A Symphony of Calm Arousal

Pacific Crossing Day 10

Tonight’s post is all about the pretty, pretty Pacific. Flattery may get us somewhere.

With the engines off after four days of motoring through the ITCZ, it is finally just us and the sea. It’s a similar feeling to when you are at a crowded party and finally sneak off to an upstairs bedroom with the one person you wanted to talk to the whole time anyway. Ahhhh. Now I have you all to myself!

All of our senses note the difference. Touch is the only sense that hasn’t changed for the better. With a 7-8 ft wave rolling every 7 seconds right across our hulls, first lifting one and then the other, the simple task of walking across the saloon, legs akimbo, evokes aching in every sore ab and leg muscle, every bruise.

However, the salty sea wind has put the stench of diesel far in our wake. Without the diesel tang in our nostrils, we can finally taste our food. The malevolent rumbling of the engines has been replaced by the pulsing sibilance of the waves breaking under our hulls. But it is our vision that is most enhanced with the uptick in winds, as throughout the day they are treated to a variety of sights both above and below the stark division between the sky and the sea.

Our view is dominated by a multitude of variations of the color blue. The sea and the sky rotate through all possible mixtures of blue with white and black every hour, as if King Neptune cannot stop playing with filters in Photoshop. Watching the changes at twilight especially is akin to listening to a symphony, with movements changing with time characterized by different cloud cover and light.

To be completely surrounded by this versatile color is likely one reason the sea calls to people. Neuroscience has shown that looking at blue activates arousal networks in the brain, focusing attention. Yet at the same time, psychology research has demonstrated blue’s ability to trigger a sense of calm. This odd mixture of focus and calm is rare these days, as typically we are called upon to concentrate when under pressure. Usually there is no room in the mind at that time for a sense of peace. Yet Mel has noticed that this meditative state is exactly what settles in about 15 minutes into her watch, as she scans the sky and the sea. It is an appropriate state to be in when crossing oceans, when the ability to respond quickly to calamity in a calm and thoughtful way is crucial. For a doctor previously pushed to focus for 12 hours a day, always with an un-calm background concern that she would be unable to meet the overwhelming demands on her mind and her time, this calm is healing.

Oh look! Mel just figured out why they call it The Pacific!

Boat stuff: We are over 1500 nm out of Panama. Our current target is Henderson Island, in the Pitcairn group, a little over 2000 nm away. At this rate, we might get there in 10-11 days. The trade winds are between 14-18 knots apparent, but at the moment they are on our beam. We are making 7-8.5 knots to our target.

Today’s calamity: We had to restart the autopilot and chartplotter after a blip of some kind that put steering out of our control for a minute. All is well now. On the morning rounds, Greg saw the ring for our first reef was about to tear off the sail, as the straps that were meant to secure the ring better to the main had not been reattached by the sailmaker in Sint Maarten when we had them modify the reefing system. We broke a rule: always double-check someone else’s work. Now we are double-reefed and a little slower, but the ride is smoother, so we’ll take it!

Dinner tonight: Chicken pot pie, using a rotisserie chicken that Mel shredded up and vacuum-packed before we left. Next time Mel will get 8 rotisserie chickens. It is so much easier than cooking chicken from scratch!

Entertainment: Rocking out to Mel’s Sailing playlist, which is probably the main reason Spotify thinks she is 77 years old.

For the nerds, this article about the impact of color on the brain via studying EEG waves was researched by physicists and neuroscientists and gives you hope that humanity is not entirely doomed, as clearly there are still some smart people left.

Here are some recent photos. Look at all the shades of blue!