Crew Log 197 – Moon River

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February 26, 2010 – At Sea, 27º 33’S, 073º 31’W
By Herb McCormick

There was hardly any wind. Ocean Watch was motor-sailing atop a sea so still it might’ve been a lake. But it was the Pacific Ocean. Our next port-of-call – Lima, Peru – was a little over a thousand miles away.

Last evening, just before the daily watch change at 6 p.m., we were just over 24 hours into the roughly 1,300-nautical mile voyage from Valparaiso, Chile. Suddenly, after almost nine full months of sailing and with over 20,000-miles behind us – suddenly! – the end of our big lap Around the Americas has a foreseeable conclusion. In fact, the lion’s share of our mileage back to Seattle will be tackled in four big chunks: the legs from the Galapagos to Costa Rica; from Costa Rica to Mexico; and from Mexico to San Diego.

And, of course, this one. The crux of that matter hit me yesterday, and it occurred to me that the time to savor these final weeks is now. In the last 48 hours, I’ve tried to do just that. The timing is perfect. In all our travels thus far, rarely, if ever, has our return to sea been so pleasurable.

The long twilight of the evening was ideal for a sunset cocktail, and we’re fortunate on this leg to have the services of a professional bartender, Sam Treadway, on board. With his Red Sox hat spun backwards, Sam is a Bostonian through and through – his first job was tending bar at the real-life tavern known as “Cheers,” and you can just imagine how popular a barman named Sam was at that establishment – and he whipped up a Pisco martini for Dave Logan and a tasty rum punch (with nutmeg!) for me. The drinks were tasty, the company excellent and the view sensational: tough duty aboard the good ship Ocean Watch.

We’ve come to a routine of sorts when it comes to dinner, as we all enjoy cooking and we swap turns doing it. The “on” watch from 6-9 is usually in charge of the evening meal – everyone takes care of themselves for breakfast and lunch – and last night’s duty fell to skipper Mark Schrader, who whipped up a simple but fine repast of linguini and meatballs that hit the spot.

While we ate in the cockpit, the entire 360º horizon was bathed in glorious, pastel light. Things were getting good, and they were about to get better.

As the sun dipped below the horizon to the west, a glowing, three-quarters moon snuck up from the east. Somehow or another, for the last couple of months, the moon has been on hiatus and sightings have been rare. In fact, the cold, misty, cloudy skies that were our constant companions from the Falklands to Cape Horn and up through Patagonia were the dominant heavenly feature for weeks and weeks on end. So that big ol’ moon truly was a treat.

Logan and I are standing one watch together for this leg, while the skipper, David Thoreson and Sam are on the other. Watches changed through the night, as they always do, until Logan and I came back on today at 0300…3 a.m. The sea and the sky were magic.

Anyone who’s done some offshore miles in the Atlantic and the Pacific know there are fundamental differences in the very make-up of these disparate oceans, in their moods and characteristics. The Atlantic can be gnarly, churned-up and rowdy. The Pacific can be, well, pacific, and it certainly was this morning. A long, soothing, heaving swell was rolling in from the southwest, and the waters themselves were pulsing, breathing and alive.

In and of itself, the gentle motion alone would’ve been mesmerizing, but what sent the entire scene through the roof was the lunar presence, now off to port, to the west, and on the backside of its arc through the heavens.

The corridor of dancing reflective radiance glimmered on the wavelets like a trillion diamonds, like an absolute shining stream of lunar luminescence. We were sailing along the banks of Moon River.

“This is what the ocean looks like in old Marilyn Monroe movies,” said Logan.

He was correct. Hollywood couldn’t have done better.

It was blowing about ten knots out of the south. There wasn’t enough breeze to make progress under sail alone, not with our schedule, but combined with the full main and our steady, efficient Lugger diesel ticking over at 1400 RPM and a touch of fair current, we were gliding down the glassy highway at a steady 7.5-8 knots. They felt like free miles.

For a good hour, I sat on the aft deck and watched the moon slowly fall out of the sky. We were a hundred miles offshore. There was no one – and I mean no one – around for many miles. Who knew how many? It was like hitting the lottery, only luckier. “It’s almost scary, it’s so pretty,” whispered Logan.

As it continued towards its rendezvous with the horizon, the lower the plump orb went, the more golden it became. For a while there, it was just a happy smiling face of a moon. But then, just before it dipped from view, it was partially obscured by a series of low-lying, horizontal clouds that it wore like masks. Look, the moon’s sporting a bandana! Look, the moon has a Pancho Villa mustache! Look, it’s wearing shades! It’s the Tom Cruise-in-Risky Business moon!

Then it was gone. It was ten past five in the morning.

Then another weird, wonderful thing happened. As the sky to the west grew darker, the stars overhead became brighter (sunrise this morning, off Chile, wasn’t until almost 0800). There was the Southern Cross, Orion’s Belt, Sirius, and Betelgeuse; sheesh, come to think of it, we hadn’t seen that gang for a while either. Yo, stars! What’s shootin’? As the bluish-moon sky turned charcoal, the Milky Way materialized, too; it was a long slash of white across the wide, clear universe, as bold as the stripe down the back of a skunk.

“Why does the air smell so good?” wondered Logan. Does “pristine” have an odor? If so, we now know what it smells like.

We went off watch at 6 a.m., reluctantly, before another day of nothing in particular, another sort of day we’ll miss and relish before not too long at all.

There was hardly any wind. Ocean Watch was still motor-sailing atop a sea so still it might’ve been a lake. But now Lima was a tad under a thousand miles away. We’re a little bit closer to home.

-Herb McCormick with photographs by David Thoreson

*This crew log submitted by Iridium OpenPort and Stratos

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