Escape Fiction

In order to withdraw temporarily from the responsibilities, tensions, and sometimes boredom of everyday life, many people turn to such therapeutic pursuits as light reading, soothing music, or simple daydreaming.  A typical bus or train on its afternoon commuter run is filled with people reading books, listening to music, and staring out the window.  My own withdrawal takes a somewhat different form, but it still works very effectively.

My son Michael often wears a tee shirt bearing the slogan, “Keep calm, and imagine a place.”  Taking this counsel to heart, I not only imagine but remember many places to which I’ve traveled, and in my mind’s eye, I see them again and enjoy the pleasant memories of them.  One spot in particular returns frequently to mind, and I imagine spending a day off from work there.

Located on the North Shore of Long Island, Port Jefferson is a busy and picturesque municipality at one end of a beautiful natural harbor.  Shops, restaurants, a hotel, a park, and the ferry terminal fill the downtown area.  When the ferries are in port, they dominate the skyline and command the town’s attention.  Far larger than everything ashore combined, these vessels, like great works of art, naturally turn the eyes of pedestrians to themselves and compel those passing by to stop and stare at them.  On a busy day these ships arrive and depart hourly.  I’ve watched them for brief periods on a few occasions, but I’ve often thought that I could easily spend an entire day watching them come and go.  Until this opportunity presents itself, however, the thought of such a pleasant day serves as my escape fiction, as temporary relief from “the prosaic severity of the daily task that gives bread.”[1]

On this imaginary day off, I take the first train to Port Jefferson and arrive at 8:00am.  The station sits a mile and a quarter inland from the waterfront, about 25 minutes’ walk, mostly through a quiet residential neighborhood.  Traveling light, I carry only a small shoulder bag containing my camera, notebook, and picnic lunch.  At the docks, I get comfortable on the wooden pier in front of Danford’s Hotel and Marina and fire up the digital camera.  The Grand Republic is entering Port Jefferson Harbor through the inlet from the sound, and this grand event must be recorded.

On the summer schedule, each one-way voyage across the sound lasts an hour and a quarter.  An arriving vessel docks in Port Jefferson at fifteen minutes before each hour, takes fifteen minutes to offload and backload passengers and vehicles, and then departs on the hour.  In the case of the now arriving Grand Republic, she docks at 8:45am, sails at 9:00am, arrives in Bridgeport at 10:15am, and sails again at 10:30am.  This predictable schedule is followed precisely by the three ferries on the route.  In three hours, then, three different ships arrive at and depart from Port Jefferson, and after that the cycle repeats itself.

The Grand Republic slows as she gracefully approaches the dock.  To further check her progress and ensure a smooth landing, her engines are momentarily reversed, and a churning propeller wash gathers around her stern.  Gently, she touches the dock and is made fast.   With her bow doors now open, the ramp is set in place, and disembarkation begins.  The pier now becomes a beehive of activity.  A steady stream of vehicular traffic spills out of the ship and onto the streets which bear it away.  Pedestrians trailing suitcases on wheels go ashore from the stern gangway and fan out toward waiting taxis and bus stops.  A few cross East Broadway and set out for the railroad station.

When the exodus is complete, the process reverses itself.  The lineup of cars waiting on the pier now snakes its way aboard the ship and disappears into the cavernous cargo bay.  Pedestrians hike up the gangway.  A few moments later passengers gather on the upper decks to soak up the sun and take in the view.  The loading is done quickly and efficiently.  At precisely 9:00am the Grand Republic blows her whistle and backs away from the dock.  Propeller wash again churns up around the stern and along the sides of the ship.  When well clear of the pier, she turns and backs down to starboard.  The engines are now put ahead to propel her forward and to port.  When this maneuver is complete, the Grand Republic settles onto a north-northwesterly heading and proceeds along the channel, through the inlet, and out to the open sound.  Another voyage to Connecticut begins.

