Sunshiney Day

A gorgeously warm, sunny day. I grabbed a few hours of rack-time after morning watch, and when I came back on deck, everyone was up to enjoy the sun. Sun! It'd been wet, and wet, and wet the past couple of days, and wandering around on deck without foulies was a little unnerving. Ok, it wasn't quite *warm* per-se, but it was cool and not quite chilling. Wander-around-in-a-couple-of-sweaters-but-not-your-coat weather.

The sunshine was as mind-altering as the stars have been in early-morning watch. It just illuminates everything, and the differences in temperature in and out of shadows is perceptible. It's almost how you'd imagine that astronauts would feel between sun and darksides in space.. well, if they weren't wrapped up in climate-controlled ships and spacesuits. Crap, nevermind. And each little ripple in the water catches the light and rafracts it deep into the back of your eye, which blinds a little bit and all blends together into what looks like a dewy spiderweb blowing in the wind on some spring morning. In the distance, the ripples mesh together, and so about halfway to the horizon, the sea is just flickering sunlight.

Anyway, after mindlessly lazing around on deck for awhile, I decided to catch up on some log-writing, O'Brian-ing (Ionian Mission), etc. The book makes for an instant conversation-starter, though. I chat it up with a couple of other crewmen that are Aubrey-fans (go figure?), and suddenly, I realize that I'm home. Not *at* home, with the bills, work and broken house-bits, but where I'd most like to be. I can comment about O'Brian's character X in chapter Y of book whatever, and can easily debate it with 3-4 different people. I can lie down in the sun. With nothing to do or worry about for 6 more hours till watch. And aside for some grindey diesels, utter peace. I hear that we'll get our Nor'Westerlies in the next day or two, maybe peace will come with 'em!