To a layman looking at a map, Sumatra refers to the largest and western-most island of Indonesia, split nearly in half by the equator. But to many sailors familiar with these parts of the world, "Sumatras", often plural, refer to the violent thunderstorms, or squalls, that whip across the land and sea here, and then evaporate into harmless puffy clouds nearly as quickly as they appear, leaving one in awe and in terror from the spectacular displays of nature.
Captain Alex told the crew about Sumatras as we set out of port on Day One, chuckling as he mentioned that they can be "pretty nasty". So, as I'm trying to get the basic terminology and skills of sailing down, I'm also conscious that I need to be on the look out for ship-sinking thunderstorms. No big deal.
Every night each crew member took on a three hour shift for watching and navigating the boat. Much of the time we were able to use the autopilot on the boat (curiously, sailing is much more enjoyable when the sailing is done by someone/something else), and course correct for any fishing boats or large cargo carriers that didn't seem to be giving us the right of way. Generally speaking, that left a lot of time for nighttime daydreaming and looking at the sky.
Several of my night watches had cloud free, clear skies. I would lazily stare up at familiar or unfamiliar constellations, occasionally glimpse a shooting star flash into nothing, or contemplate the enormity of the Milky Way Galaxy spliced across the sky like a wound in the darkness of space. In particular, I enjoyed seeing the Big Dipper, scoop side toward the sea, hang low in the sky at the start of the night and over several hours, watch it rotate counter-clockwise downward in a futile attempt to ladle out ocean water before morning came. I enjoyed these nights.
On one cloud free night during the full moon, I got up from a restless sleep to pee off the port side, and realized that the ocean swells lacked the glimmer of moonlight I remembered when I went to bed. Captain Alex, on starboard for his night watch, said, "Hey, look at the moon." And before I even turned to look around I was saying, "Is this an eclipse?" to which Alex said, "I hope so." It was in fact. And despite being the 21st century where all school kids learn about the motion of the planets, it was a little unnerving to witness an unexpected (at least to me) eclipse. I felt like asking the absurd question, "Maybe its not coming back?" just because a meteorologist or astronomer didn't tell me about it first.
Over the next 45 minutes, I watched the silver-yellow moon wane from an oblong disc to a crescent and eventually a dark red ball faintly flickering with orange and yellow (perhaps projections of solar flares from the sun), making me think of Sauron's eye in Lord of the Rings. Then continued getting darker and darker until it was barely noticeable with the background. Alex had a cold, so I took over the rest of his shift expecting to watch the suspenseful climax of when the moon re-emerged, but a lone cloud came along and cut the show off early. I grabbed a spot to rest in the cockpit next to Alex. "The moon is gone." "Oh yeah?" he said, but half asleep. "I don't think its coming back," dryly. "Maybe," he said, definitely asleep. (Spoiler alert: I saw the moon the next night, so no need to worry).
A few of these nights I saw Sumatras off in the distance -- far enough away that I didn't feel like I had to be concerned about them. I was concerned regardless, but the rational side of me pulled through. But first hand I knew that Sumatras could materialize from nothing. One afternoon, Bubbles experienced a short-lived Sumatra when it spun into existence in a matter of minutes in clear blue skies, catching everyone by surprise with the spinnaker sail up (only meant for light winds), blowing 20+ knot winds, and causing the boat to heel over to nearly 45 degrees at one point. Right around the 45 degree heel I was struggling to pull in the sail without going overboard, and with another crew members help managed to get it down with a lot of effort.
So during my last night shift on the sail to Pulau Siberut, I considered myself fortunate (I still do) that we had good weather most of the days and nights of the journey. It rained heavily once, and most of the thunderstorms passed by without issue -- although sometimes closer than comfort. Ironically, I was thinking about all this as I looked out at a wall of Sumatras in the distance lighting up the horizon, which I'd witnessed before on previous nights, and felt confident that those storms would not still be around by the time we got to where they were. I was wrong.
Slowly but surely, over the coarse of three hours they constricted on our future location. Perhaps five different Sumatras: one directly east, one south east, one in the south, one in the south west, and one in the north west. Our destination was south. The wind gradually picked up as we approached. Lightning filling the sky, though oddly most strikes were thunderless. I thought about how in school I was taught that lightning tends to strike the highest object; we were surrounded by relatively flat seas with a damn 20 meter mast. "Exposed" would be an appropriate description. Personally though, I was a little terrified, but realizing it was irrational (most fears are), I did what any brave man would do: I accepted that my shift was up and I passed off the worst to Tex. Out of sight and out of mind in the cabin, I caught some shuteye.
When I woke up around 4 am, the storms still going on, and the wind howling. The lightning flashes felt like I was looking close up at carnival lights, then leaving me in momentary blindness while my eyes adjusted back to the darkness. Alex and Tex had been up for a while, but the worst as over. We couldn't go any further on our approach into the bay of Pulau Siberut until daylight, so we hove-to, and I had the watch until 6am. The weather gradually calmed and I was able to watch a beautiful yellow and orange sunrise with a conical volcano silhouetted far off in the distance.