Watching the Grand Republic from Danford’s pier, I record her arrival and departure movements with my camera, jot down some observations in my notebook, and review a few points in the company brochure.  Built in 2003 in Florida, the Grand Republic measures 300 feet long by 52 feet wide, carries 120 automobiles and 1,000 passengers, and is the second ship to bear this name.  Her fleet mates, the Park City, named for the City of Bridgeport, and the P.T. Barnum, named for the circus entrepreneur who was also the first president of the ferry line, date to 1986 and 1998, respectively.  The P.T. Barnum matches the Grand Republic in dimensions and capacity.  The Park City, however, is slightly smaller at 280 feet in length and 47 feet in beam with a capacity of 95 vehicles and 1,000 passengers.[2]

Looking up again, I see the Park City herself now coming through the inlet.  As she slows and enters the sheltered harbor, I begin a new series of photographs and record this second arrival, discharge, reload, and departure sequence of the day.  In the fifteen minutes allotted for the task, the exchange of passengers and vehicles is completed.  Then, starting at precisely 10:00am, the Park City blows her whistle, backs away from the pier, and maneuvers her way across the harbor and through the inlet, bound once more for Connecticut.

The Park City is followed soon afterwards by the P.T. Barnum.  This third arrival, cargo handling, and departure cycle runs as smoothly and efficiently as the first two, and at 11:00am the P.T. Barnum begins her return voyage to Connecticut.  With the three ships of the fleet now come and gone in under three hours in the bright summer sunshine and photographed on their port bows and starboard quarters, it’s been richly rewarding morning.  Now it’s time for lunch.

Retiring to the small waterfront park in front of Danford’s Hotel, I pause at the statue of the merchant seaman that gazes seaward.  Few such likenesses of merchant seamen exist, and that makes this one all the more special.  On the statue’s pedestal John Masefield’s famous lines are inscribed:

I must [go] down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied.[3]

It’s always refreshing to know that someone else feels the same way about the sea as I do!

From the park I cross over to the ferry terminal building.  Finding it surprisingly quiet inside, I take a seat by one of the large windows that face seaward and eat my lunch as the Grand Republic returns to port.  She repeats the same sequence of arrival, cargo handling, and departure of three hours ago.  While splurging on chocolate ice cream for dessert, I make some notes in my book and photograph this grand ship from her starboard side, a different perspective from earlier today.  Then, with a noon blast on her whistle, she heads out once more for Connecticut.

I head out, too, for the nearby wooden dock of the Port Jefferson Marina, just to the west of the ferry pier.  From this new vantage point, I observe and photograph the arrivals and departures of the Park City and the P.T. Barnum with the new starboard bow perspective.  Next, the cycle begins anew with the return of the Grand Republic, now at close to 3:00pm.   The Park City and the P.T. Barnum come and go again, too, an hour and two hours later.  I move among a few viewing points in this time to get pictures of the ships from several angles.  Finally, with the P.T. Barnum passing through the inlet and sailing for Connecticut again shortly after 5:00pm, I reluctantly decide that it’s time to walk back to the railroad station.      

On the leisurely half-hour hike to the station, I contemplate the course of the day: three ships, nine arrivals and departures, excellent photographic opportunities, beautiful sunny and warm weather, and uninterrupted peace and quiet in a lovely little seaport where the land, sea, and sky converge harmoniously to inspire the mind and soothe the soul.  Port Jefferson proves to be the perfect place to spend an idle but productive day.  I learned this principle from the Italians in my Rigel and Waccamaw days.  The sweetness of doing nothing—dolce far niente—but spending the time well, even constructively and for a higher purpose.

I leave Port Jefferson on the train at 6:00pm.  The ride westward toward the city is pleasant but anticlimactic.  At some point along the way, I leave the realm of escape fiction and return to the workaday world and its daily grind.  My boss calls over to me.  It’s almost time to punch out and go home, he tells me, and then he asks if I’ve done everything on the list.  The day has gone by quickly!

Some well-meaning folks may chide me for my idle thoughts and seeming inattention to my work,  but I would counter with the classical Jewish teaching that holds:

the Lord searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts: if thou seek him, he will be found of thee (1 Chron. 28:9).

I have long sought the Lord in both the vast reaches and the coastal shallows of the sea, and he has always been there for me.  Furthermore, he invites all of us:

Draw near unto me and I will draw near unto you; seek me diligently and ye shall find me (D&C 88:63).

Whether aboard a ship at sea, along the harbor front, or in the memory and imagination of these locales, our thoughts, intentions, and spiritual yearnings are known to God, and he abides with us wherever and however we seek him.

Now for some photographs taken on real days off!  We start at the railroad station, where Port Jefferson's heritage of the sea is commemorated by the weather vane on the cupola.  This picture was taken on Friday, August 27, 2010.

