A Look Up
Tuesday, March 08, 2011

Go with me on this. It has been a day that started at 0500 and now it is 2200 hours. We are in a wonderful anchorage with the exception of a knucklehead drifting down on us. Time will tell whether or not I have to give a procedural lecture before sunrise. That said, this is part of the dream Bear and I have held for 30 years. She is in the rack and soundly asleep. I am still up, working on the lecture but mostly due to the absolute high from being on anchor in a remote, dark place. I went topside a few minutes ago and just leaned back in a cockpit chair. That gave me a view of the night sky. Have you ever leaned back on deck and looked at the night sky past the anchor light and considered the relationship between the anchor light and Windex and the Milky Way? That might be a stretch for most but it is better than anything on can see in the theatres or on TV. Consider that the mast head light/Windex are tools we use to stay safe and optimize our sails. At night they are another object to observe against the eternity of the heavens. Tonight, at the instant I looked up there was a meteor of almost 2 seconds duration heading west toward the US. Then, as I looked up again, the mast head light and Windex started to dance against the stars. No, I have not been indulging in too much rotten taters. It is a show of unbelievable dimensions. The Windex with the two fixed reference points held the moving tail of the wind indicator almost like the Pong game of the past three decades. It danced in the field of remote stars. It was something that few, save sailors and soldiers in remote outposts ever see. It is one of the reasons we do this. That scene compounded by the wind, waves and swells of the sea, thus boat movement, is one of the payoffs that are part of the dream. Looking up, we get a chance to think of loved ones, departed friends and those things that are far dearer than anything we mortals can do. Why is it that text messaging, thinking out of the box, raising the bar and paradigm shifting takes front row to the simple act of looking up?