It was an exciting end to the last night sail I'd have on Bubbles.
Captain Alex told the crew about Sumatras as we set out of port on Day One, chuckling as he mentioned that they can be "pretty nasty". So, as I'm trying to get the basic terminology and skills of sailing down, I'm also conscious that I need to be on the look out for ship-sinking thunderstorms. No big deal.
Every night each crew member took on a three hour shift for watching and navigating the boat. Much of the time we were able to use the autopilot on the boat (curiously, sailing is much more enjoyable when the sailing is done by someone/something else), and course correct for any fishing boats or large cargo carriers that didn't seem to be giving us the right of way. Generally speaking, that left a lot of time for nighttime daydreaming and looking at the sky.
Several of my night watches had cloud free, clear skies. I would lazily stare up at familiar or unfamiliar constellations, occasionally glimpse a shooting star flash into nothing, or contemplate the enormity of the Milky Way Galaxy spliced across the sky like a wound in the darkness of space. In particular, I enjoyed seeing the Big Dipper, scoop side toward the sea, hang low in the sky at the start of the night and over several hours, watch it rotate counter-clockwise downward in a futile attempt to ladle out ocean water before morning came. I enjoyed these nights.
On one cloud free night during the full moon, I got up from a restless sleep to pee off the port side, and realized that the ocean swells lacked the glimmer of moonlight I remembered when I went to bed. Captain Alex, on starboard for his night watch, said, "Hey, look at the moon." And before I even turned to look around I was saying, "Is this an eclipse?" to which Alex said, "I hope so." It was in fact. And despite being the 21st century where all school kids learn about the motion of the planets, it was a little unnerving to witness an unexpected (at least to me) eclipse. I felt like asking the absurd question, "Maybe its not coming back?" just because a meteorologist or astronomer didn't tell me about it first.
Over the next 45 minutes, I watched the silver-yellow moon wane from an oblong disc to a crescent and eventually a dark red ball faintly flickering with orange and yellow (perhaps projections of solar flares from the sun), making me think of Sauron's eye in Lord of the Rings. Then continued getting darker and darker until it was barely noticeable with the background. Alex had a cold, so I took over the rest of his shift expecting to watch the suspenseful climax of when the moon re-emerged, but a lone cloud came along and cut the show off early. I grabbed a spot to rest in the cockpit next to Alex. "The moon is gone." "Oh yeah?" he said, but half asleep. "I don't think its coming back," dryly. "Maybe," he said, definitely asleep. (Spoiler alert: I saw the moon the next night, so no need to worry).
A few of these nights I saw Sumatras off in the distance -- far enough away that I didn't feel like I had to be concerned about them. I was concerned regardless, but the rational side of me pulled through. But first hand I knew that Sumatras could materialize from nothing. One afternoon, Bubbles experienced a short-lived Sumatra when it spun into existence in a matter of minutes in clear blue skies, catching everyone by surprise with the spinnaker sail up (only meant for light winds), blowing 20+ knot winds, and causing the boat to heel over to nearly 45 degrees at one point. Right around the 45 degree heel I was struggling to pull in the sail without going overboard, and with another crew members help managed to get it down with a lot of effort.
So during my last night shift on the sail to Pulau Siberut, I considered myself fortunate (I still do) that we had good weather most of the days and nights of the journey. It rained heavily once, and most of the thunderstorms passed by without issue -- although sometimes closer than comfort. Ironically, I was thinking about all this as I looked out at a wall of Sumatras in the distance lighting up the horizon, which I'd witnessed before on previous nights, and felt confident that those storms would not still be around by the time we got to where they were. I was wrong.
Slowly but surely, over the coarse of three hours they constricted on our future location. Perhaps five different Sumatras: one directly east, one south east, one in the south, one in the south west, and one in the north west. Our destination was south. The wind gradually picked up as we approached. Lightning filling the sky, though oddly most strikes were thunderless. I thought about how in school I was taught that lightning tends to strike the highest object; we were surrounded by relatively flat seas with a damn 20 meter mast. "Exposed" would be an appropriate description. Personally though, I was a little terrified, but realizing it was irrational (most fears are), I did what any brave man would do: I accepted that my shift was up and I passed off the worst to Tex. Out of sight and out of mind in the cabin, I caught some shuteye.
When I woke up around 4 am, the storms still going on, and the wind howling. The lightning flashes felt like I was looking close up at carnival lights, then leaving me in momentary blindness while my eyes adjusted back to the darkness. Alex and Tex had been up for a while, but the worst as over. We couldn't go any further on our approach into the bay of Pulau Siberut until daylight, so we hove-to, and I had the watch until 6am. The weather gradually calmed and I was able to watch a beautiful yellow and orange sunrise with a conical volcano silhouetted far off in the distance.
It was an exciting end to the last night sail I'd have on Bubbles.
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