One thing that people talk about when sailing the Caribbean is the “green flash” – that elusive bit of green color that the sun shows upon sunset. So far after three months of sailing, we have seen it once. Before having seen it, when I had just heard about it, I imagined the sky turning some sort of vibrant green, like the northern lights (Swedish – norrsken). Nope, it is just a barely visible tinting of green color as the top of the sun drops into the ocean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You might wonder why it is so elusive, but there are a lot of reasons. Many of the sheltered anchorages we stay in have hills or land features that cover the view of the sea horizon, and many nights there is a low bank of clouds hovering on the horizon. You have to see the sun drop all the way down below the horizon to see the green flash. When we are in a crowded anchorage, there are boats in the way of the horizon; and sometimes another island is covering the horizon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Occasionally, we manage to put ourselves on the western edge of our anchorage, and the sky is clear. This has only happened a few times, and the most recent time a boat came and dropped anchor between us and the sunset (pictured above) and the time before a boat sailed across the horizon and managed to cover the sun just as it was setting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thus only one sighting in three months. But we will keep on looking, it is a fun evening pastime, and hopefully we will see more green flashes in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One thing that people talk about when sailing the Caribbean is the “green flash” – that elusive bit of green color that the sun shows upon sunset. So far after three months of sailing, we have seen it once. Before having seen it, when I had just heard about it, I imagined the sky turning …<\/p>\n