Summer '09

We were wide awake at night, looking up at the southern sky, flooded with stars. Laying in our hammocks arranged in a triangle, the Triangle of Love as we called it, we giggled as we watched above for shooting stars. After the first night we had all become best friends. It was like we had known each other forever. Wells was there, sitting on the deck, pointing out Scorpio, Hercules and the Northern Crown.
“See those ones right there?” He would say.
“Yea,” I always said, even if I didn’t know which of the billions he was pointing to.
The stars would glisten on the ocean’s waves, which were calm now. The laughter and conversations would subside, and one by one I would watch the others put their head phones in to drown out the banging sounds that Gigi made. The ropes would bang against the mast with every gust of wind, but eventually I would get used to the random knocks and it would seem calming. I enjoyed listening to the waves crash upon the shore and an unusual animal wailing in the distance. The sounds put me in a peaceful state; I just felt so lucky to be where I was. Every now and then we would whisper to each other, not knowing who was listening. Eventually the exhaustion from the dives and the heat would catch up to us, and we would be asleep in an instant. Some nights it would begin to pour in the middle of the night. We would hide in our sleeping bags, hoping it would be gone in a minute or so, until we realized it wasn’t going to stop anytime soon. By the time we were already soaked, everyone would quickly gather up all their wet belongings and make a mad dash down the stairs to get the best spot on the couch. I would wake up mid morning not knowing where I was. After realizing it must have rained and I ran down below half asleep, I would get up and return to my spot in the hammock. It was to claustrophobic downstairs in the humid, crowded space, that it was a relief to go up on deck at last. Slowly everyone would return to their hammocks. Some didn’t even wake up to get to shelter during the rain. Sarah was the worst. She was the deepest sleeper I knew and never woke up during the storms. “Thanks for waking me,” she would say, sarcastically of course.
But my favorite times happened when there were no dark clouds filled with moisture in the sky and we made it through the entire night on deck. It was the silence and isolation of being in the middle of the ocean that made it so serene. As dusk grew closer, sounds of seagulls were the only noise. I would feel the sprinkles of rain on my shoulders; it almost tickled me. We would try and hide under our covers for another hour or so until it was time for our day to start. The sun would start to shine in the distance over the horizon and light up the sky. The rain would let up and the warmth would get us out of our sleeping bags. I would run down to my room and put on a suit, for it was already to hot to wear anything more.