Day 107 Rainbows

Tuesday, 07 August 2007

August 7, 2007 Wind 10-12 knots, Course SSE, Speed 4.5 knots, Position: 22° 58 S, 32° 37 W We have had a lot of rainbows for the last four days. I saw a vivid rainbow through a dawn drizzle that was so close to the boat, I could almost touch it. It was laying flat on the water. As it moved away with the rain, the most incredible violet laid down on top of the water at the horizon. There the sea turned a very light violet. When I looked a while later, the sea at the horizon was purple. Not a deep clear purple, but a whitish pastel purple. Within a half hour, each color of the rainbow had its turn lying on the horizon. I especially remember the green. One day when I was working up the mast, the breaking wave tops had rainbows in them, there were so many that I didn't call Soanya to see them. Yesterday, the most spectacular rainbow arched from horizon to horizon and wouldn't fit into the dimensions of the camera. It was a double rainbow and I only had to change course a little bit to drive the schooner right into it. These displays of light are some of the only colors we see on the ocean besides the sunrises and sunset and they have always meant a lot to me. I've always stopped to gaze at them with appreciation and take in their colors. We have a rainbow skylight above our bed and in the day, if we rest on the bed, the colors of the rainbow dance on us with the rhythm of the waves and the roll of the boat. Soanya's View I like rainbows just fine, but for me they were always a rare sight. That is until I started hanging out with Reid. He sees rainbows all the time and here at sea they are not that unusual. When they appear, they take the form of a half arc. Sometimes we see two of them in different places at the same time if the sky is cloudy with impending light rain. This time the rainbow, appearing at sunset, was a full arc stretching across the whole sky. I don't think I've seen a rainbow like that before. It's the kind that the Irish say has a pot of gold at the end, if you can find the end. Pot of gold or not, I take it as a sign of good fortune.