I have seen many strange and wonderful things while sailing, and have often been reminded of these words Shakespeare wrote for Hamlet:
By Captain Ray
Published: November, 2016
I have seen many strange and wonderful things while sailing, and have often been reminded of these words Shakespeare wrote for Hamlet:
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
- Hamlet (act 1, scene 5, lines 167-8)
I have seen whales of several species and have swum with some of them (before such activities were banned in this country, of course) and sailed alongside a whale shark almost as long as the boat I was sailing (34 feet). I have snorkeled under a manta ray that must have been 15 feet across. (It was actually its shadow passing over me that first alerted me to its presence.) I’ve happened upon ocean sunfish (those strange fish that look like only the head is there and most of the body has been bitten off) and pods of Hawai’ian spinner dolphins that numbered in the hundreds.
However, it was on a night passage between the Hawai’ian Islands that I learned firsthand the impact of those words that Shakespeare wrote some 400 years ago.
When I was a charter skipper in Hawai’i, it was often the case that I would end my charters on O’ahu. This made it easy for my guests to make flight reservations home. It also allowed me an opportunity to do any necessary boat maintenance, because back then the only real boat yard in Hawai’i was at the Ala Wai, between Waikiki and downtown Honolulu. It was also a chance for my crew and me to do city things, like have dinner out at a new restaurant or go to a movie. Such luxuries were not available in Kaunakakai, on Moloka’i, where the boat was home ported.
It was normal for us to return to Moloka’i at night. We would usually leave O’ahu sometime between 10 p.m. and midnight, because the trade winds diminished at night and this made the all-upwind trip back to Moloka’i much more comfortable. Sometimes the wind would die off completely, leaving us to motor the 50-plus nautical miles back home.
On this occasion, it was well after midnight and we were in the middle of the Kaiwi Channel (also known as the Moloka’i Channel). We were about halfway between O’ahu and Moloka’i and I was below, updating the weather forecast. Suddenly my crew began calling for me to get up on deck. As I got to the top of the companionway ladder and entered the cockpit, my crew pointed over the starboard side of the boat, exclaiming, “Look at that!”
Sometimes when sea water is disturbed, tiny living organisms will emit light, and I’d seen bioluminescence before. I had seen it in the boat’s wake, as dolphins race through the sea, and even in the seawater used to flush the marine toilet. But, never had I seen anything like this: Glowing spheres of creamy white light, each appearing to be about the size of a basketball, spaced several feet apart. They extended as far forward, as far aft, and as far down as I could see, but only on the starboard side of the boat. It seemed impossible that our course could by happenstance coincide with exact edge of this drifting mass of bioluminescent creatures.
We slowed down until we just barely had steerage and marveled at what we were seeing. My crew shined a flashlight into the water on the port side and the creatures began to light up there too. We then shut off the boat’s running lights and they faded from sight. It seemed like they were responding to our white flashlight and our green starboard light, but not to our red port light. We got out our waterproof spotlight, leaned over the side and placed it in the water in order to reduce the glare and reflection from the surface. This allowed us to see perhaps 60 or 70 feet down, and the drifting globes of light continued down as far as the light penetrated.
After a while, we increased our speed a bit and continued to motor through this beautiful field of lights for about another mile. Then, just as suddenly as we had happened upon them, they were gone.
To this day, I don’t know what I witnessed. If any of my readers can shed light on the matter (pun intended), please send an email to Bay Crossings (joel@baycrossings.com).
Ray Wichmann is a US SAILING-certified Ocean Passagemaking Instructor, a US SAILING Master Instructor Trainer, and a member of US SAILING’s National Faculty. He holds a 100-Ton Master’s License, was a charter skipper in Hawai’i for 15 years, and has sailed on both coasts of the United States, in Mexico, the Caribbean and Greece. He is presently employed as the Master Instructor at OCSC Sailing in the Berkeley Marina.
