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Position: 37°58’05.3″N 75°14’12.0″W
Grey-blue crags ripple as filtered moonlight radiates through the clouds high above Aleta. Splashing water, a turbulent pool washes away behind me, broken by an occasional crash of shimmering sea spray from the bow. As far as I can see the ocean is alternately pitch black and malachite in undulating wavelets. Six and a half knots through the water. I feel breaths of wind on my face and it whispers low murmurs in my ears.
Winter Quarter Shoal is four miles off. Its red buoy flashes momentarily, followed by a long, six second pause. Long enough to make me wonder if it’s dipped below a building wave and disappeared. My shoulders tense slightly and then, in hang time, reassuringly it flashes again. I’m relieved. Conditions aren’t deteriorating.
Over my right shoulder a shaft of moonlight breaks through a gap in the sky that soon closes again. I’ve just started my watch, my turn on deck. It’s 01:30. Carol was supposed to wake me 30 minutes ago but let me sleep a little longer. Briefing me, she hadn’t seen a thing in the past three hours, neither boats nor ships, not even on the radar. She had tightened the mainsail and we’d picked up a knot. We kiss and she goes below into our stuffy cabin to settle in. Marlon had followed me to the foot of the companionway and now trails Carol forward, cuckolding my half of our berth.
Solo
Thick, humid air lies over the cool water. Cool enough that I’m wearing a light fleece over my T-shirt and an inflatable life jacket over that. I know that if I fall overboard Aleta would be miles away before anyone knew I was gone. The life jacket has two large silver D-shaped rings mirroring each other like an old cattle brand. Gathered by a snap shackle on a safety line, the two D rings make my life jacket function as a harness. I have the other end caribinered onto a padeye behind my right knee. I’m pretty secure.
The wind has picked up a bit and veered onto Aleta’s beam. The jib sheet creaks hesitantly against the winch as I ease it. We accelerate a third of a knot. I do the same with the staysail sheet and we find another third of a knot. Trimmed now for a beam reach Aleta seems sublimely happy. We’re making good time. Han Solo would be jealous. Aleta could kick the Millenium Falcon’s ass any day. It is about as near perfect as it could be.
I feel like i am there …
Come join us. We can always use a deckhand!
Thanks for transporting us all on deck with you.
Btw, keep an eye on the hyperdrive motivator – the negative power couplings are notoriously easy to polarize!
In this man’s navy there’s nothing a tot of rum can’t fix!
love it
A parsec is defined as the distance at which one astronomical unit subtends an angle of one arcsecond, which corresponds to 648000π astronomical units.
Sure you understand that
One parsec is equal to about 3.26 light-years (30 trillion km or 19 trillion miles) in length
its funny its not a measure of time
Yes, in the sense that a shortcut should save time because it’s a shorter distance. And like miles per hour, a light year is a time based unit of distance. There’s a lot of discussion about the real meaning of Solo’s boast out there!