The squeaking, the creaking, the slapping, the flapping. Last night was a spectacular symphony of sounds of a ship on the sea.
As the sun sunk at the bow and the moon rose to take its place, we were enjoying the slow illumination of the stars when a loud thud against the dodger next to my head startled us. Followed quickly by the flip flopping of a flying fish that had decided to hitch a ride on the magic that is Circe under sail - it was the first of many that would decide to join us on our midnight ride but the only one to survive its brief foray on our deck as it alone was quickly tossed back overboard.
Where sleep eludes, sound intrudes.
As the winds and waves continued to push us upwards of 9 knots, the genoa occasionally back winded on the down side of the waves and then would crisply snap back into place with the swiftness of a soldier snapping to attention. The frequency of this sound would reduce as the winds calmed and we dropped closer to 7 knots.
Sometime after midnight I heard a sound far above my head that was somewhere between a squeak and a chirp. It was only later that I discovered it was the Furuno radar swinging on its mounting. Silicon spray to the rescue during the daylight hours.
While we are all accustomed to the sloshing of the water along the hull, it was the sound of what I have affectionately named wave cannons exploding hard on the hull that was loud enough to startle. These mini explosions are reminiscent of the cannons in Tchaikovsky’s War of 1812 Overture - and we had it in sensorsound: cannons to the left of us, cannons to the right!
The popping and creaking of Circe’s wood work and joints are expected of any old girl put under the pressure of movement such as we had last night. I felt her pain but in my sympathy could only try to find a rhythm to her expression.
An unexpected sound around 4 in the morning was the sound of the engine coming on. We generally have to turn on the generator early each morning to recharge the battery drained by all the electronic navigation systems. But apparently after the generator died a “Failure! Oil Pressure” death, crew member Steve fired up the engine (in neutral) to do the recharging deed.
Then there was the one sound of the night that was as annoying as it was unnecessary as it demonstrated a lack of forethought on my part- the en masse sliding back and forth of all my bedside accoutrements as Circe continued her rather robust roll!
And of all this heard above my white noise sound machine. Clearly, it isn’t doing its job.
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