Next we go to the wooden dock at Danford's Hotel and Marina.  This structure serves as an observation platform when we watch the fleet's arrivals and departures.  This view at low tide is from the stern of the Park City on Monday, September 11, 2013.

So close to the action!  In this sequence of photographs we witness the arrival of the Grand Republic on Friday, August 27, 2010.

 

 

Between ferries on the same day, we visit the park in front of Danford's Hotel.  This statue of a merchant seaman overlooks the waterfront.  I'm very pleased that Port Jefferson honors its maritime heritage and my chosen profession with this likeness of a young man of the sea.

 

Returning now to the fleet, we see traffic waiting to board the P. T. Barnum on Tuesday, May 27, 2013.

 

Finally, my favorite sequence of photographs.  The Park City backs away from her dock, turns around, and begins her voyage overseas to Connecticut on Wednesday, August 2, 2017.

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[1] Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim, Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1899, p. 6.

[2] Information from The Bridgeport and Port Jefferson Steamboat Company, available online at www.88844ferry.com.

[3] John Masefield, “Sea Fever,” in Salt-Water Ballads, New York: The MacMillan Company, 1913, p. 59; reprinted by BiblioBazaar, LLC., n.p., n.d.  My mother, a career educator in East Meadow, Long Island, taught this poem in several of her junior high school English literature classes.

The Last Train Home

In my present employment, I have the dubious opportunity to hear canned music for much of my workday.  Most of this stuff simply goes in one ear and then promptly out the other, but occasionally a line of lyrics becomes lodged in my mind.  One such verse is, “Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight.”[1]  Hearing this line repeatedly leads to memorizing it, but more significantly, it sets a train of thought in motion.

Many times in the last several years have I taken “the last train home tonight.”  This last train left Boston South Station at 9:30pm every evening, made most of the stops along the way, and arrived in New York Penn Station at 2:30am.  I rode this train several times each year when I returned to my childhood home to visit and check up on my aging parents.  After a long and busy workday, I rode the Boston Express bus into South Station and then got on the train, and this schedule worked out quite well.  The bus was always a great soporific.  When it left Nashua, I fell asleep, but I always woke up just in time as it neared South Station.  The Amtrak train was even more comfortable.  I slept most of the way to New York, but I always awakened briefly at key points along the Shore Line that brought back memories for me.

The first of these spots was along the shore of Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island.  As the train rushed along, I sleepily glanced out the window at the black sky and blacker water and momentarily remembered sailing on this great bay aboard the tugboat Charger as she hauled the gasoline barge Interstate 35 toward Providence.  Then I went back to sleep.

The second wake-up took place as the train stopped in New London, Connecticut.  Once again gazing sleepily out the window, I noticed most of the Cross Sound Ferry fleet tied up for the night at the floodlit piers.  The larger vessels  John H and Cape Henlopen always stood out because of their size, but after a moment the Susan Anne and the Mary Ellen and others came into view as well.  As the train loaded and discharged passengers, I recalled the many voyages the family had made aboard these vessels when driving between New Hampshire and Long Island.  Then, with my mind comfortably at sea, I went back to sleep as the train eased away from the station.

The third seaside wake-up spot was in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and this one was always very brief.  Following the station stop, the train rolled past the dock used by the Bridgeport and Port Jefferson ferry.  Often one of this line’s three ships was spending the night there.  I usually woke up slightly for a moment, just long enough to peer out the window and maybe see the Grand Republic or the Park City and recall the occasional voyages I had made on this mid-Sound route.  Then I quickly fell asleep again.

At last, after a quiet and restful journey, the train reached the Hell Gate Bridge in New York.  Wide awake at this point and getting ready to disembark, I took in the grand view of the East River from this landmark span.  To the west the water led to the skyscrapers of Manhattan; to the east it wended its way toward Fort Schuyler and beyond into Long Island Sound.  I remembered that I had sailed this route numerous times aboard the Charger-Interstate 35 combination many years ago  Next, and it always seemed too soon, the train pulled into the subterranean caverns of the Pennsylvania Station, and the peaceful and pleasant nocturnal railroad voyage ended.

