Red Watch

19 February 2014

The deck is wet, as is anything else within reach. Not water thundering over us, but everything is salt-crusted, and is clammy on the touch. Everything is grey, far more than fifty shades. The South Atlantic Ocean is making desultory movements. The remnants of a storm long forgotten? We are sailing in the lee of the Falklands, on a port tack, close hauled to the NE. In the lee? This very moment Pieter has quantified the violence of nature: 7 to 8 Bft. The water depth and the presence of land to the windward seem to militate against the build up of regular waves. Astride on the last boulder on the starboard poop, with a lifebuoy in the back for support and leaning against the rail, I look forward. Not uncomfortable. It would seem that I got sufficient layers on, at last. Like Michelins Bibendum. But the hood is over my cap. If you don’t provide yourself some shelter, no amount of clothing helps.
The moon is a light patch in the clouds on the starboard bow, a bit higher than the foremast. A few lines with slack present, through wind and the movement of the ship dancing, black silhouettes against the grey clouds and compete with each other which one can form the most curved lines. Under me the water sluices past. Under me, as we are heeling. To my right the sea slopes up, blackish to the horizon. More forward the horizon looses its clean sharp edge. It becomes fuzzy. Forward I fail to see it. The sea changes into clouds, or is it fog? This we just enjoyed for a good day. The ‘Oosterschelde’ cuts through the irregular sea, sometimes without a splash; at others she projects a jet of foam meters away that adorn her wake like feathers. But it also happens that waves succeed each other so closely, that she proceeds over a carpet of foam. A pattern that keeps repeating itself, the most white grey in a grey world.
Then the moon breaks through the clouds.
A track of crushed ice, pale golden, seems to stretch before us and there is no crossing from this crushed ice and our carpet of foam. The contrasts between the shadows of grey become sharper. The slack lines sharper cut out against the clouds. I have seen this before, but where?
Then I know: a video clip of Caspar David Friedrich.
The clouds obscure the moon again, the spell is broken. The mainsail has to be taken away, we have to reduce speed, the intention being to pass the narrows in front of our next harbour at daybreak. Under the circumstances the schooner sail would have been the better choice. We assist the White watch, just reporting for duty, to hoist the mains’ again. Then off to the bunk that awaits us.