I didn’t expect to see a tiger in the middle of the Atlantic. It happened like this.
The alarm went off at 2.45am. That gave 15 minutes to get ready for my morning watch. A minute lying in bed listening to the creaks of the boat and the whirr of the auto-pilot. Then up, and a stumble to the head to splash water on my face while wedged against a wall for balance.
Back to the cabin, to put on some clothes - a few less every few days as we move closer to the Caribbean. Then a check of the essential watch equipment: head torch, smartphone, ear buds, kindle, reading glases and a digital wristwatch counting down the minutes to the end of the watch.
Up on deck and a sleepy “morning” exchanged with the previous watch. The question, “Anything happening?” is usually met with a “Nothing much, just some flying fish on the deck”. A quick look at the AIS to see if there any boats in the vicinity (that we are chasing, or are chasing us, although, of course, the ARC is not a race!) And a look at the radar - we have just started switching this on at night to monitor localised squalls.
“Have a good watch/sleep” exchanged as the previous watch disappears into the darkness below.
Time to settle down in the cockpit for the duration of the watch. At the start of the passage, watches were three hours long with two people. But now we have single watches of just one and a half hours.
At first, alone, quiet, empty. But then as the senses start adjusting, there is the swooshing noise as the boat moves through the water, the flapping of the sails (if the winds are light), the zig-zag movement of the boat controlled by the auto-pilot, and the big, open sky busy with stars.
I always wait for thirty minutes or so before starting a podcast. A time to listen and stare aimlessly at the cresting waves.
From where I sit I can see the green navigation light at the bow of the boat. The light plays on the foot of the foresail. (This should not happen; another boat job to deal with.) The green light dances on the sail as it ripples and flaps. And with it shapes start appearing on the sail, circles permuting into squares and then obloids and trigles. The images switching from two dimensions to three and then back again. The waves are beating a slow, hypnotic rhythm that tempts one to sleep. And then, there on the sail, appears a blunt-nosed Mahi Mahi, slowly moving side to side. The fish doesn’t linger. Soon it is replaced by an isopod which morphs in galactic sea-time into a funkshy squid. The squid slinks off. And then suddenly it is there, the tiger.
Steve
192 miles covered in the last 24 Hours
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