Moitessier

I've been re-reading Moitessier's "The Long Way" in small doses. I want to make it last the remainder of the time I'm in the Atlantic. He has quite a way with words which makes we wish I had more skill and creativity in that discipline. An except from his time in the southern ocean:
"I see a beacon in the night, it blinks between the waves, and I slowly awaken. The moon comes in through the porthole, brushes my lids, wanders down to my chin, comes back to my eyes for a second, goes over to see what is on the stove, returns to touch my eyes, lightly, consistently, goes away, comes back again.
I lie outstretched, not moving. I listen. The wind has dropped further. Before, it was whispering on the edge of the partly open hatch, talking in an undertone . Now too, but lower. The water sounds have also changed, and there is a slight rolling to starboard that was not there when I went to sleep. I try to guess whether the rolling is due to less pressure of wind against the sails, or to a change of the course. But I don't understand, since the motion is to port at the right place in the sky. She should not be coming through the porthole if the course has changed. Rolling says it has changed, And Moon says no. I try to figure out who is right, feeling with my senses. There is no danger, and plenty of time. If danger threatened, the fight of the swell with the coast would fill the cabin with its roaring. And I hear only the murmur of water on the hall, a sound from Joshua that says all is well despite the quarrel between the rolling and the moon. I do not want to shine a li
ght on the compass to find out: it has to come by itself."
-Bernard Moitessier
There is a lot of time out here where you find yourself in a quasi-sleep state feeling the motion of the boat and trying to determine if something needs attention. Sail trim, course change, etc. The boat makes a variety of sounds as does the sea. Whats is the range of "normal" and was that last loud pounding the start of a trend or just a one-off anomaly? Moitessier does a masterful job of putting down on paper these feelings that are unique to being at sea.