The Long Way by Bernard Moitessier

Author:Bernard Moitessier
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sheridan House

FIFTEEN

One Night . . .

The night looks wrapped in milky cotton. The full moon shines through from time to time when the fogbanks turn wispy under the stratus. The entire sea glows with greenish, phosphorescent sheets. It is hardly rumbling, because the fog muffles all sounds. Perhaps also because the Horn is so close now, and the secondary wave trains are no longer those of the open sea.

On one side lies Tierra del Fuego, a safe distance away, but already close enough for no major swell to come from there. Graham Land with its ice fields is on the other, 500 miles SSE: very near on the globe’s scale, very far on mine. And ahead is Cabo de Hornos with its associated islands nearby, blocking any swell from the east.

That must be why the sea rumbles so little despite the wind and the surprising height of the seas around the Horn. Also, the wind is NW, almost NNW, coming more or less from the land.

It is not a gale in the real sense of the word, since the barometer is almost quiet, though falling very slowly. Yet the wind is blowing a good force 7, and Joshua drives along under close-reefed mizzen, double-reefed main, single-reefed staysail and the 54 sq. ft storm jib. She is moving very fast, yawing a little too much in the heavy sea. But deciding to shorten sail is hard as long as there is no real threat and you want to get to the other side as quickly as possible.

I barely managed a perfect sight this morning. The sun kept under wraps for hours, but had a moment’s inattention as some thinner stratus went by, and I threw his pale, ugly mug down to the horizon. Same bit of luck for the second sight just two hours later. Such a short time between lines is far from ideal, but I was happy enough; it rained for the noon sight and the sun has not appeared since.

I hope to see it for a moment tomorrow morning, so as not to have to grope my way between Diego Ramirez and the Horn. Too far north there is Tierra del Fuego, too far south the risk of icebergs.

The bow rumbles in the milky night. You have to get close to hear it well. In the cabin, on the other hand, the sound is everywhere. We are driving hard.

According to the almanac, the sun set at 8 o’clock. I did not see it because of the cloudy weather. But the moon is out above the stratus clouds, so the night is softly luminous. If the sky were not overcast I would see the entire starboard horizon white with sunlight reflected by the ice. Sailing the free channels of the pack . . . Still, I would be afraid to go that far to the land of white. Just after New Zealand, when the weather was so fine, I often glanced that way. Just a detour to see and feel,

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