Day 12 - Click image for larger view
The strange clouds that surrounded me last night came around this evening only this time things got very weird! At dusk I could see fog like cloud banks approaching around 5 miles out to the sides, similar as the previous day. I double reefed the main sail, completely rolled in the jib and set the club footed staysail for whatever was to come. Boat speed slowed accordingly as I anticipated the weather would be somewhat similar to the previous night. I found it odd that the stars were out above yet clouded all around the sides. It was a big hole in the clouds straight above Southern Light. Then things got crazy!
In an instant the wind picked up dramatically and swirled around from all directions. I couldn't keep her on any course because all instruments had bizarre and conflicting readings, including the main magnetic compass at the helm. It was around this time that my hair stood straight up and St. Elmo's Fire appeared on the aluminum arch mounts. It was like 1' long globs of purple then green surrounding the 1-1/2" tubing slowly creeping down and sometimes up mostly on the port side. Some also appeared on the stainless steel steering wheel. I crouched up on the fiberglass cockpit seat as far away as possible and watched the spectacle in amazement! It felt like the Southern Light was spinning as if in a whirlpool. This went on for what seemed like 10 minutes. A few times I moved over far enough to see the ship's compass spinning oddly as well. All instruments were totally unreliable due to conflicting information.
These photos were taken later in the evening as the strange weather phenomenon slowly passed.
What was this lonely butterfly doing all the way out here? The nearest logical land was about 400 mile away, the Cape Hatteras area. It was gone by morning.
Earlier in the day I cooked up steak and potatoes. It's as if I had a premonition of what was to come and could use some extra protein.
All refreshed. Thinking I was ready for whatever came my way. Little did I know how strange this night would be. I could not make sense of it all. So many astonishing anomalies happened that night that reality had escaped me. Looking up from under the hardtop I saw strange looking colored lightning shooting from high up in the atmosphere into outer space. No lightning struck down from clouds to the water as would normally be expected. Hindsight, I'm guessing that Southern Light was in the center of a strange weather phenomena and I was seeing some form of "Sprites". The colored lightning like sprites were in blue, red, and green flavors only, none white.
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The strange clouds that surrounded me last night came around this evening only this time things got very weird! At dusk I could see fog like cloud banks approaching around 5 miles out to the sides, similar as the previous day. I double reefed the main sail, completely rolled in the jib and set the club footed staysail for whatever was to come. Boat speed slowed accordingly as I anticipated the weather would be somewhat similar to the previous night. I found it odd that the stars were out above yet clouded all around the sides. It was a big hole in the clouds straight above Southern Light. Then things got crazy!
In an instant the wind picked up dramatically and swirled around from all directions. I couldn't keep her on any course because all instruments had bizarre and conflicting readings, including the main magnetic compass at the helm. It was around this time that my hair stood straight up and St. Elmo's Fire appeared on the aluminum arch mounts. It was like 1' long globs of purple then green surrounding the 1-1/2" tubing slowly creeping down and sometimes up mostly on the port side. Some also appeared on the stainless steel steering wheel. I crouched up on the fiberglass cockpit seat as far away as possible and watched the spectacle in amazement! It felt like the Southern Light was spinning as if in a whirlpool. This went on for what seemed like 10 minutes. A few times I moved over far enough to see the ship's compass spinning oddly as well. All instruments were totally unreliable due to conflicting information.
These photos were taken later in the evening as the strange weather phenomenon slowly passed.
What was this lonely butterfly doing all the way out here? The nearest logical land was about 400 mile away, the Cape Hatteras area. It was gone by morning.
Earlier in the day I cooked up steak and potatoes. It's as if I had a premonition of what was to come and could use some extra protein.
All refreshed. Thinking I was ready for whatever came my way. Little did I know how strange this night would be. I could not make sense of it all. So many astonishing anomalies happened that night that reality had escaped me. Looking up from under the hardtop I saw strange looking colored lightning shooting from high up in the atmosphere into outer space. No lightning struck down from clouds to the water as would normally be expected. Hindsight, I'm guessing that Southern Light was in the center of a strange weather phenomena and I was seeing some form of "Sprites". The colored lightning like sprites were in blue, red, and green flavors only, none white.
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