What a morning to wake up to! The sun is out, the sky has cleared behind the occlusion, the sea has come down, and Atlas jogs along with the crisp gennaker billowing out.
As I slowly open my eyes, I see bright sun patches traversing the cabin in synchronised movement with the boat. Highlighting first the onion basket swinging peacefully overhead, then Richard’s face who is slumbering on the other side of the boat right underneath, now the wood stove resting in the centre of the boat. Finally it comes over to our side of cabin, momentarily blinding me, as if to say, ‘Good morning, it’s time to get out of bed,’ before it continues its migration across.
Stepping out into the cockpit from the pilot house, the warm sun rays and the bright light of a splendid day greet us. An utter transformation from the past week of uniform grey. By then, we had been jokingly wondering if we were even moving at all. Every morning ground-hog day. We woke up to the same landscape, the same dull sky, the same colour of the sea, and just a little variation on the movement, too little to really count as a change.
Arnaud, our skipper, in a philosophical mood, asked some days ago: “Can we prove we are not going in circles?” And in fact, we couldn’t. For all we knew, we might be. The light had no direction. It had been days since we had last seen the sun, or any other celestial body. Our surroundings had become uniform, light grey above, fading from and to twilight during the morning and at night, the water with a pale blueish-green complexion. Suspended in what seems like timelessness.
This morning. A change. The sun. It feels like summer has arrived, and energy, zest, vibrance, and contrast have returned to our lives. A fresh breath of cool air, the sun warming our bare skin on our arms as we slowly spoon our breakfast and sip the hot coffee. It feels like having traversed a high glacial plateau shrouded in mist, and come down into the summer valley on the other side. ‘We’re going to Greenland after all,’ says Arnaud as he returns from the foredeck and steps into the cockpit with a bright smile.
The ocean moves like a flag billowing in slow motion, the colour has poured back into the water while we were asleep. The waves and wavelets have rounded soft shapes now. High cirrus clouds adorn the sky, and a rim of low stratus is still visible on the horizon. The occlusion has brought a longed-for change.
Angie