Fata Morgana Mirage event- Channel Islands in the sky.

[Bepi]

I recently took my children (17 and 20) on their first passage to Two Harbors. We departed January 15 from L.A. Harbor In the early afternoon and about halfway across we observed all of the Channel Islands from Anacapa outward...upside down in the sky. These Islands are well beyond normal sea level sight due to the curvature of the earth. Has Anyone else witnessed this phenomenon?
This is but one highlight of the best four days of my life.

 

[Alan Gomes]

That's interesting. Never seen anything like that myself.

I'm wondering if you were still over there on Tuesday the 19th, when a gale blew through there. I was on mooring H-1 in Cat Harbor and it blew like stink. There were gusts in the low 40's I'd estimate. I actually thought it might be worse based on the forecast, but it was still windy enough! I was confident my baby boat would do just fine on that mooring (it did), but my main concern was a large catamaran one row to windward of me. He did fine also, but with all that windage I was a bit nervous. Interestingly, another catamaran about the same size but closer to the mouth of the harbor (on N-row, I believe) *did* drag his mooring for a short distance. It wound up re-setting itself with the cat pinned with the winds abeam! Not good. But he didn't drag into anyone and stayed put after the mooring reset itself.

Love to hear more about your first trip to Two Harbors.

Edit: I see you referred to "the best four days of your life." So I'm guessing that you decided to head home on Monday the 18th. You missed all the excitement! By the way: Not surprisingly, they closed off the front side of the Island to anyone seeking a mooring. Interestingly, right around dusk on Tuesday, I was monitoring the VHF and a sailboat was seeking a mooring at Two Harbors! The Harbor Patrol told him they were not renting moorings due to the storm and suggested he head around back to Cat Harbor or anchor out if he wanted to! Anchoring at Two Harbors is sketchy--I've done it plenty of times, but in settled weather--but that's what the guy said he was going to do! I checked the webcam on Wednesday morning but did not see any boats anchored out past the mooring field. Hope the guy was OK. I do wonder why someone would head over there in the first place under the forecast conditions and then put himself on a lee shore.

 

[Christian Williams]

That was waaay beyond waaay cool. I had to look up Fata Morgana.



Now onto the green flash!

 

[Bepi]

That's interesting. Never seen anything like that myself.

I'm wondering if you were still over there on Tuesday the 19th, when a gale blew through there. I was on mooring H-1 in Cat Harbor and it blew like stink. There were gusts in the low 40's I'd estimate. I actually thought it might be worse based on the forecast, but it was still windy enough! I was confident my baby boat would do just fine on that mooring (it did), but my main concern was a large catamaran one row to windward of me. He did fine also, but with all that windage I was a bit nervous. Interestingly, another catamaran about the same size but closer to the mouth of the harbor (on N-row, I believe) *did* drag his mooring for a short distance. It wound up re-setting itself with the cat pinned with the winds abeam! Not good. But he didn't drag into anyone and stayed put after the mooring reset itself.

Love to hear more about your first trip to Two Harbors.

Edit: I see you referred to "the best four days of your life." So I'm guessing that you decided to head home on Monday the 18th. You missed all the excitement! By the way: Not surprisingly, they closed off the front side of the Island to anyone seeking a mooring. Interestingly, right around dusk on Tuesday, I was monitoring the VHF and a sailboat was seeking a mooring at Two Harbors! The Harbor Patrol told him they were not renting moorings due to the storm and suggested he head around back to Cat Harbor or anchor out if he wanted to! Anchoring at Two Harbors is sketchy--I've done it plenty of times, but in settled weather--but that's what the guy said he was going to do! I checked the webcam on Wednesday morning but did not see any boats anchored out past the mooring field. Hope the guy was OK. I do wonder why someone would head over there in the first place under the forecast conditions and then put himself on a lee shore.

The trip, my 5th, was the first my kids. It had been planned for a month and I was watching forecasts like a hawk. The wind event, early on, was for Sunday Monday but then it slid off till Tuesday. I moored bow out expecting to dash in a flash. Instead we got four summer days in the middle of winter. it was a good as it gets. Fata Morgana on the crossing, we arrived in the dark but later in the evening a boater beamed an excellent laser light show on the southwestern hills of Two Harbors . I put on Pink Floyd and explained "Lazerium" to the youngins. The morning broke as bright, warm, and clear as a father could want his children's first impressions to be presented with. The rest of the days were a joy and there were such happy moments I felt like I was walking on the border of paradise, caressed by the flowing and separating veil. We hiked, canoed, swam, and rested. I slept nights on a cockpit bench using only a blanket. The only rough spot was the return trip. A serpent of fog moved up to us from the south a quarter of the way across and then moved laterally with us all the way in. Using Gps I headed towards PV but never clearing the fog I turned south, away from the San Pedro headland. I had hoped the warm land wind would keep the fog off and see us out of the horn blasting, bell ringing, stressful hours spent in the grey solitude. A minute after the turn to the south my daughter pointed and I looked back to see the Coast Guard Commanders House shinning pale bright, alone in the mist, a ghostly apparition settled on a cloud. The fog clung to us right to the LA light where it finally gave up the chase, A wall of oblivion held back by the rocks of the breakwater. Once across that line we were granted a brief and final taste of bright sunshine and good wind before we got home. At the marina at sunset I saw the kids off and worked on the boat. Within an hour the wind began to blow and we know the rest. Also...if you saw a group playing frisbee golf on Saturday that was us.

