Dark and wild, bereft of light,
What a lookout would call, a filthy night.
The mariner fights, a storm in the dark,
Hove to and alone, playing the shrinking part.
Stepping onto a 72-foot steel yacht in Bodo in Norway to deliver her back to Plymouth, the yacht is the largest in the marina and looks capable of any passage we are likely to ask of her. Of course, in true seafarer fashion, toasting our departure is done in the local microbrewery before a week at sea on a “dry” boat. Yet when night falls off the Norwegian coast, the walls of our world shrink to the size of the yacht, with at best a few blinking lights on the horizon. When you lose the continuity of a horizon that is connected to you by visible rolling scenery, your perspective changes. I have sailed since with adults and young people from all backgrounds and the almost magical qualities of a dark night watch and the following sunrise, have held awe for many of them.
Fast forward 11 years and I am stood on the bridge of a ship in February, hove to whilst trying to round Ushant on what can best be described as a “filthy night”, chasing a chest high photocopier that had broken free around the wheelhouse. You can’t say you have properly learnt to use a radar until you are peering over your shoulder to look at the traffic situation from 10 feet away, your arms wrapped around a large piece of office equipment, whilst someone else is wielding a piece of rope and roll of duct tape! It was one of those nights that you can just imagine someone in front of a crackling fire in a cliff top cottage, looking out into the bay and saying “I’m glad I’m here in the warm”.
We are an island nation, in fact the very power and international prominence of our country has been built on our seafaring heritage. Yet even more importantly, almost everything we need for our day-to-day life is dependent on seaborne trade. As an island we cannot transcend that dependance, however much we may like to believe we have moved past it. The reality is that the sea is our connection to the rest of the world in almost all ways, other than our holiday flights, and the maritime industry is the engine driving it.
Strangely enough, I did not begrudge being put through the washing machine (quite literally the next night when the monkey island scuppers blocked and started backing up the torrential rain through the AC units). There is something wild, exhilarating and enthralling about those nights. Through night watches on sailing yachts, I have been able to share those experiences with students, IT professionals, bankers, NHS staff and many others. It allows me to maintain that link between the realities of the industry I work in and my current office job (without hugging office equipment!). It is a way any of us can maintain a connection with our island nature, whatever our day-to-day life is.
So hopefully I will get to share more of those serene sunrises making landfall off the white cliffs of Dover with many more old and new friends to come. Although next time someone wishes to go out into Biscay in storm force winds, I will happily hear all about it in the pub afterwards…I think….