Penn Station at 2:30 in the morning was everything the ride along the Shore Line was not.  Incessantly crowded and noisy, hot and humid in summer, cold and raw in winter, it always proved that New York really is the city that never sleeps, although a few passengers, myself included, sometimes dozed off between trains.  Fortunately, the wait for the Long Island train was never very long.  After an anticlimactic ride to Mineola, I usually disembarked amid a horde of late night party-goers.  Separating myself from this crowd and threading my way through the labyrinth of modern high-rises and parking garages that now comprise downtown suburban Mineola, I made the ten-minute walk to the old family home and usually arrived about 4:00am.  The odyssey of “the last train home tonight” was then concluded.

I always entered the house as quietly as possible through the garage and kitchen.  If the dog didn’t wake up and raise a rumpus, I went back to sleep for a while in the family room.  Eventually the dog always did wake up, though, and then my father, hearing the commotion, came out to investigate and then discovered me.  Usually, he had forgotten that I was coming.  Later, about 7:00am, my mother would wake up.  Mom never forgot that I was coming, and she was always elated to see her vagabond son again.  It was a happy way to start her day, and her enthusiasm always made the nighttime traveling worthwhile.

Typically, a visit of two or three days’ duration followed my early morning arrival.  These were always pleasant occasions.  With both my parents in their nineties, however, we all knew that their meters were ticking, counting down the limited time they had left.  When my visit with them ended, I usually took an afternoon train back to Boston.  The next day, I went back to work.

My last journey aboard the last train took place on the night of Tuesday, October 31, and Wednesday, November 1, 2017.  I arrived promptly on Mom’s 99^th birthday.  My son Michael arrived by air from Europe for the occasion, too.  That was a very special day for Mom, truly a very happy last birthday for her.  Now, with her gone, the house sold, and my father in assisted living, it’s doubtful that I’ll ever take “the last train home tonight” again.  These journeys are now memories, as were the shipboard voyages that I always recalled while on the train.

The highlight of these railroad journeys, whether made by day or night, was always the sight of the sea and the vessels that plied it.  My voyages aboard ship, first as an employee and later as a passenger with my family, were important events.  Now they are important and precious memories.  Likewise, the memories of family gatherings, special family occasions, and deceased family members are important and precious, too.  While we cannot repeat the past, we can relive it in memory and share the happiness we find there with others.  As the scriptures counsel us:

                        Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations:

                        ask thy father, and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell

                        thee (Deut. 32:7).

But simply remembering and hearing oral histories often prove insufficient in the long term.  Thus we have the more recent scriptural injunction to “continue writing and making a history of all the important things” (D&C 69:2).  Since going to sea was—and still is—very important to me, I took both notes and pictures along the way.  Now I’m glad I did.

There is so much here to be thankful for: the memories of shipboard voyages and families, the writing and photographs that preserve them, and a random line of canned music that releases a flood tide of these magnificent memories.

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[1] Al Stewart, “Time Passages,” 1978, found at www.azlyrics.com.

The Middle Fleet

The three ships of The Bridgeport & Port Jefferson Steamboat Company daily cross the middle of Long Island Sound.  About midway along their route they pass the prominent Stratford Shoal Light, an important navigational aid built on a rock amid otherwise fairly deep water.  The line’s terminals in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and Port Jefferson, Long Island, provide convenient access to railroad stations.  Thus, I can travel by train from Boston to Bridgeport, enjoy an interlude at sea aboard the ferry, and then continue the rail journey to the family headquarters on Long Island.  The docks are not as conveniently situated for automobile access, at least for a family driving from New Hampshire.  For this reason, then, the Bridgeport ferry has served as a secondary route for us over the years.  Nonetheless, the several voyages we have taken with it have all been very pleasant and enjoyable occasions.

Nostalgic, too.  I had traveled these mid-sound waters in the summer of 1977 as an apprentice aboard the tugboat Charger.  She had routinely hauled the gasoline barge Interstate 35 past the Stratford Shoal Light to New Haven, Connecticut, and Providence, Rhode Island.  These and other vessels have all come and gone, but the lighthouse remains constant, standing as a mute witness to maritime history.  If the light could talk, what tales it would tell us!

Over several years, I have produced an amateur photographic record of maritime history when sailing with the mid-sound fleet, and sometimes, when just watching the ships from shore.  From this modest collection I have selected a dozen of my favorites:

Our two oldest children aboard the southbound Grand Republic on Sunday afternoon, August 8, 1993.  This vessel sailed between Bridgeport and Port Jefferson for 20 years.  In 2003 she was sold and became the Mary Ellen on the New London to Orient Point route.

