Sleepless Night Watches - The Magic Cure

[Lin Pardey]

For almost 34 years, Larry intermittantly complained that he wasn’t getting any sleep during his off watches. He’d wake up after three hours in the bunk and say, “Lin, you just have to be quieter. You kept moving around the cabin and I didn’t get one wink of sleep.” I was completely baffled by his comments because I’d spent the past hours quietly keeping watch, reading between turns on deck and listening to him snore. Besides, he never seemed very tired during the daytime so I knew he was getting enough sleep.

Then one day when we were crossing the Indian Ocean bound for Africa, I came up with an idea. We had started using video cameras on board to gather the footage that eventually let us create several cruising DVD programs. That gave me an idea. I waited until Larry once again complained about his difficulty in getting enough sleep at sea. Then, soon after he climbed back into the bunk for his next three hour stint and began almost immediately to snore, I secured a small video camera to a bulkhead so that it showed him in the bunk and the ships clock ticking away, right above him. I let the camera run for two hours.

When Larry woke up three hours later his first words were, “Lin you’ve kept me awake most of my watch.” I gave him a hug, climbed into the still warm bunk and said, “Take a look at the video footage I shot during my watch.”
The next morning Larry was delighted. “ For all these years I must have been dreaming I wasn’t getting any sleep. You’ve solved the problem. And he was right. He never again had any problem falling asleep and waking well rested as we continued to sail onward for another 10 years of voyaging, including sailing westward below the Great Southern Capes.

[minaret]

That's hilarious! Being married is so comedic sometimes...

[Seafarer24]

Great story, thank you!

[S/V Alchemy]

I'm trying to cure my son of "uptalking", the annoying habit of young people? to make statements? as if they were questions?

Good god, it gets on my nerves.

I found his denials had less weight when I used an MP3 player to record our conversation as I walked him to school.

To school?

Yes...to school.

Also, Larry now knows how loudly he snores. Most men never get to that stage of evolution.

[capt.bobfm]

I had a friend who snored so loudly that it could wake the dead. Never woke him though. I told him about it and he denied it vigorously,so I tape recoeded it and let him hear it. 'That's not me" he exclamed. Of course he didn't stop snoring and the rest of us didn't stop laughing.

[svHyLyte]

My (much) better half has the habit of wakening in the middle of the night, asking me some inane question which I attempt to answer and then falling immediately to sleep again (while I struggle to do so) and with no memory of the event in the AM and which she denies vigerously. I finally got one of the little tapeless audio recorders to record the event. After hearing it replayed, she still denied it! (As for snoring, it's always our dog Nibbles, even if he's in the other room!)

FWIW...

[capngeo]

Joanne will at least once a night sit bolt upright in bed and say something, sometimes a statement, sometimes a question, then lay back down and sleep on..... She never recalls it in the morning. The upside???? She has never called me by another guy’s name!