is to learn new sailing skills, and practice makes perfect… although I’d quite happily settle for un-excitedly competent at the moment!
Since the repairs earlier there has been no wind and we have been motoring along rather than sailing, to catch up some of the time lost fixing things. This means we have abundant hot water for the first time in nearly a week. I grabbed a shower (only the second of the trip) and washed a few clothes — I hope there is an industrial laundry on this remote Pacific island we are heading to… almost all the clothes I have with me are now well beyond passing the sniff test… and unfortunate reality of doing a long voyage on a boat with the limited resources (water, power) that entails. At least everyone else is in the same boat… so to speak!
Another oddity of a long, slow voyage at sea — we are doing the whole trip from New Zealand to Rapa on NZ time, to keep the times we do log entries and watch starts consistent all the way through the voyage. Because we are now quite far east of NZ in to the pacific, we are actually in French Pacific time now, although we aren’t using it, so sunrise and sunset happen quite early in the day. For example, I did the 1–3pm watch this afternoon, and got to watch the sunset for the last hour… weird, I know. But what a sunset it was.
The sky was on fire as the sun got ready to go down. The undersides of the clouds were lit with raging yellows and oranges, like molten lava deep in the heart of an bubbling volcano. Further out, a huge cloudy front filled half of the sky to the south. It was illuminated with softer shades of colour — each cloud there was edged with oranges and pinks and reds like flickering flames around the outsides of a dying fire… . I have never seen a sunset anything like it. All thoughts of progress, of dinner, of sleep, of getting to Rapa, of life in general really vanished for a while as I sat and stared in wonder, stunned into the present moment and filled with gratitude once more.
Later on, after dinner and some sleep, I was on watch again from 9pm to 1am. Magic magic magic. The now-repaired port engine was on at quiet, low revs to give it a test for a few hours. There was hardly any wind, the largely clear starry sky was moonlit for most of the watch, and the sea was oily calm with only the gentlest of swells rolling across the smooth surface. Four long hours of away-from-it-all-in-the-wilderness bliss! All tension melted effortlessly away… it felt like my whole being was breathing long, happy exhales into the the tranquil stillness of the night.
I had a happy time of it communing with my companion star, sometimes just gazing at the flickering light, other times chanting “Ohm mani padre hum…” — the great mantra of compassion — over and over again out into the night sky. Good for the soul! And the tones of the chant blended in very musically with the low thrumming of the diesel engine.
Being on watch, especially at night, is a great time for singing out into the emptiness of the ocean too. “Kind friends and companions”, “Can you feel the love tonight?” and “Leave her Johnny, leave her” all got a good blasting out on lots of nights over the voyage. The creatures of the sky and sea here never knew what hit them :)
The voyage to Rapa Iti
- Part 1 — Introduction
- Part 2 — Auckland to Tauranga shakedown trip
- Part 3 — Leaving New Zealand
- Part 4 — Trying to get into the swing of things
- Part 5 — Action stations!
- Part 6 — Now we’re sailing
- Part 7 — A very happy birthday
- Part 8 — Action stations again!
- Part 9 — Whales
- Part 10 — A day with a bit of everything in it
- Part 11 — The sky is on fire
- Part 12 — Almost there
- Part 13 — Land ho!