The Park City is maneuvering into her berth in Bridgeport on Wednesday, August 25, 2010, in a light rain under a ceiling of nimbostratus clouds.  This view is from the elevated railroad station in Bridgeport, five minutes' walk from the ferry terminal.

The new Grand Republic arrives in Port Jefferson on Friday, August 27, 2010.

A close-up of the bridge of the new Grand Republic as she glides past us on the same arrival.

The pilot house of the Park City as she heads south from Bridgeport on Monday, September 16, 2013.

Ships that meet at sea.  From the southbound Park City we see the Grand Republic pass the Stratford Shoal Light on her way north to Bridgeport.

As the Park City approaches the dock in Port Jefferson we see the P.T. Barnum moored to the opposite side of the pier.  A maintenance crew is scaling her vehicle decks.

A view of the serene water of Long Island Sound.  We are looking eastward from the southbound P.T. Barnum on Tuesday, May 27, 2014.

From the P.T. Barnum we watch as the Park City passes by on her northbound voyage.

Following my disembarkation in Port Jefferson, the P.T. Barnum unloads vehicles.  The cars waiting in line will then board the ship for the next voyage to Bridgeport.

From the southbound Grand Republic, we see the Stratford Shoal Lighthouse on Tuesday, September 7, 2014.

The northbound Park City passes by to starboard.  This is unusual.  Mostly the ferries pass port side to port side, but the Grand Republic sailed more to the east than is customary in order to avoid a westbound tug and barge.

Finally, the view from the stern of the Grand Republic.  A peaceful place to rest and enjoy the beauty of the sea and sky and contemplate the majesty of Creation.

A Parade of Ships

The ferry Susan Anne stood at the dock in Orient Point, Long Island, on Friday, July 15, 2016.  She was loading the last few vehicles and passengers for the 9:00am departure for New London, Connecticut.  We had a reservation for the 10:00am sailing, but we had arrived early because of better than expected traffic.  With about an hour to spare, then, I left the car and walked down to the narrow beach by the dock and started taking pictures.  The Susan Anne glowed in the bright sunlight.  A few minutes after 9:00, she sounded her whistle and eased away from her berth.  Once clear of the pilings she backed to starboard, put her engines ahead, and set an eastward course.  On her way out, she passed the incoming Mary Ellen, the vessel we would soon board for our scheduled 10:00am departure.  As I photographed the two ferries maneuvering, it occurred to me that I just might get pictures of the entire fleet that day.  At the very least, it would be worth a try.

Aboard the now docked Mary Ellen a few minutes later, I roamed the weather decks, camera in hand, and resumed my quest.  Soon the Caribbean Ferry arrived and backed into the adjacent berth.  Then the Sea Jet came along and waited patiently for the Mary Ellen to depart.  A traffic jam on the Orient Point waterfront—three ships vying for two docks!

At 10:00am the Master of the Mary Ellen appeared on the starboard bridge wing.  Gazing upon the assembly of shipping with his hand on the propeller and rudder controls, he looked almost god-like as he surveyed the scene around him and eased the ship away from the dock.  He did in fact look every inch the fully qualified and licensed Merchant Marine officer in his black trousers, white shirt, and four gold stripes on each shoulder board.  More importantly, he displayed great professional skill as he maneuvered the Mary Ellen on her departure.  An hour and a half later, he would display even more shiphandling skill in bringing the vessel to her dock in crowded New London.  For now, though, the Mary Ellen headed east on pristine blue water toward Plum Gut as the John H came in.  Another beautiful day on the sea, in my mind the pinnacle of all Creation.

The Mary Ellen and her running mates formed the parade of ships that spent the day crossing the eastern end of Long Island Sound, carrying automobiles, trucks, and passengers between New York and New England.  In our short voyage, we witnessed the workings of the whole fleet.  Beginning then with the Susan Anne, here are the day’s portraits of the ships of the Cross Sound Ferry:

The Susan Anne prepares for departure at the dock in Orient Point.

The outbound Susan Anne meets the arriving Mary Ellen a short distance off the beach at Orient Point.

The Mary Ellen approaches the dock at Orient Point.

