So Near - So Far

Where to begin?
It has been raining for four days straight. All the rivers in the area are close to, or over, flood stage. All my tulips stuck up leaves about three inches and stopped cold. My entertainment consists of "dog sitting" for my son for a few days. I am nearly bored to tears.
At times like these the mind searches for something to keep it alive. It starts to rummage around in the dusty closets of your head for anything of interest. It will even settle for things of only moderate interest when desperation sets in.
So, here´s this one dusty mental closet with a shabby shoe box on the shelf. The cover is crooked, as if too much had been stuffed into it. Sticking out just a bit, hardly enough to notice, is the tip of a faded rainbow. If it had been left there much longer, it might have been totally forgotten. Since it doesn´t look like there will be any real rainbows for a few days, I figured that I would give a little yank on this one. The top popped off the box, and I had stuff, that I hadn´t thought about for years, all over me.
Sailors are great weather watchers. We have to be. They say that the unprepared and the inexperienced can go a long way before they get into trouble - if they are lucky. It helps if you can make some of your own luck. That is where the preparation and experience comes in. It helps to travel with those who are experienced, if you are still learning the ropes. Experience is one of those things that can´t be hurried. Being "weather wise" certainly falls into this category. It is the "stock in trade" of the competent sailor.
Being so aware of the weather, we tend to remember the things that stand out from day to day at sea. This rainbow thing fits that bill in spades.
Cape Hatteras has a well deserved reputation for spates of nasty weather. It can also be quite a pleasant place to see. On the day that comes to mind for this event, we had just passed the Cape southbound on our way, I assume, to South America. We must have just left Baltimore and the Chesapeake Bay to be that close in shore. I would not have seen what I saw if we had sailed from New York City. It was early in my career so it had to be on the 08:00 to 12:00 watch. That would be my slot as Junior Third Mate. It had to be on that watch because what I saw was in the direction of the coast. It would also have taken a low morning sun to do it.
As I said the sun was still low in the sky, and there must have been virga or showers to the west. It is a perfect formula for a rainbow. I would not be surprised to see one. I was not prepared for what I did see though.  Think about the Hatch Shell in Boston or the Shell in Honolulu. You know, one arch inside another, each smaller than the one in front of it. I had seen both, but never one made of rainbows.
There were seven rainbows stretching off into the distance. Optically, I don´t know the geometry of how it can happen. I just know that I saw it. I got all fidgety for a chance to get a picture of it, but there was no one around to relieve me so that I could run for my camera. If there had been, it would be in my album. In a few minutes the whole thing was gone.
End of story, of course not. Within a few hours we were in the middle of a monumental "blow". It seemed to come out of the blue and really gave us quite a ride. It was a full blown storm of several hours duration.
An interesting event, sure, file it under "experience", sure. End of story, not quite.
Several years later, sailing southbound off the coast of Brazil in the area of Florianopolis, I was hanging on the rail outside my quarters watching the world go by. Off to the west I saw rainbows again. This time there were only five of them in the formation. Not as impressive as the ones off Hatteras, but more than the usual run of the mill. There was another "railbird" with me, I don´t remember who, that had to listen to my tale about "the last time I saw one of these". I am sure that he was more impressed by the sight than the story. He was probably even more impressed by the blast that hit us over the next few hours. It was a full repeat of the mess that we went through off the Carolina Coast.
Perhaps I could coin a rule of "weather wisdom" from this one. It could be about many rainbows bring many blows, but "Red Skies at Night -----", is more poetic. Besides you will see many more "Red Skies" than "Rainbow Hatch Shells" over the years. On the other hand, it might be something to tuck away in the "weather" section of your brain for future reference. You decide.
My Mother-in-Law, who will be 98 in September, likes to say, "This is a real weather maker." every time we have a run of good weather. I can´t decide if it is a hold-over from the old idea that you should not comment on things being "good", because the "spirits" will notice and give you some bad luck, or the old Puritan idea that if you expect the worst, sooner or later, you won´t be disappointed. Either way, something will happen.
It all brings to mind another weather event that was tucked into that mental shoebox. I guess that the box should have some label about things that warn of bad weather.
We were westbound, headed to Japan along the northern route that passes along the Aleutian Islands. This time it was the middle of the morning watch. It was great weather with crystal blue skies and a very light headwind. I was puzzled though. Off to the west I could see some snow capped mountains. I didn´t think that there should be any land close enough to see, but there they were. Mates on watch get very nervous, if they think that they might be "lost" or "confused" when headed toward land. I could tell that we were well off any coast but couldn´t quite figure out what was going on. I got out charts for the area as we were working with "plotting sheets" at the time. The only land to the west was the Kamchatka Peninsula, at a distance of over a hundred miles. At that point one of the other Mates wandered onto the bridge. I pointed out the mountains to him and asked how it was possible that we could see them if our position was accurate. He told me that there was a very high range of mountains on the peninsular and that we were seeing the very tops of them. He was impressed at how clear it was, but didn´t question our position as "star time", and a "running fix" had given us good positions. Relieved, I had to take his word for it. This was my first ship and a lot of things could still surprise me. Another thing added to my confusion that morning as well. I could smell a tiny bit of wood smoke in the air. On a dry cargo ship this can haunt you, but on a tanker, if you smell smoke it may be too late. I finally came to the conclusion that it could only be the smell of thousands of hibachi stoves on the northern islands of Japan. If I could see mountains on Kamchatka, why couldn´t I smell smoke from Japan. Several months later I smelled India from several hundred miles at sea. It was not the same smell though.
What has this to do with rainbows, not much. What it does deal with is heavy weather. We were headed into another huge blow coming off the Asian coast. We had a couple days of really nasty stuff to go through following that strange morning.
I guess that I filed that experience under the heading of "The farther that you can see, the closer the storm." The smoke was a bonus of sorts I suppose. The storm must have pushed a very discreet and thin layer of air ahead of it that did not mix very much with other air. This way the smoke did not have a chance to totally disperse.
For what it is worth, there you have a couple of strange weather observations. Maybe you can file them in a dusty shoebox in a mental closet of your own. If they prove useful, so much the better, if not, they can just fade away.