Midnight Magic

Facing fears and making the most of nights on the water

Article by Jim Smith

Ever since I was a child, I had a fear of being on the water at night. The few times I had been out with my dad after dark it seemed impossible to steer a steady course and find your way back to safe harbor. A number of years ago circumstances drove me to face my fears, and begin to sail almost exclusively after dark. It, also, allowed me to find the magic I had heard about but never experienced.

My wife loved to be on the water, and she loved to sail in our O’Day Mariner. She was on chemotherapy almost constantly during our 5 years of marriage. When she was not feeling well, the motion of the boat helped her to cope with her discomfort. She enjoyed laying in the Mariner’s huge cockpit watching the waves go by. She was on one course of chemo after another. When one stopped working, she would be given another. At the beginning of one summer she was put on a new treatment plan where to doctor told us that she must stay out of the sun. What were we to do. We were outdoor people. Kayaking the creeks and rivers of Northwest Pennsylvania, and sailing on Lake Erie. Thus, we began to sail only after the sun had set.

We would leave for the marina when most boaters were on their way home. We learned quickly that special preparations were needed to stay safe. I made sure that the solar panel was keeping the battery at full charge so the running lights would last well into the morning hours. I remembered the story a buddy told me about falling off his sailboat at night with his girlfriend aboard. She had no idea how to come about and pick him up. That was not going to happen to us. We practiced man-overboard drills until Louanne could turn the boat around with ease. Lights on the PFDs, and of course a whistle were mandatory.

At first we sailed only in Presque Isle Bay until we began to feel comfortable with the darkness, navigation lights, and especially range lights which needed to be lined up to enter channels. At night it is easy to be fooled. Finally, we felt confident enough to head out of the channel and into Lake Erie. That is when we found the magic that is the offshore wind. Between 11:00 PM and 1:00 AM the wind would shift and come directly off the land. Because the land cools off every night, but not the water, we could sail mile after mile along the beach on the same tack. When the spirit moved us we could head back to the marina. Traffic was very light—to say the least—on the drive home at three or four in the morning. This magical routine made a summer of hiding out from the sun much more tolerable. •SCA•