“Andrew! Come up here for a minute,” I rubbed my eyes again, to scratch away the quite scenic, but unnerving hallucination I seemed to be enjoying. Andrew should be sleeping, but he was roaming around down below checking the chart and probably getting a snack if I know him well enough. He pokes his head up the companion way and scowls.
“Does the ocean always look like that?” He said.
My first reaction is one of relief. Turns out I am not hallucinating, which by the way, happens more often than any sailor would care to admit while we are out sailing. Sometimes we hear dogs barking. Sometimes we see our crew mates sitting atop our solar panels when she is supposed to be off-watch sleeping. This time, though, the strange and wonderful scenery set before us is not a hallucination, or at least it is one Andrew and I share together.
The sky is inky black, with no moon at all. The white-silver smudge of milky way streaks across the sky like usual, and stars spackle the remaining area of God’s black canvas. But, from horizon-to-horizon, the sea had taken on a soft glow-blue. Light from below reflected against Sonrisa's sails, making them a soft grey. When it first started, my eyes and mind could not adjust. Daylight from below, dark of night above?
I tried to get a real picture, but it was too dark to capture with Sonrisa rocking and rolling as she does. So, please enjoy this “artist’s rendition” instead.
“What is that???” Andrew says.
I don't know. Neither of us know.
“Is it a phosphorescence bloom?" I ask. It could be, but as both of us peer at the water over Sonrisa's side for a closer look, we could see the usual neon green sparks rolling off Sonrisa’s bow wake like they always do. If it were one large phosphorescence bloom, would we still be seeing the small individual sparks lighting up, too? Maybe.
“Where is google when you need it?" I ask.
Andrew admires the scene for a few minutes more, and then feeling the fatigue of four days of sailing and his off-watch sleep schedule keeping him, he ducks below to return to sleep.
We'd prepared as well for this passage as any we've done before. Five years of practice now gives us a solid checklist to rely upon and some mental training to remember when the nerves start to rattle my bones. Nonetheless, we knew we'd be rusty after laying over in the Seychelles for 352 days. “2.5 % of my whole lifetime!” As Andrew likes to remind me.
So, we tossed a nip of rum into the sea to thank Neptune for his hospitality to date and requesting he allow us to passage in safety this coming year. Then, we made Sonrisa ready.
"We'd better get our anchor up and get out there before this squall hits," Andrew says as he surveys the black clouds sliding into Beau Vallon through the valley of mountain side.
“Indeed,” I took my place behind the wheel and then laughed as a deluge of rain annoyed the cat and doused us all.
“Sea legs” are a real thing, and they take constant contditioning to keep. When you have them, walking around while at sea feels normal, like walking around on land. When you do not have them, every step feels off-kilter. Gravity operates in an unpredictable way. Sometimes, you feel heavy and pressed downward into the floor; other times it feels as though you might lift off and float away. These sensations alternate on the crest and trough of waves, which, if the waves were consistent wouldn't be too bad. However, often at sea, you get multi-directional wave patterns. On this passage, we had 3-4 meter waves from the South East and 2-3 meter waves from the South, and together, they were pushing Sonrisa around in an erratic motion my legs/body struggled to understand. Andrew was slightly better off, but even hanging out in a calm anchorage will weaken your sea legs. I knew it would be like this. A few deep breaths and consistent dosing of promethazine kept my patience in tact.
Sonrisa, for her part, was raring to get to sea and she needed very little tending. The South East Indian Ocean trade winds are well established right now giving us consistent pressure in both strength and direction. We set our main sail to its smallest size, put out our smallest headsail, then added or subtracted the bigger head sail (the Genoa) as needed to account for the occasional squalls heading our way. We saw no other boats - either by sight or by our instruments - for the entire passage until we reached within 30 miles of our destination. This is a good thing, as it means there is less likelihood of a collision out at sea. And so, the air of contentment filled Sonrisa's sails as much or more than the wind.
This left Andrew, Katherine Hepburn and I, to accept the heaving, lurching, and booming waves against our hull as “life“ until we could reach the other side. As it often does, it took all of us two days to acclimate. Katherine Hepburn spent those two days huddled in the stern bunk, hiding behind the ditch bag with wide-eyes and a concerned scowl. But eventually, she realized everything is okay and she took residency in her shelf next to the companionway door. She would wake up, stretch, then climb atop our laps to snuggle and purr every few hours. She seemed to enjoy the 24-hour watch cycle, knowing someone would be awake to give her pats anytime she pleased. She also kept a keen nose out, alerting us immediately to any flying fish that may have jumped aboard. She would “mow” her fool head off until we went to retrieve the errant fish that she may crush it with her jowls.
