SWIM CALL!!!!

This morning we stood dawn watch (0300-0700). Because of the rotating watch schedule, I have had a hard time adjusting to sleeping and waking at different times every day. I woke up at 2330 absolutely convinced that someone had forgotten to wake me and that I was supposed to be on watch. I couldn't tell if my watchmates were awake because the curtains on their bunks were drawn and I spent quite a while tearing my bunk apart looking for my watch only to find that I had three more hours to sleep.

We came on watch this morning at 0300 to find that all the sails had been struck and we were motoring to make up time. Sunrise was beautiful this morning. A night of squalls passed to our stern, leaving a few puffy cotton-ball clouds which the first streaks of purple light bathed in a delicate pink. As the sky lightened, the lower clouds turned first orange, then gold. For awhile they remained flaming and glinting in the light on a watercolor background of light pinks and blues. The silence only heightened the anticipation, since without birdsong or the sounds of stirring at sea, the only concrete marker between day and night is the sun. So I stood at the rail and waited for the sun to finally break through the clouds and begin to rise in earnest before turning to finish my work.

I guess the lack of wind does have its benefits though, because today we got a swim call after a man overboard drill. I was in the shower when I heard the shout, "man overboard!" and my heart stopped. I pulled on shorts and a shirt without drying off and ran up on deck to my spot and the sternfall of the rescue boat, at which point I figured out it was a drill. It went fairly smoothly and although the rescue boat crew had a little trouble starting the outboard motor, we retrieved our volleyball successfully.

Afterward, we were all standing on the quarterdeck, having our drill debriefing when the captain told us that he thought it would be a good idea for us to get the feeling of what it was like to be overboard. Everyone froze in disbelief, because as captain Chris drilled into us from day one, we never joke about going overboard. Then told us to get our suits before he changed his mind and we all made a run for it. We got six minutes to swim off the side of the boat here, a few hundred nautical miles north of Hawaii:

The water was unbelievably clear and the perfect temperature to be both refreshing and comfortable. It was so odd to get a look at our ship from the outside. It looks so much smaller from the water. Like 300 tons and 135' actually isn't much in comparison to the big blue horizon.