I Remember Why I Loved the Mid Watch

Years ago, as a young naval officer stationed onboard a frigate, I spent the better part of three years patrolling in circles around the southern Caribbean searching for drug traffickers. I was a deck officer and spent much of my time on the bridge in command of the ship managing the helmsman, navigator, radar team, and lookouts. Because a ship operates 24/7, the day is divided into four-hour blocks and normally three watch teams rotate between being on watch for four hours and then off for eight–that goes round and round while you’re at sea.

Every other day your schedule would require you to stand the dreaded “mid watch:” midnight to 4am. Most people hated the mid watch. Usually, it was dead quiet, boring and it screwed with your sleep (you still had a normal 8 hour a day job on top of your watch schedule).

But, I loved the mid watch. I’ve always been a night owl. Many of you have received emails from me well past midnight as I’m just getting warmed up. But, until this week if you asked me why, I would have reminisced on fond memories of standing on the bridge wing in the middle of the night with a warm Caribbean breeze blowing; the moon and stars reflecting on a mirror-smooth sea. The Captain, sound asleep in his cabin, and me, a 24-year old in charge of an entire Navy ship–at least for those four dark hours.

But, today I remembered why I really loved about the mid-watch. Solitude.

A Navy ship is about 350 feet long and 75 feet wide–it holds approximately 300 men, a giant engine room, tons and tons of fuel, food, radar systems, and, of course weapons. I could tell you more, but then I’d have to kill you. Every corner and nook of the ship was filled with something. Even my stateroom, for the first year, was a 12′ x 12′ room with four or five young officers sharing the space–snores, farts and all.

For me the mid-watch was time to be alone. A reflective four hours in the darkness of the night. A time to recharge my mind, plan my day, and ponder the wonders of the universe. While plowing the waters north of Columbia and Venezuela at “zero dark thirty” (yes, that’s where the phrase comes from), I plotted my future, designed a hundred sailboats in my head, and obsessed about a really awesome girl I met in Stamford, CT. Maybe it’s that “I” in my Myers-Briggs test or maybe it’s just the way my brain works or maybe it was the magic of tall ship and a star to steer her by?

Federal prison is similar. There are no “alone” spaces. There are 300 guys living in a relatively small space. “Alone” is a relative term here. Finding solitude is hard. For us introverts that’s a trying situation. Finding alone time is a virtual impossibility.

Want to sleep? There’s someone else in the cubical. Want to read? There are 10 other guys in the prison library. Want to use the computer? It’s a room with 30 other people clacking away at the keys. Want to go for a run? There are 5 other guys running on the track, too. Eating is in a cafeteria with 100 of your closest friends. The shower is a locker room. The noise level is high all the time and everywhere.

Unfortunately there is no mid watch here. No time to yourself. Very little privacy. Eventually, you learn to ignore others when you want to be alone and enter your own Zen-like, self-absorbed moments with your book or your journal. They say you can get accustomed to anything. Let’s hope.

But, now I remember why I actually loved the mid watch.

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