By day four our seasickness abated, and Andrew was in the mood to cook. That evening, he decided to make spaghetti bolognaise, our pasta water boiled in a gourmet-salt solution known as sea water. This might sound gross if you think about sea water you draw along the shoreline, but when you are thousands of miles from any land, the ocean is crystal clear and pure. Andrew had zero compunction about pouring it into his pot and boiling it until his penne noodles were the perfect flavor and al dente texture. I admit, it made a lovely pasta, and I didn't think twice about it.
…until the ocean started glowing.
Being at sea is both peaceful and fearsome at the same time. This beautiful phenomena was no different. A warning we hear every now and then kept echoing in my mind: “If the sea does something strange, run away." We hear this the islands of the world over in the context of tsunami warnings. Tsunamis cause the ocean to recede far into the distance right before it all rushes back in and covers the coastline in water. Tourists witnessing this event often walk out to see it closer, but that is the exact wrong strategy to take. On this night, I kept thinking "the sea is acting very strange...”
My mind was sorting through possibilities. I know about phosphorescence. They are the small algae that glow green when disturbed. Could they be creating this enormous light event? What else could it be?
I imagine one of those strange "lightbulb" fish with gnarly teeth scientists have found in deep, dark otherwise lifeless ocean 20,000 feet deep. Maybe a giant one is glowing and lighting up the whole sea as far as I could see in all directions? (Unlikely, but a funny scenario to think about.) I check the chart and see we are indeed sailing over a stretch of ocean floor 15,000 feet beneath us.
Maybe its a radiation plume from India?
Then, I noticed a string of small, battery powered Christmas lights we have strung in Sonrisa's cockpit were occasionally flickering and glowing - though turned off and batteries dead.
…
…
. . .
Has anyone seen the TV Series “Stranger Things?"
Well, if not, suffice it to say it's scary and it involves dangerous critters from another dimension messing with humans and causing Christmas lights to flicker.
Mostly, I just enjoyed the view, though. I'd sit on Sonrisa's cockpit combings looking out at the globe of stars and the white foam curling across the incandescent ocean and wonder how long it would last. Would it gradually fade? Or, will we sail out to have the ocean turn from light to pitch darkness as if a switch turned off?
This picture is an example of the usual blackness the sea takes on as light falls. It certainly usually does not glow.
This phenomena continued through Andrew's watch. When the sun rose, you could no longer see anything unusual and upon nightfall of Day 5, everything was back to normal. It makes me smile to think of all the strange things the Ocean is up to when we are not there to see it. And, it felt like a real privilege to sail across this stretch of ocean at this very time. What are the chances? When the world is so big, the ocean so vast, and our time at sea so miniscule in the scope of our days? It felt like a gift from the sea to say "welcome back.”
The last few days of the passage were champagne sailing at its best. The waves died down, we were acclimated to sea, and the sunsets glowed more and more red as we neared the woodsmoke of land. After seven days total, we sailed into the port of Zanzibar alive with all manner of sea-going vessels and people. We enjoyed the approaching skyline of forts and stonetown built ages ago by Arab traders. The tingling anticipation of exploration igniting every nerve in our bodies, producing that new-landfall high we’ve so longed for the last year. We can't wait to see what's here.
But first thing is first!
(Immigration) and then! A “New Anchorage Beer” with Pete and Jen
[UPDATE]: When we first returned to land, I googled to see if I could figure out what this glowing ocean situation was. I found very little, maybe an algae bloom? Then, in November of 2021, articles started being published about a scientist out of Colorado named Steven Miller who was studying this very phenomenon. It’s called a “Milky Sea”. I was contacted by another sailor who had been chatting with Steven, and she connected me with him as well to give him the scoop on what it looked like and where exactly in our passage it happened! I don’t know if I helped at all, but it was fun to talk to someone studying this strange event!
Click here to go read an article about Steven’s studies if you are interested in reading more!
I sent Steven this image of our route chart. Our Milky Sea happened where I added the grey bracket between Day 4 and Day 5. It started at approximately 9:00 pm on August 4, 2021 and lasted until sunrise. It would have started at approximately 06.18' South and 44.57' East and by morning, we would have sailed through to about 06.29' South and 44.11' East.