Dancing in the moonlight

Day 11 of the Return trip

Anything that happened during the daytime yesterday dulls in comparison with the happenings of the night.

It all started as the sun went down on a rare clear-skied day. On the west it disappeared, and at the same moment the moon rose to greet us in the east - like a scale, with one side going down as the other rose. It wasn't just any moon. It was a full and bright moon, which first peeked through a perfect hole in some distant cumulus coulds, but then rose to dominate the entire sky.

The wind was still behind us at about 15-18 knots, and it was to be the first night through which we would keep the spinnaker up. We were making really good ground, enjoying the panoramic view from the top of the mountainous waves, before surfing down the face of them.

The moon was unbelievably bright, and was only dimmed by the occasional micro-weather system that passed over our heads bringing more wind. We latched onto each of these little squalls and Ciao Bella took off. Our motto for last night was: "Tristan by Easter". Our top speed logged last night was 16.7 knots under Dave and Gina, and we also had a few hours runs of 10+ miles (a good couple of those due to Ric D). We are well on our way to a 200 miler now!

We thought that we were lucky to have the full moon with us for the whole night - but there was more!

On our watch at 04:00 (our time), Raf pointed out to me that the moon was no longer full. A big chunk of the thing was missing! We watched over the next few hours as the light of the moon was gradually stolen away by the earth. Who would have guessed that on the clearest night, we would be treated to a FULL LUNAR ECLIPSE!? It was mind-blowing. We got the whole crew up to see it. I even stayed up an hour after my watch ended to see it through.

The best part about it was that, as the moon faded to that soft reddish colour, all the stars came out and took over the sky.

So how was YOUR night last night?

Brennan