The Morning Watch

When I was in the Navy, the early morning watch was always my favorite. 

When you arrived on the bridge at 0345, a cup of coffee and the warmth of your jacket easing the sudden transition from your rack, everything was dark. There was just the faint red glow of the dials, and the familiar whispered sounds of the offgoing watch briefing those coming on to relieve them. 

As your eyes adjusted to the dark, the voices would take shape and you would soon settle into the nighttime routine, knowing that dawn was just around the corner. Soon the sky would begin to lighten, ever so subtly, and before you knew it, the sun would clear the horizon and another day at sea would begin. Each day was similar, but never the same: empty horizons or other ships in company dotted around it. Brooding clouds or vast and vacant skies. Blowing spume of a troubled sea, or endless glass. 

The morning watch was the time of cleaning up, and restarting the routine - wiping down displays, policing up the coffee cups, polishing the brass, emptying trash and piping reveille over the 1MC. By the time you were relieved to go have breakfast, shave, and maybe shower, the day would be in full swing. 

I spent hundreds of hours staring at the horizon and waiting for the dawn. It was once such a familiar sequence, and it often strikes me as odd how remote that life feels today. 

This past month, though, provided a small memory of those days. 

In 2021, due to pandemic related travel restrictions, we switched the international gathering of our partners to a virtual week, conducted on Zoom. Although it does not fully replace the fellowship we had when we were all in the same place, other advantages, such as cost savings, far broader participation, and ease of translation has made it an annual practice in the last weeks of February. 

However, in order to make the time zones work for everyone, the meetings start at 4:00 AM in San Diego. We are on Zoom from 4:00 to 11:00 every day for a week. 

Although this first felt like a burden, I have found in it an unexpected joy. 

I like to sit outside on the front steps of the house with a jacket and cup of coffee. It starts dark and cold, but as the meetings go on, the anticipation of the dawn takes me back to those days of standing on a bridge wing in the damp of early morning, watching for the first sign of nautical twilight.