Night Passage

Mike is the night owl of the family. I have never been a great night person. While friends would want to go on to a next club or have a few more rounds of night caps, you would likely find me curled up in some uncomfortable corner sleeping or wishing I was home sleeping. 

   

So it has been a bit of a surprise to both of us to find that I am the night-shift go to gal on overnight passages. I still have to be in bed by 10 PM or I am useless. But, Mike can wake me at 12:30 or 1 AM or 2 AM (preferred) and I can take her straight on through dawn and make breakfast before I go back to sleep. 

When we came across from La Paz to the mainland at the beginning of April, we were very fortunate to have great wind. We kept her at sail all evening that first night and we averaged 7.5 kts/hour for 12 hours - which, as the panaderia would say, is haulin' buns! We also had a lot of waves and swell that were the same height as Mangas, sometimes taller, so seeing the white caps on either side of the deck reflected briefly by what little light we had from the salon windows below, was sometimes a bit overwhelming. We had nearly no moon, so everything outside the cockpit, with the exception of those intermittent white-caps, was pitch-black. Then, of course, there were the stars. Magnificent, brilliant stars filling the sky. Well known constellations like Ursa Major were harder to locate due to the hundreds of white sparkles near it, which you rarely saw in more light polluted skies. 

Our rule is that after dusk, anyone in the cockpit has to have their life-jacket on and be tethered, if we are under way. During the day, it is only life jackets, and tethers if you leave the cockpit or if there is rough weather, then in the cockpit as well. A flat jack-line runs the perimeter of the deck and each of us, including the kids have our own harnesses that we wear under our life jackets, and onto which the tethers snap through a carabiner. 

As I sat tethered with multiple layers of clothing in the cockpit that evening in April after leaving La Paz, I was scanning the horizon about every 8 to 10 minutes and reading my Kindle (Best Purchase Ever!) in between my scans. We also have a radar on the boat that is scanned as well. My first radar sighting came that night. I saw the little telltale thin black line, the only black mark on the screen in a 12 nm radius. She was about 10 nm out when I first saw her. 

Now people talk a lot about their fears with cruising. The non-cruising contingency tend to be our friends and family expressing why they would never go, or why they think we are crazy for going. The main fears on the list tend to be: Mexico (no other explanation given, they just say Mexico), deep waters, drowning, boat sinking, sharks, pirates, getting sick while on the water... you get the idea. But, I gotta tell you, although I didn't know this when we set out, my biggest fear has come to be other marine traffic.  At night, especially.  You have to watch to see what their course is, and they are ALWAYS headed straight for you like a moth to a flame. You need to watch their running and steaming lights, hoping that you see red or green at some point, but not just a continuous white, indicating that they are heading straight for you and not changing their course. 10 NM seems far away, but if we are traveling at 6 kts and they are at 13 or even 15 kts, it does not take many minutes to close that gap between the two. It is nerve-racking, but it certainly keeps you up during your watch!

Being overtaken by a southbound tanker as we make our way coastal to Zihuatanejo during the day

There was also the occasional boat spotting that the radar did not see. Typically smaller vessels, but again, you hope they see you.

As I was reading my Kindle that night, I heard a thud in the cockpit then a few smaller continues thuds. It took me a few seconds to understand that a fish had flown onto the boat. I reached down and tried to grab the 8 inch little guy and throw him back in. I did succeed, but not before getting a handful of slimy smelly fish scales. Blech! That night, one came through the main cabin porthole as well, leaving a grey smelly ooze strewn with fish scales on our bunk. 

But, even with fish scales and marine traffic, I love the night passage watch. Knowing that you are out in the middle with nothing else in site. On this big populated planet, you have found an area that shows nothing else above water for the 24nm radius of the radar at its furthest setting. It is also so quiet, if you can sail and not motor on night passage. The water beating against the hull is loud, of course, but that is all.

My favorite night passage shift, by far, was our exit out of Banderas Bay when we left Nuevo Vallarta about the 11th of April. We had a nearly full moon that night, but, unfortunately, no real wind to speak of, so we had to motor. I also had to avoid a cruise ship, motoring at seemingly light-speed, entering the bay. But, later that night at about 2 AM, I heard that unmistakeable sound of dolphins exhaling as they breached the water. I looked around, but even with the moonlight, it was difficult to see them in the chop. They followed for quite a while, even with our engine running. 

Later that morning at 4:30, after the moon had set, I heard them again and I looked over the side to see if I could spot them. Now one of the interesting things about the water here, that is not true around La Paz, is that it is chock full of bio-luminescent marine life. And perhaps it is true near baja, but we never saw it there. Once we got to Nuevo Vallarta, the kids would take cups of water out of the marina and throw the water back in to see all of it suddenly light up as a soft blue. So that morning, when I went to seek out the source of the exhaling, I was treated to a site I am not sure I will see again. Swimming along side Mangas was a pod of dolphins that I could clearly see as they swam under the water. Their entire bodies were lit and they looked like phantom dolphins flying along side. I was amazed at how large they really appeared when I could see their entire outlines. 

I hope I will see that again, and I hope the kids will be there next time. 

We head out again tonight and I have another night passage watch - so fingers-crossed!