I have never slept like I did the first week we were back home. I'm not the soundest sleeper and on a yacht I wake up regularly. At anchor this can be useful, because whenever I feel a movement which is new or different from before, I can check things out. With our new Manson Supreme anchor, I have never had the necessity to re-anchor at night, even though I've had to add a second anchor from time to time because the wind turned or some current swept us too close to another boat. Especially in the Caribbean, using both anchors was often necessary.
While underway, waking up from this, usually I ended up having to wake up anyway because of some necessity to help the helmsperson. Only occasionally, this proved unneeded.
Only in marinas do I sleep very deeply, so I like marinas. Sleeping in short bursts has been a habit the last year, and I've managed to get enough sleep this way. But the stationary bed I have at home made me sleep undisturbed for hours after sunrise. This effect wore off after a week or two. So now I'm back to waking up occasionally at night. The first night on the boat last Friday, made me realize it's really been a year of living on a boat.
A year can be a long time indeed.
Getting used to sleeping on passage is always a challenge, and as our crossings got longer, my routine got better established. I've now established a routine of sleeping most of the night in a system of watches where I stay awake most of the day, only to take an hour of rest sometime in the afternoon.
I'm just not very good at keeping night watches because my biological clock doesn't adapt itself very well. So while waking up regularly is no trouble, I have to get my sleep during the dark hours. During the crossing to Madeira, I still took up a daily nightshift and ended having severe sleep deprivation, up to the point where I saw a wonderful eighteenth century wooden square-rigger one night, about to cross our path just ahead.
This hallucination tought me that I can handle lack of sleep, but a skipper should not let it go that far. So for the other crossings, I tried to avoid long watch shifts at night, if my crew agreed to this. The nights are very long for everyone, but as skipper it's a problem if your judgement gets impaired by lack of sleep. In that sense, a year of cruising can be made up of long nights indeed.
Still, the things one sees at night every now and then do provide exceptional spectacle. Staying awake is the price I willingly pay.
While underway, waking up from this, usually I ended up having to wake up anyway because of some necessity to help the helmsperson. Only occasionally, this proved unneeded.
Only in marinas do I sleep very deeply, so I like marinas. Sleeping in short bursts has been a habit the last year, and I've managed to get enough sleep this way. But the stationary bed I have at home made me sleep undisturbed for hours after sunrise. This effect wore off after a week or two. So now I'm back to waking up occasionally at night. The first night on the boat last Friday, made me realize it's really been a year of living on a boat.
A year can be a long time indeed.
Getting used to sleeping on passage is always a challenge, and as our crossings got longer, my routine got better established. I've now established a routine of sleeping most of the night in a system of watches where I stay awake most of the day, only to take an hour of rest sometime in the afternoon.
I'm just not very good at keeping night watches because my biological clock doesn't adapt itself very well. So while waking up regularly is no trouble, I have to get my sleep during the dark hours. During the crossing to Madeira, I still took up a daily nightshift and ended having severe sleep deprivation, up to the point where I saw a wonderful eighteenth century wooden square-rigger one night, about to cross our path just ahead.
This hallucination tought me that I can handle lack of sleep, but a skipper should not let it go that far. So for the other crossings, I tried to avoid long watch shifts at night, if my crew agreed to this. The nights are very long for everyone, but as skipper it's a problem if your judgement gets impaired by lack of sleep. In that sense, a year of cruising can be made up of long nights indeed.
Still, the things one sees at night every now and then do provide exceptional spectacle. Staying awake is the price I willingly pay.
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