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December 13th, 2009 – At Sea, 20º 17′S, 039º 44′W
by Herb McCormick
Early this morning, in the wee, dark hours just before 0300, the crew of Ocean Watch, enjoying some fast sailing with sheets eased before a fresh northerly breeze, came upon a perplexing sight on their immediate horizon, straight in front of them: blinking lights. And we’re not talking one or two lights either, but a veritable string of them, at least a dozen in all. Sailors are always coming across blinking lights at night; in fact, usually they’re navigation markers, welcome signposts on their otherwise open-water journeys. But these were different. Menacing. We jibed the boat quickly and headed in the opposite direction.
By this afternoon, the wispy pre-dawn northerly had filled in with a vengeance and Ocean Watch was trucking down the coast at a good nine-knots, boosted by the friendly aid of a rare, favorable current. It was the first good, strong north wind we’d seen in ages, and the sailing was fine and fast. By mid-afternoon, the boat had slipped south of 20ºS, a milestone and a morale raiser. It seemed to take forever to track from 4ºN to 4ºS, but we’ve knocked off the stretch between 10ºS-20ºS lickety-split. And the recurring symbol in the run has been blinking lights.
For most of that period, the weather has been perfect, ruled by high pressure, and the nights, in particular, have been magnificent. The moon is waning at the moment, and doesn’t rise until well after midnight, and in the clear, clean air of the South Atlantic Ocean, the stargazing is otherworldly.
We’ve seen many a meteor blink across the velvety heavens, and the atmosphere is so pristine and cloud free
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| Brazilian fishermen don’t bother with standard red-and-green navigation lights but every boat is equipped with fluorescent deck lights you can see for miles. |
we’ve enjoyed a nightly glimpse of the striking Magellanic Cloud, a galaxy unto itself some 170,000 light-years away. (Our resident scientist, Michael Reynolds, is conducting informal nightly astronomy classes for dunces like me who’ve sailed under the evening sky for eons without a clue as to what I was looking at.) The Magellanic Cloud looks like a detached part of the Milky Way, and speaking of that, last night was so translucent you could actually see the reflection of that Great White Way reflected off the water, a corridor of light the likes of which we’d never seen before.
But you don’t need to look above to catch a glimpse of blinking lights, not on this leg. No, the water itself seems alive with light, and in fact, it is, in the form of the flashing diamonds of bioluminescence bubbling in our bow- and quarter-waves, a visual treat not to be outdone by the celestial illumination overhead.
The day before, right at dusk, though not actually blinking, the low sun in the western sky cast the afternoon’s final rays through almost transparent dots on the ocean that we couldn’t miss and which at first had us dismayed. It turned out they were the “sails” of jellyfish, not of the precise Portuguese Man-o-War variety, but certainly part of their extended family tree. Dr. Reynolds demanded a pit stop for our ongoing jellyfish research on behalf of the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Lab (“We haven’t seen one in months,” he said, truthfully) and before long we had a couple of specimens, minus their long, blue tentacles, bottled and sealed.
Skipper Mark Schrader has noticed the blinking lights, but at this stage he’s mindful of other things – like where we’ve been and where we’re going – as evidenced from this passage in his regular Captain’s Log:
“It seems to all of us that our departure from Cayenne, French Guiana, was at least two months ago. In fact, only twenty-two days – and just under 2,900 nautical miles – have passed since leaving the ‘cappuccino river.’ We’re now closer to Cape Horn (2,580 n.m) than to Cayenne, which feels like a good thing. Beginning with Rio, some 270 miles out, we have some nice stops planned along the way. Rio will be a food and fuel exercise but Punta del Este and Mar del Plata should offer at least a few days of crew relaxation before we take the long dive south.
“As to the present, we’re having an extraordinarily nice run in front of a twenty to twenty-five knot northerly breeze. Ocean Watch is rigged wing-on-wing, short-reefed main to starboard, partially furled jib held out on a pole to port. The apparent wind is coming over the aft port quarter, 18 knots at 150/160 degrees. Seas are a little jumbled, on occasion one will slap the hull and send spray all over the place, but mostly we’re gently surfing on a following sea and enjoying the ride while the autopilot does all the work.
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| Ocean Watch has been weaving in and out of oil well platforms, heavy commercial ship traffic, coastal ferry traffic and small fishing fleets. |
“Since yesterday evening we’ve been weaving in and out of oil well platforms, heavy commercial ship traffic, coastal ferry traffic and small fishing fleets working the banks along the coast. This is a very busy area, and I’d expect it to become even more so as we make the final approach into Rio. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near this coast at night without our trusty Raymarine radar. Having ‘eyes’ that see in the dark, up to 48 miles ahead of where you are, is more than just a comfort, it adds layer of safety and security I wouldn’t want to be without.”
So, yes, even that radar screen offers blips that blink.
But it’s the fishing boats the skipper refers to that brings us back to where this tale began. Last night we’d just passed a place called the Abrolhos Archipelago – itself identified by the huge, blinking white light on an island called Santa Barbara – when we came into a series of fishing boats working the waters to the south. Brazilian fishermen don’t bother with your standard red-and-green navigation lights – they forgo them altogether – but every boat is equipped with a set of fluorescent deck lights for working that you can see for miles and miles.
On bouncy nights like last night, those lights often dip below and then above the seas; they literally appear and disappear, sending Morse Code-like dots and dashes flashing across the water. It wasn’t the deck lights we saw this morning, however, but what we think were flashing markers deployed at the ends of their nets, which is why we jibed away. We’re glad we didn’t get a closer look.
The other thing about that jibe that was memorable, was that after the maneuver was complete, wonder of wonders, for the first time in weeks we were on starboard tack, meaning that the boat was now tilted in a new, opposite direction, as was the very footing beneath our bare feet. Holy cow. Forget blinking lights. What a fresh sensation. All we could do was blink at one another, in mild disbelief.
- Herb McCormick and Mark Schrader with photographs by David Thoreson
This crew log submitted by Iridium OpenPort and Stratos
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