I happened across a June or July 2004 issue of Latitude 38 last week and it
contains quite a long letter from a fellow who sailed single-handed from SF
to Hawaii. He describes all strange sounds he heard during the voyage,
including having his name called more than once. He does not mention
anything about lack of sleep, in fact he infers he had no trouble in this
area. I think there may be some issues with sensory deprivation on these
sort of voyages, that is, you are removed from most of you common
experiences and your mind starts to fill in the void. Some underlying
stress may also be involved.
"..be.." wrote in message
om...
more because of gales and other bad weather than anything else i've
just completed a four week new zealand to norfolk island solo voyage
and was wondering if other folk who have spent a similar period of
time alone at sea find the ropes talking to them after a couple of
weeks. it got to the point that i actually dreaded the sun rising,
because everything that was talking to me during the night, stopped
with the coming of daylight. perhaps its a survival mechanism?

the two week trip from there to australia was much more enjoyable,
primarily because there were only two days of 35knot+ gales as opposed
to two weeks of it.

cheers
bruce