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There didn't seem to be an end to the beauty of the Chagos Atolls. Mother Nature really knew how to dress up those scraps of sand and palm trees. Take the sunlight, for
instance. In the early morning the sunshine shafted between the clouds tinting the rippled lagoon surface to pastel shades of peach, lavender, pink, and rose. Mid-day sunlight penetrated the crystal clear lagoon waters, intensifying the colors of the corals and tropical fish below. Late afternoon sunlight shimmered softly in the glistening palm fronds ashore, and cast dancing shadows along the fringe of beach beneath the palm trees.
And there were sunsets. We didn't have one grand and glorious sunset finale at the end of every day, but when M.N. did get the color cranked up, the sunsets could take your breath away. Just like a symphony, there would be an orchestration of colors chasing across the sky, blending like notes and themes in stratas of cloud and color, then changing from variations of subtle hues into glorious bursts of reds, yellows and oranges, eventually fading away into deepening purples, grays, until only a suggestion of the majesty of that sunset composition remained.
Have you ever seen the Green Flash? It's when the last visible edge of the sun slips below the horizon, and your eye picks out the last portion of the light spectrum. In pre-SUNFLOWER days we lived on the beach in Guam and had a sunset in our backyard daily. We often saw the green flash in Guam's clear skies then. In fact, we learned to prolong the "flash" by squatting down, then rising up at the same rate that the sun was sinking! It's amazing how many sailors have never seen a green flash. You need a really clear sky and no clouds on the sea horizon. All of which happened one evening in February for us. Normally it is an intense green spot at the moment of the sun's disappearance--not really a "flash". This time there did seem to be sparks as well. It was one of the best we have ever seen.
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How about rainbows. We had more than enough rain on our visit to Chagos this year, handing us a wealth of beautiful rainbows, even double rainbows! You know, it's hard to take photos of rainbows. The full arch is nearly impossible--we are too close; the lens not wide enough on the camera. And a partial arch never seems to be in the exact place you would like it to be for the shot. Why couldn't the rainbow be more over the island? nearer to that boat? in the pass between islands? and so on. The rainbows and the beautiful colors were there however. Some of the most vibrant rainbows we saw were just scraps of the full arch from a burst of sunlight between the leaden clouds.
Now a moonbow is a real phenomenon. We were anchored behind Ile Fouquet, more of a bush covered sand spit than an island. About 1 in the morning a 20K rain squall blew in from the N switching to NE. We were totally exposed to the 10 mile fetch of the lagoon in that direction. We were up dealing with the rain, and then keeping anchor watch. Fortunately, the whole thing was short lived. The squall blew away to the SE, the 3-qtr moon shed its light again, and there was the moonbow! It was an eerie path of light along the outside edge of the rain squall. We both commented on the moonbow, but you know, in the morning you just aren't quite sure. No fear. Other watch keepers had seen the moonbow too!
There was another weather born oddity that a lot of us watched closely. We were ashore taking photos of birds and saw a few rain clouds gathering. We debated whether to go back to the boat, but it looked like with luck, everything would pass to the north of us. It did, but instead of moving away, the clouds intensified, spread out over the lagoon, and the frontal edge of the storm developed into a water spout! We watched it spiral down, swaying languidly to the side and finally dipping low enough to get the surface of the water fully involved. There was a furious circular froth shooting upward into the funnel. We've seen water spouts at sea, and it's like--where do you run? The whole thing lasted longer than we were comfortable with.
The evening sky was brilliant with planets this year, and coupled with the various phases of the moon, produced quite a Sky Show for us. Venus and Jupiter were the brightest stars in the west. The VOA program, "Earth and Sky", told us to look for Saturn and Mercury too--which we think we did see. Mars was in the line up, but probably too close to the setting sun to be visible. One of the boats had downloaded a schedule of when the Space Station would be visible at our position. We did see its flickering transit on 2 of the 3 evenings that it passed, and I happened to see it again on one of my night watches during the sail back to Thailand. Neat!
Now here's a phenomenon that has nothing to do with the the sun, the moon, the weather or satellites. Marion always rowed ashore for an early morning walk along the beach. One day she came across a big plastic tub. "Ah-hah!" she thought, "a new bucket." The tub was sealed, had no markings on it to indicate the contents, and was heavy to carry. She laboriously got it back to the dinghy, and back to their boat. "Well," said Keith, "let's open 'er up. But don't expect a Genie--they're only in brass lamps, you know." Can you guess what was in there? Chocolate butter cream frosting! Gallons of it! Kilos of it! And all perfectly good! Marion shared it out with the fleet. We all speculated on where it had come from, and how, while gleefully consuming one chocolate frosted delight after another!
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