The diminutive Caribbean Ferry approaches the dock at Orient Point, seen from the upper deck of the much larger Mary Ellen.

The Sea Jet waits for the Mary Ellen to depart.  Then she will dock in the space just vacated.

As the Mary Ellen sails toward New London, she first passes the John H bound in the opposite direction.  Here the John H has come through the Plum Gut and is passing the Plum Gut Light.

A close-up of the Plum Gut Light.

In open water, the Cape Henlopen is the next ferry sailing toward Orient Point.

Still in open water, the New London follows on her voyage to Orient Point.

Finally, we see the Susan Anne again, leaving New London now and heading back to Orient Point.

The Green Flash

The General Hoyt S. Vandenberg steamed southeast at a leisurely eleven knots across the South Atlantic between Ascension Island and South Africa in late September of 1979.  A clear sky, a mild temperature, excellent visibility, and a calm and bright blue sea served as the daily standard in these subequatorial latitudes.  Classified as a range instrumentation vessel, the General Vandenberg conducted vital national defense missions for the federal government.  For this purpose, she carried an army of technicians who worked with a large assortment of electronic gadgets. Most of the crew, myself included, knew little or nothing of what these technicians actually did.  We just sailed the ship for them. 

In the late afternoon one day, several technicians gathered on the outside deck near the starboard bridge wing to watch the Sun set.  The second mate, an older man named George Hebb, stood on the bridge wing, and seeing the technicians gathering, called down to them: “Get some binoculars and watch carefully as the Sun goes down.  The conditions look good today.  You should see the green flash.”

Dumbfounded by this suggestion, they asked George what he was talking about.  He then explained the green flash to them.  In response, they exchanged puzzled expressions with raised eyebrows and laughed at him.  Finally, one of the technicians asked him bluntly, “Have you been drinking?”

“No!!  I have not been drinking!!” thundered the insulted second mate at his skeptical audience.  “What do you take me for?  A Bowery bum?  You guys want to be called scientists and you don’t know how the world works?  Just watch when the Sun sets and you’ll see what I’m talking about!!”

Normally a very congenial and mild mannered man, George Hebb seldom got annoyed. His outburst silenced the “scientists,” however, and they waited and watched the Sun quietly.  Binoculars in hand, I waited and watched, too, as did George on the bridge wing above.  The Sun set slowly, and as predicted, just when the upper limb approached the horizon, the small remaining section of the Sun turned bright green for perhaps two or three seconds.  Then the  Sun set completely, and it was all over.

The assembled technicians had seen the green flash, and so they now believed what the second mate had told them.  Also, they no longer questioned his sobriety.  Vindication!  But their initial reaction on hearing about the green flash was actually quite typical.  Most folks have never heard of the green flash and have never seen it, and as ignorant people often do, they ridicule what they do not know and have not experienced.  Thirty-seven years after this event aboard the General Vandenberg, the green flash has new credibility in the form of a Wikipedia article[1] and YouTube videos[2].  I’ll stand by the simple and straightforward description set down in the American Practical Navigator, however:

As light from the sun passes through the atmosphere, it is refracted.  Since the amount of bending is slightly different for each color, separate images of the sun are formed in each color of the spectrum.  However, the difference is so slight that the effect is not usually noticeable.  At the horizon, where refraction is maximum, the greatest difference, which occurs between violet at one end of the spectrum and red at the other, is about 10 seconds of arc.  At latitudes of the United States, about 0.7 second of time is needed for the sun to change altitude by this amount when it is near the horizon.  The red image, being bent least by refraction, is the first to set and last to rise.  The shorter wave blue and violet colors are scattered most by the atmosphere, giving it its characteristic blue color.  Thus, as the sun sets, the green image may be the last of the colored images to drop out of sight.  If the red, orange, and yellow images are below the horizon, and the blue and violet light is scattered and absorbed, the upper rim of the green image is the only part seen, and the sun appears green.  This is the green flash.

