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Peter von Danzig - Morning dawn



After breakfast, I just finished my watch, I ask, what could I do the rest
of the morning. Out of a lot of useful and not so useful tips, I chose the
one to write a small article for the ARC-Blog.

Thinking of what to write I remember the one question I often get asked by
friends and relatives: How can you spend three weeks of precious holidays
on the Atlantic on a 55ft vessel without seeing anything else then water,
water, water and the same eleven other faces? I try to answer that
question by giving a detailed explanation of the first four and a half
hours of this still very young day.

At 1:45 am somebody wakes my up with a silent singing of “rise, rise” to
start my watch. It is pitch black outside. Not a good time to wake up.
Still half asleep I start to get dressed. Peter von Danzig rushes through
the sea with more than 8kn. Being in forecastle amplifies the movements of
the boat and I have to clinch myself somehow between the wall and the bed
in order to not fall cannonball-like through the entire ship. Putting
pants on is nothing special in the bedroom at home but riding waves a few
meters high inside a dark boat is an other talk. If you want to use one
hand to hold the pants and rise one leg to stick it inside you only have
one hand and one leg open to keep yourself standing. That is not enough!
At this point it is important to use all your other body parts to keep
yourself in position. With the temperatures outside one has to fill about
10 sleeves and 8 legs of pants until one is ready to go outside - boots
and socks not included. This takes about 20 minutes which is not really
enough to be able to start the watch on time.

Those were the bad things about sailing. I will now describe the good
ones. Once I am on deck I get flashed by the magic of a night on the
Atlantic. We are sailing with 20 to 25 kn of wind. Peter runs with half
wind, Genoa 3 and Main in the first reef with 8-9kn through the dark
night. Glowing sea in the bow and stern wave look like stars fallen into
the water. Knowing that there is no land 900 miles in every direction
shows how small the humans are compared to the powerful nature mother
earth offers.

A bit later, I am on the helm, first signs of the morning start to appear.
Slowly black clouds start to get in contrast with the evenly dark sky.
Behind them the background gets brighter and brighter. Small spots of
bright blue sky fill the gaps between the clouds as they start to change
their colour to a dark gold. I start to realize that this event took
already place countless times and will go on to the end of time. All this
is underlined by the beautiful monotone noise of waves and wind. This is
romantic sailing at its finest.

At 6 am, the sun did not rise yet my watch is finished. I am almost sad
about the change, because I will pretty sure miss the real sunrise while
having breakfast or going to sleep.

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