The Full Moon – a delight when sailing at night

I came to love night sailing. The full moon – a delight when sailing at night.

My body enjoyed the break from the relentless sun as we followed the trades around the planet.

What does it all mean?

The moon and its gravitational forces affect our tides: read more here, we’ll cover tide calculations in another post.

Gibbous Moon

That’s an odd word. A gibbous moon is any moon that appears more than half lighted but less than full. … You’ll see a waxing gibbous moon between a first-quarter moon and full moon. The word gibbous comes from a root word that means hump-backed.

Gibbous moon
Noel looking at the gibbous moon from our balcony at home (the ocean is just beyond that mountain)

Pink Moon

This is quite topical as April’s full moon is also a supermoon meaning the moon is full while also in perigee, or closest approach to Earth. The super Pink moon rises at the time of publishing – today, 27th April 2021). A moon is considered super when it’s within 90% of perigee, which is how there can be multiple supermoons in a year. This is our first Pink moon of 2021.

pink moon
Pink Moon – a full moon is a delight when sailing at night

Tides
Next up we’ll look at tides – keeping it simple of course. Stay tuned.

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