You might think you’ve seen the stars, but until you’ve seen them from the deck of a ship in the middle of the ocean, I would challenge whether you’ve seen them at all.
With so little light pollution out here, the stars are strewn over the sky like diamonds over velvet. They glitter so close it feels like you could reach out and grasp one and take it home to light your cabin with.
That said, we very rarely bother to go out and take advantage of the spectacular night-time view. Unless of course someone mentions it at dinner and the rest of the table latches onto the idea with a ferocity that reminds you of a puppy with a new chew-toy.
So it was that last night found perhaps ten of us outside on our backs on the bow – despite the near gale force winds – staring up at the sky like excited little kids. Since the bridge has a full view of the bow (the bow is on deck 4 the bridge overlooks it from deck 8) – I can only imagine that the exchange between the officers on duty went something like this:
What the…? What are the crazies up to now???
Followed quickly by
Well …that’s Llewellyn, that’s Shaughnessy, that’s Jez, that’s Platinum, that’s ..
etc etc…because I honestly think there would be no question of which group of people it was. Only the entertainment department would ever have been crazy enough to attempt such a thing in 60 click winds.
While security did gently call everyone back inside for safety reasons (while we normally are allowed out on the bow, last night was particularly bad weather in growing rough water, I can see where they wouldn’t want us out there) – it was one of those surreal moments that you just don’t get very often.
Moments like that, and the companionable near-silence afterwards as we all giggled and warmed up back in the officers bar, are the moments that remind me why it is that I still love this crazy job…