0200, 65 miles southeast of Newport, Rhode Island, the Swan 53 Mezza Luna is power reaching, heading for the barn inbound from Bermuda. The southwest wind has been building since we punched through the Gulf Stream’s west wall. The wind and boatspeed indicators, mounted on either side of the main hatch and glowing like wolves’ eyes tonight, tell the story: wind at 20-25, boatspeed a steady 9.5, bumping up to 11.2 in the puffs.
We are set up in our usual nighttime delivery configuration, a double-reefed main and 150 jib. We have been in and out of heavy fog for the past four hours, running on faith and radar. The Ambrose–Nantucket shipping lanes are less than an hour ahead. The windward running backstay is playing a deep base vibrato that I feel through the soles of my seaboots. The bow wave sounds like a distant waterfall. Under my foul weather gear, I am wearing a cloak of light anxiety, Sherlock Holmes on a dark, foggy night.
The fog condenses on every metal surface above deck level, and water runs off the rigging as if we had just emerged from a squall. I am directly behind the wheel. The rivulet running down the backstay deflects off the insulators, drumming incessantly on the hood of my foulies.
The super moist air has diffused the full moon’s ambient light, throwing everything slightly out of focus. The big primary winches on the cockpit coaming are four black cats, keeping me company from their perches. Talking to them seems perfectly normal. A night like this rewards the active imagination.
The electronics tell me that the boat is moving well, data confirmed by a gentle roll as we run up and over the southwest swell, with an occasional thump as the bow meets an old cross sea. But it is impossible to determine where the water ends and the sky begins. The boat is suspended in an opaque pewter bowl. We are sailing inside an oyster, surrounded by various shades of mother-of-pearl shimmering in the indirect light. When the fog thins for a moment, the moon peaks out, perfectly round and silver, a cosmic dime.
My watch partner and I are switching back and forth on the hour between the wheel and the radar. I have been on deck for the past 10 minutes. Down below, the VHF is turned down low and sounds like a muted hospital pager, the calls from fishing boats becoming more frequent as we close with the coast. Sleeping crew members produce an assorted chorus of snores, gurgles, and bits of conversation. The electronics chime in with soft beeps and burps. The overall effect is that of nighttime in an intensive care unit.
At 0300, the pizza will finally be liberated from the freezer and slid into the oven, setting up a cheerful change of watch at 0400. Until then, it’s a struggle to stay awake watching the auto pilot steer or staring into the radar screen.
When a blip shows up on the screen, my watch partner pops up through the hatch and gives me the bearing and distance, a pro-forma exercise in crew discipline since we can barely see 10 feet beyond the bow. Little blips are usually reflectors on longline fishing gear, stretching like picket fences across our path. Bigger blobs are other vessels.
So far, we have seen four on crossing courses inbound and outbound from New York, and a curious double blob, an offshore tug heading southwest, towing a barge on a long hawse. We called all of them, but only the tugboat answered. He wished us a safe passage, confirmed that we were showing up on his radar, and altered course to starboard a little bit. His blobs then gradually sailed off the screen into the murk.
This has been one of those mythical trips that other crews always talk about. The wind was 15 to 20 and easterly out of St. George’s as we left Bermuda. It has clocked around perfectly during the past three days. Nothing has broken, nobody has gotten hurt, and the cook knows what he’s doing. If the wind holds, we should be tying up in Newport in time for breakfast. I’m looking forward to a level floor and the sports channel.
In the meantime, I will stand here under the dripping backstay, watch the moon and the fog do their mysterious dance, and consider the odd tension between wanting and not wanting the passage to be over. I will wait for the dawn. I will think about the pizza.
August/September 2025
