The Sound of Effervescence

Can you recall the exact sound of champagne bubbles as they hit the surface of the glass? Soda makes the same sound as does some beer.

That is my favorite sound.

Not because of champagne, soda or beer - although I would love to have a cold one delivered to me here on passage (ice cream and a cheeseburger please too). But because that sound is one of the ones our boat makes when it is happy.

When we are sailing smartly, as our boat is slicing through the water, the hull on the downwind side (non-boating friends -- this would be the side that is tilting downwards) pushes down into each wave. As the boat slides down into the wave, it introduces a small amount of air into the ocean. By the time the wave has traveled further down the hull next to the cockpit, these thousands of tiny bubbles resurface making a mesmerizing, gentle, hissing, sizzling, bubbling sound.

I could listen to that hiss for hours, and because I have plenty of opportunity to do so on my midnight to 5am watch...I do.

170nm left to the Gambier Islands.