Day 66 Witness 6/11/13

West Wind II sails through the night sky

It’s 10 pm and we’ve been running before a building northerly all afternoon. The seas are two metres and breaking. There’s a 3- metre swell  from the south. We’re sailing southwest and I’m standing with one foot on either side of the cockpit seat, holding on to the grab rail on top of the dodger and ‘riding’ West Wind II as she comes down the waves. We have a full yankee poled out to starboard and West Wind is rolling gently from side to side at just over six knots. The occasional wave breaks amidships and drops into the scuppers.

The sun has set and on the horizon, the breaking waves are a dark shadow. The sky is changing colour from red to orange, then light blue through to dark blue until the stars take the night darkness. A neon white crescent moon sits high in the sky with the shadow of a full moon still connected to it like the peel of an orange and directly above, a bright Venus completes the cosmic scene. Around me are the sounds of a running southern ocean and I am filled with wonder. I feel lucky to be here, a witness to this powerful scene.