We're not talking big weather here. Not the stuff that throws the ship around like a beach ball or makes us hole up in port quaking in our metaphorical boots. We're talking small weather, the kind of thing that you landlubbers might mean by "partly cloudy with scattered showers". At home, I would ignore it, assuming I could always duck into a store if my timing was bad.
But out here I can watch a whole panorama of weather, from the bright sunshine over there to my left to the big cumulonimbus sheep's wool boiling up left of straight ahead to the dark clouds and downpour right of straight ahead to the oversized popcorn-shaped fluff cavorting to my right. The sea is calm and multicolored, depending on what the particular patch of sky overhead is doing.
Which reminds me. Does anyone know why the South Pacific should be a different color from the South Atlantic? The scientist at my dinner table insists it's just the reflection of the sky, but honest to Pete, the ocean here under a clear sky is a deeper, denser, brighter, more opaque blue, almost as if it were paint, not water flowing past. I will be grateful for any insight you can offer.
From: http://chemistry.about.com/od/waterchemistry/f/why-is-the-ocean-blue.htm
ReplyDeleteThe ocean appears blue is because it reflects the color of the sky. Tiny particles in the ocean act as reflective mirrors so a large part of the color you see depends on what is around the ocean.
Sometimes the ocean appears other colors besides blue. For example, the Atlantic off the East Coast of the United States usually appears green. This is due to the presence of algae and plant life. The ocean may appear gray under a cloudy sky or brown when the water contains a lot of sediment, as when a river empties into the sea or after the water has been stirred up by a storm.
Your description of seeing the clouds, the weather, the incredible big horizon, is exactly why I loved living in desert country. I love the flat country, where (as the ranchers say) you can see weather coming for three days. I used to feel claustrophobic when coming back to the west side, when the only sky I could see was straight up and between buildings or trees.
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