Before dinner when it is dark we turn some blue LED cockpit lights on in order to have some light when we eat.  The blue LED renders everything outside the boat completely black.  It’s really easy to image and soon feel as if we are a spaceship travelling through space, we are cruising thought the Milky Way clearly visible just above us.  The darkness beyond the boat makes it feel as if we are hovering through space and no longer on an ocean. I call down to the galley “turn the blue lights off were trippin’ out up here”. It all starts to feel a bit surreal,  probably trippy, I’m not sure if we are floating through air or water.

There is no moon tonight so the sky is full of more stars than we can collectively identify. We lie on our backs in the cockpit and do some star gazing under sail. We look through binoculars and can clearly see, Mars, Jupiter, the seven sisters, Orion’s Belt, andromeda and the horsehead nebula.   We feel mind blowing small, small beings on a small boat on a vast ocean looking up at an even bigger galaxy 2.5 million light years away.   That gives us all something to think about quietly for the next few hours.

We can see small squally clouds in the distance lining up to come our way and feel the effects of the first one quite soon.  The wind increases in speed by 10 knots and veers 20 degrees in seconds. Rattle, rattle rattle, gusting cold threatening wind for several minutes then it moves on ahead of us.

Night has fully enveloped us now and everything feels more immediate. We collectively make a decision to drop the main and sail under headsail only tonight to make handling the squalls that come more manageable.   

People soon disperse to find some sleep before the night watches. 

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