The night watch

We work in three-day rotations for watch. For two days in a row, you stand watch at night. An 11-2 or a 2-5. We are on our second night in a row. Members of the night watch

In a previous post, I spoke about sailing in the dark. As the moon is a waning crescent, we have lost all light for the night watch. It is dark. We will not see another full moon on this crossing.

Without sight, you rely on other senses, ones much less used but, when fine-tuned, maybe more effective.

Last night, we fought a battle. For over an hour, we were in a pitched battle with a number of sea bats. It was chaotic and fast-paced. At one point, a direct shit landed on my left arm. We defended, and they simply kept coming. Without any visibility, we had to rely on all of our other senses. We were outnumbered, and in an environment, we did not know. After a prolonged battle, we decided to cede the territory of our Jon Bouy to the sea bats. This created a truce, which might be temporary. I generally do not do truces.

Today, earlier in the day, we got caught in a squall. All was fine in the end, but we saw the storm coming. It circled up our port side and settled right in front of us. It created a low-pressure bubble and pulled us in behind it. The wind spiked to over 30 knots, and we were stuck with our sails out. Now, was it the wrong sail configuration? Maybe not. Could we have made a change and had a more conservative set? For sure. I rarely do conservative.

As a member of the night watch, and with these two events, I am reminded that we often get so focused on the current battle that we forget we are in a larger war. In battles and wars, we too frequently rely on the expected moves, not considering alternative and unexpected strategies. We do not realize that our go-to moves are expected because they are our “go-to” moves.

We could have easily given the Jon Bouy up right away. We do not need it, and that move would have been unexpected. We needed to realize that one battle was not defining the war at that moment. We could have changed sails and slowed down a little, realizing we have nine more days ahead, and one hour does not matter.

It is a reminder that we are playing to win the war, not every battle. The ones who are more strategic and use unexpected moves win wars, not always the stronger ones and definitely not the arrogant ones.

Back to the watch.