 

[Bepi]

That was waaay beyond waaay cool. I had to look up Fata Morgana.

View attachment 36858

Now onto the green flash!

Christian, The Morgana was also producing effects on the west end of the island and at two harbors. The hills would turn into square stepped pyramids and then would change and great cantilevered mesas would grow outward from the peaks only to change again into pieces of land in the sky. It was an enchanted adventure. However.. on my fourth Two Harbors trip about six weeks ago, my brother and I did an after noon hike to the Catalina Harbor lookout point. It's a short but tough hike and we suffered but arrived 20 minutes before sunset. It really was one of the top 5 sunsets for me. As the sun was at its last I was watching closely and at that last 1/4 second I saw it for the first time, the green flash. I was really really excited and happy and had a time explaining the significance to my brother. It was less of a flash and more like sun turning green at that last moment, at least this was my impression.

 

[Bepi]

Christian, The Morgana was also producing effects on the west end of the island and at two harbors. The hills would turn into square stepped pyramids and then would change and great cantilevered mesas would grow outward from the peaks only to change again into pieces of land in the sky. It was an enchanted adventure. However.. on my fourth Two Harbors trip about six weeks ago, my brother and I did an after noon hike to the Catalina Harbor lookout point. It's a short but tough hike and we suffered but arrived 20 minutes before sunset. It really was one of the top 5 sunsets for me. As the sun was at its last I was watching closely and at that last 1/4 second I saw it for the first time, the green flash. I was really really excited and happy and had a time explaining the significance to my brother. It was less of a flash and more like sun turning green at that last moment, at least this was my impression.

Have to add that I also had to look it up. I knew I was seeing something and resolved then to discover what. Also need to add that the green flash moved what was a top five sunset into first place. Also same said brother was along on the 1/15 trip which was a treat as the kids had never spent real time with their likeable and humorous uncle.

 

[paul culver]

I experienced an interesting visual from the only boat anchored in a San Juan Islands harbor on a moonless still night. Coming up to the cockpit late all the stars in the sky were perfectly reflected by the water below. It was as if I was in the center of a globe of stars. Very memorable.

 

[toddster]

I have seen it a couple of times in the same general area - The Olympic Mountains reflected above the straits from just south of the San Juan Islands. Once there were multiple images.

 

[Bepi]

The sunset the evening of the green flash. Shot from the Catalina overlook. Image ending in 625 has was taken just moments before the event.

 

[Rocinante33]

I am late to comment on this, but what a great tale and what an amazing phenomenon! The northern channel islands you saw as inverted were about 55 to 60 nM (or more) away from your location. My wife and I once observed, from anchorage at Anacapa Island, another island almost due south. We had never seen it before in dozens of visits there. It shimmered a bit above the ocean surface. It was not inverted or particularly squared off. We thought that the way it seemed to slightly float above the water was just an artefact of ocean mist obscuring the bottom of the island mountains. We joked that, "Hollywood must have towed a floating island out there for some film shoot!" After reading your tale and consulting the chart, I am pretty sure that our vision was a mirage image of San Nicolas Island, of the story the Island of the Blue Dolphin. I think it is about 25-30 nM distant from Anacapa. Our view did not rise to the quality of Fata Morgana, but was, I think, a mirage. So the moral is, out on the water, keep your eyes open! You never know what you might see!

Also, put yourself in the shoes of a common seaman in the 16th, 17th, 18th or 19th centuries. They spent weeks and weeks of bobbing below decks in the dark at night, then staring for hours on watch at the endless sea, then they saw this........OMG. Is it the Flying Dutchman?

Is it any wonder that superstition and fear of the unknown ran rampant among those crews?

 

[Alan Gomes]

'Hovering ship' photographed off Cornish coast by walker

An illusion called "superior mirage" caused the vessel to look like it was hovering above the sea.

www.bbc.com

 

[Bepi]

I am late to comment on this, but what a great tale and what an amazing phenomenon! The northern channel islands you saw as inverted were about 55 to 60 nM (or more) away from your location. My wife and I once observed, from anchorage at Anacapa Island, another island almost due south. We had never seen it before in dozens of visits there. It shimmered a bit above the ocean surface. It was not inverted or particularly squared off. We thought that the way it seemed to slightly float above the water was just an artefact of ocean mist obscuring the bottom of the island mountains. We joked that, "Hollywood must have towed a floating island out there for some film shoot!" After reading your tale and consulting the chart, I am pretty sure that our vision was a mirage image of San Nicolas Island, of the story the Island of the Blue Dolphin. I think it is about 25-30 nM distant from Anacapa. Our view did not rise to the quality of Fata Morgana, but was, I think, a mirage. So the moral is, out on the water, keep your eyes open! You never know what you might see!

Also, put yourself in the shoes of a common seaman in the 16th, 17th, 18th or 19th centuries. They spent weeks and weeks of bobbing below decks in the dark at night, then staring for hours on watch at the endless sea, then they saw this........OMG. Is it the Flying Dutchman?

Is it any wonder that superstition and fear of the unknown ran rampant among those crews?

View attachment 37528

The mystery is solved! If I were an average seaman in those days and saw this ship flying along I would have told the tale the rest of my days.