My favorite watch has always been the predawn watch. I love looking at the stars and watching them disappear, leaving only the few brightest, as the sky fades into that chromium greenish blue from midnight blue. The graduated light that shifts from dark overhead to lighter near the Eastern horizon, on a calm but breezy morning, brings to mind the imagined creation of the Cosmos.
I don't picture Creation as a "Big Bang", but more like an "Awakening". Sailing from the night into the day feels like an awakening. The last, brightest star to leave the Heavens in favor of the light upon the terrestrial world is Venus, the Morning Star. Venus is also the first star in the evening, the Evening Star. As a wandering star, however, her use as a navigation aid requires more information than Polaris or Sirius, for example. The ancients tracked her movements and kept meticulous records. It was Pythagoras who was given credit for the discovery that Venus was the same star seen in the evening as in the morning. When plotted out, her movements across the sky inscribed a pentagram, thus Venus also had a relationship with the "Golden Mean". The Pentagram was the symbol of the Pythagoreans and stood for completeness. That is how sailing feels. Sailboats are both a destination and the journey. Sailing is a state of being.
- Will (Dragonfly)