The phenomenon is not observed at each sunrise or sunset, but under suitable conditions is far more common than generally supposed.  Conditions favorable to observation of the green flash are a sharp horizon, clear atmosphere, a temperature inversion, and an attentive observer.  Since these conditions are more frequently met when the horizon is formed by sea than by land, the phenomenon is more common at sea.[3]

I have seen the green flash many times aboard several ships.  Day after day aboard the General Vandenberg in the South Atlantic, the green flash was clearly visible.  Aboard the Rigel and the Waccamaw in the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean, the green flash was a fairly common event.  I’ve never seen it in the Pacific or the Caribbean, though, nor in the far North Atlantic or the North Sea.  But each time the green flash occurs, it is a magnificent sight to behold, however briefly.  The green flash proves the point that:

They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters;

These see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep (Ps. 107:23-24).

How fortunate my shipmates and I were to repeatedly witness such a spectacle!  Such a simple and small thing—the last sliver of the Sun changing color from orange to green for the last few seconds of its setting.  Then it disappears below the horizon, and the twilight gradually turns into darkness.  This is the daily transition from daylight to nighttime, and the green flash plays a small but significant role in the drama.  The “wonders in the deep” indeed!

After my Merchant Marine career drew to a close, I thought that I would most likely never see the green flash again.  And, in fact, I did not see it for many years.  Then, quite unexpectedly and in a very unlikely place, I did once again enjoy this opportunity.

Miss Patty and I sailed aboard the ferry John H from New London, Connecticut, to Orient Point, Long Island, on Friday, November 1, 2013.  The ship left New London at 5:00pm, when the Sun was low in the western sky.  While the vessel was crossing the eastern end of Long Island Sound, the Sun cast its low altitude light on a scattered collection of altocumulus and stratocumulus clouds.  This illuminated the sky in a wild assortment of vivid blue, yellow, orange, and pink.  It was a truly spectacular sight.  I remained out on deck to watch this display, and to see the Sun set as well.  As the Sun dropped closer to the horizon, I began to wonder if there would be any chance of seeing the green flash.  The conditions looked good for it.  The air was clear, the visibility excellent, the horizon sharp, but somehow Long Island Sound seemed an unlikely place for it.

Nevertheless, I waited and watched as the Sun approached the horizon and started to set.  Even without any green it was still a magnificent and breathtaking sight.  Then, as the upper limb came down closer to the horizon, I looked more carefully, even to the point of eyestrain, hoping but not expecting to see the flash once again.  Finally, it happened.  Small and faint and fast, the green started in the corners and in a second filled the center of the remaining Sun.  Then it all disappeared as the Sun set completely.  It was quite literally a flash.  It lasted at most a second and a half.  The twilight lingered for a while as the now set Sun illuminated the clouds from below the horizon.  This faded gradually as night came over the sea.  When the John H docked in Orient Point at 6:30pm, the sky was fully dark.

The green flash demonstrates a few points above and beyond the laws of physics as they are described in Bowditch.  First, it illustrates the folly of human wisdom.  The technicians aboard the General Vandenberg laughed at a fully competent licensed officer who knew his astronomy, but he had the proverbial last laugh when Nature irrefutably proved him right.  More importantly, this episode proves one of the laws of truth.  If something is true, then it is true even if someone doesn’t believe it; even if no one believes it, it remains true.

Finally, the green flash speaks to us spiritually.  As one of the many beauties of the natural world, it bears mute testimony to the scientific and artistic genius of a divine Creator.  It calls to mind the Psalmist’s famous exclamation, “The heavens declare the glory of God” (Ps. 19:1), a thought that occurs to me often when I gaze skyward.  No mere human could design, let alone create, the world and the universe that we inhabit.  And yet, we are privileged to enjoy this beauty in the same way that we would study the work of a famous artist.  Many such studies of the heavens have been made, and they have yielded extensive scientific knowledge.  Nonetheless, there remains something transcendent and ineffable about this realm.  In the end, perhaps the best we can do is acknowledge as the Prophet did that:

The heavens were opened upon us, and [we] beheld the celestial kingdom of God, and the glory thereof (D&C 137:1).

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[1] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_flash.

[2] A few of these are very good; many are mediocre; and some are obvious fakes.

[3] Nathaniel Bowditch (original author), American Practical Navigator: An Epitome of Navigation, Volume 1, Washington, DC, Defense Mapping Agency Hydrographic Center, Publication No. 9, 1977, p. 882.  This book has been issued in many editions, revisions, and expansions  since its first publication in 1802, and has served as the standard reference work for Merchant Marine officers throughout its lifetime.  Aboard ship it is referred to simply as “Bowditch.”