When I speak with folks who aren’t familiar with sailing, I often get asked “How do you” type questions. Here are the answers to some of these:
Q: Where do you stop at night?
A: You don’t. You keep sailing in the dark. When conditions are benign, sailing at night is a beautiful thing. The night sky is truly awesome in the real sense of the word, not awesome like a good sandwich. You can see the Milky Way and the blackness is almost silver as you can make out clusters of millions of stars that you would never see on land due to light pollution. There is phosphorescence in the sea is stunning and the boat leaves a trail of luminescent pearls behind it. But, also the Night is Dark and Full of Terrors. When the boat is sailing fast, heeled over in high winds and bigger waves, it can be quite terrifying on deck. The darkness exaggerates sounds and motion. You feel like you are hurtling at 60 miles an hour in the dark. In reality, you are most likely doing no more than 10 miles per hour. The other issue is that while lights on boats are very visible from a long way, judging distances is very hard, especially for offshore rookies like me.
Q; How do you eat?
A: On anything but a professional race boat, you eat the same stuff you eat on land. The boat in my recent passage had a cooker, fridge, and small freezer compartment. The fridge was so efficient that there was still ice in the freezer section that had been purchased many three weeks before. The issue is that preparation can be challenging so we ate easy to heat up and serve past dishes and handheld food like sandwiches. The pros eat freeze-dried food. It can be quite tasty but I am happy to give it a miss.
Q: What are watches?
A: Things on your wrist to tell you the time. (I have a million of these). Watches are shifts when you are on watch, in the cockpit, keeping an eye out for danger, and adjusting the sails. Watch lengths vary depending on the number of crew and how hard you are sailing. The aim is to have a well-rested crew. In my recent passage offshore, with three guys who were delivering the boat back to the US, we ran 2 hours on and 4 hours off. That was sufficient to get a lot of rest although interrupted.
Q: How do you sleep?
A: Like a baby. You wake up screaming having soiled yourself. (Told you!) I was surprised at how much I was able to sleep and generally did not feel over-tired at the end. Sailing like this is hard work and I fall asleep easily off watch. I could fall asleep with the engine noise close by and all kinds of banging boat noises. I could not do that at home. The hardest thing is sleeping when the boat is heeled over. If you are on the leeward (lower) side it’s quite comfortable, almost like being in a bassinet. On the windward, upper side, it’s another story. You have a lee cloth that keeps you in your bunk but I could not get used to it.
Q: How do you stay clean?
A: You have to be disciplined. Part of the challenge is that you lose track of time. I went 36 hours without brushing my teeth and only realize when I breathed into the skipper’s face and his eyes nearly popped out of his head. Jack the navigator had it right as he used adult baby wipes daily. I tried the equivalent of a bed bath once or twice. I was offered a quickie shower but declined and for the life of me, I don’t know why. By the time we reached the marina, I was offending myself. That shower after we arrived was an all-time great one. All rejoiced at my newly found personal hygiene.
Q: How do Customs and Immigration work?
A: It was a real contrast. Leaving Bermuda was quaintly old-fashioned. We had to motor four hours from Hamilton to the Customs and Immigration office in St George’s. There are forms to fill, declarations to make by polite but officious Bermudan officials. Then we were on our way. On the other end, the story could not have been more different. The skipper uploaded our passport info to a US Government website and we were done.
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