Approximately six nautical miles from land your phone goes dark.

That rectangular weight, your every minute of the day companion, the so called black mirror, is effectively dead. It is now just a digital camera with an alarm clock feature. Both useful on a yacht, I do not deny, but as a communication device? Nada.

There’s a process you go through, one I am sure most of you have experienced the start of, when – for instance – you’ve left your phone at home for the day. Namely the impulse to check it, and the realisation you can’t, every ten minutes.

After 24 hours the self correction is immediate, but by then you have a list of stuff you are frustrated about. Texts you forgot to send – especially if you were only briefly on land and you’ve been meaning to send said text for over a week now. Googles you meant to do, e.g. fur cape six letters T—– we had been doing a crossword for the previous four days at sea, and someone for blinking sake should have at least looked that clue solution up when we had signal!

Then there are emails you ought to have read in case a reply was needed, shuttles you’re definitely going to need at the other end; what if they’re fully booked by now? You have no way of knowing and worse no way of fixing it, or even playing a useless female card and asking for help, because out here you’re all alone.

The feeling of helplessness and being stranded in the middle of the ocean is hard to resist – until you realise that actually, it is not that bad. The cats (or children) are being cared for, you’re safe and quite content, and realistically no-one back home is worried about you – although vessel stalker lost you a week ago – a quick sat phone lat/long message to your father is enough to confirm you’re alive; he probably wouldn’t have assumed pirates had captured the yacht for at least another week anyway.

So, it’s time to enjoy the quiet. The freedom. Being alone on watch on a yacht at night is one of the most incredible things I have ever experienced; not having that impulse to try to share it with someone else via your phone just means you have to be even more selfish and relish the moment for yourself.

It is not quite that simple though. I find myself thinking about last conversations with family and close friends, recent good byes for now and final conversations with those I’ve lost. I worry that enough wasn’t said, and now it can’t be.

I think of the podcasts I’ve listened to about astronauts on the ISS when the twin towers were taken. When a Frenchman was locked in a year long experiment and the Paris attacks took place. How I am sure nothing equivalent would or has happened, but it scares me that we wouldn’t know, for four days we would know nothing except that the sun and moon had risen, the stars and the rest of our universe were still out there, and that the wind and sea were propelling us further North.

Approximately six nautical miles from land the phones start to reconnect.

On our most recent delivery I was on watch at the time, no-one said anything to each other for the next two hours. There were no emergencies, no final conversations had happened, and there was still time to say those words we had all had to hold captive in our minds for the last days until they could be transmitted either by message or vocally to the recipient.

I confess I was equally as relieved when I checked my phone and my world was as I had left it. No-one had missed me, but also no-one had fulfilled my worst worries of leaving me with the wrong words. It is scary to realise that this is so important, the last thing you say, and the relief of being able to say more when you have the chance. In a lot of ways it is completely out of your hands to effectively realise this before it is too late and the window for communication is closed, but I hope to do better, say more, make sure people know what I want to say before I lose my chance.

Please forgive me if I become more effusive or even tell you that I love you.

We never did look up the crossword clue.