Northern light

Maaike on the bridge

Hi, I'm Maaike, third mate on the Esperanza. After another good dinner (the cook is absolutely fantastic) I’m sitting in the lounge with my cup of tea. I like this hour of the day. People are around to chat, it's still early and we're all happy - the workday is over and we're well fed and relaxed.

At 7.45 I go up to my cabin to get my stuff together. My watch is from eight to 12 and it’s getting colder outside. The door from the wheelhouse is always open so the temperature on the bridge is getting lower as well, which I don’t mind - I like that chilly windy weather.

Yesterday at the end of my watch I saw a strange kind of light in the sky. It was a new moon, so it couldn’t be the moonlight. After a while I thought about the northern lights. I’ve seen it before in these regions, but it surprises me still. After looking at the light for 15 minutes I was sure it was the northern light. It didn’t become spectacular, but it was very beautiful. I don’t know for how long it went on, because after watching it until 12.30 I thought it was time to go to bed.

Tonight, when I arrive on the bridge, Madeline the first mate is putting the eight o’clock position in the chart. Then she hands over the watch to me. The wind is still a force seven. The weather forecast on the navtex (a cunning little machine that prints weather forecasts and navigational warnings every few hours) says it will pick up over the night again. Let’s hope for better weather after that, because it’s almost impossible to do anything (action wise) in a force seven/eight.

When the watch is handed over it’s getting nice and quiet on the bridge. Just me and Martha, the watch keeper. She’s from Spain and is very good company on the bridge. We listen to some Spanish music and now and then people come up to the bridge to see what's happening and chat for a while. I really enjoy that. The sky is very clear again, which seems strange when it’s stormy - but it gives a nice effect. With a brighter sky, the white horses (tops of the waves) are visible in the dark. Spooky, but beautiful.

My watch is coming to an end. Some oil rigs - which you can see from about 15 miles away, light up the sky with their huge gas burning flames but no northern light. Maybe we’ll have some more later on - after all, it’s still early September. We’ll have a lot more long, dark evenings to come with a chance to see more of the beautiful lights.

- Maaike

Posted by Elaine

Hello Elaine and all the crew,

I'm so glad you're out there defending the North Sea.

And I'm so glad I'm here on dry land! ;-)

Take care and keep up the great work.

Vanessa McQ

Posted by: Vanessa at September 16, 2004 03:10 PM