Scott Williams: The Pulse

As he contemplated the challenges early navigators must have faced in the old pre-GPS days, suddenly the entire horizon in the direction of the star erupted in a blinding flash of light—first yellow and white, and then an eerie green that backlit distant clouds and reflected off the waves around him, washing the decks and cockpit in a flickering glow. Artie’s jaw dropped as he watched the spectacle before him. Another brilliant flash of reddish-orange followed the green, and then there was a glow of white that lit the sky almost like daylight. The flash was over almost as soon as it began, but the light was imprinted on Artie’s retinas and he couldn’t see anything for a few seconds after the flash. He stood there transfixed as his vision came back, expecting to see more lights, but everything seemed to be normal again. After a few seconds he realized that part of the background noise he heard in addition to the wind and waves was static from the XM radio.

Artie glanced at the GPS unit and turned down the volume. The green display of the chartplotter no longer showed the position of Ibis, but instead was flashing with a message, SEARCHING FOR SATELLITES, just as it had when Larry had first powered it up. Artie pushed the menu button to scroll through the main navigation screens. Speed, distance to destination, ETA, course, heading, and all other parameters were blinking zeros, confirming that there was no satellite fix. He tried changing channels on the XM receiver but all he got was more of the same static. He was so absorbed with trying to make the unit work that he didn’t notice that the yacht was changing course and heading up into the wind until he felt the pitching increase as the bow took the waves head on, and he heard the flogging of the sails as they lost the wind and luffed. In the next instant everything on deck became chaos as the mainsail and foresail booms swung wildly back and forth and the boat wallowed in the breaking swells. Artie yelled for Larry, and was about to open the companionway hatch, but didn’t have to. The change in motion had awakened the seasoned skipper and he was on deck in a flash.

“What happened? Larry asked as he leapt to the helm and disconnected the autopilot linkage so he could steer by hand.

“The GPS went nuts!” Artie said. “You wouldn’t believe the lights that went off to the north; red, yellow, white, orange, green…. It was so bright for a minute that it blinded me.”

Larry was listening as he brought the bow of the schooner back through the wind, allowing it to fall off until the sails filled and the boat gradually eased back up to cruising speed.

“Was it heat lightning off in the distance?”

“Oh no! Nothing like lighting at all. Besides, the sky was already clearing, like it is now. There was no thunder, and this was brighter than any lightning I’ve ever seen. It was like daylight out here for a few seconds.”

Larry was deep in thought as he listened and kept the yacht on course. “Here, take it a minute while I check the chartplotter. Just steer by the compass and keep it on about 350 degrees.”

“I was listening to the XM too. It went to static about the same time the sky lit up,” Artie said as he switched places with his brother.

“This is pretty weird,” Larry said. “The GPS says it’s still searching for satellites. It usually locks on in less than thirty seconds even when it’s first powered up. Still nothing on the XM either.” Larry opened the companionway hatch and turned up the volume on the VHF marine communications radio. It had been on all along, but they had kept the volume down once they were far from land and away from most boat traffic. When he turned it back up, nothing could be heard but static on Channel 16. Larry hit the scan button and found only static throughout the band.

“Nothing on the VHF either, huh?” Artie asked.

“No, nada . All the electronics are still working, just not picking up a signal. If it had been lightning, it would have fried everything. Of course, lightning striking the boat would mean we were in a big storm and that would have been obvious. Heat lightning couldn’t do this.”

“I’m telling you, it wasn’t heat lighting that I saw. I’ve seen heat lighting before; not at sea, but I’ve seen it. This was like the Northern Lights or something. It was really kind of spectacular. Really beautiful, if I hadn’t been so shocked when it happened. I wish you could have seen it.”

“Maybe it was something like the Northern Lights. Maybe some kind of atmospheric disturbance that’s temporarily interrupted radio signals. Strange that it would affect satellite signals too. It must have been really strong,” Larry said.

“It was strong, all right, and it was in the north. I can’t imagine that you’d see the real Northern Lights way down here though. You can’t even see them from most parts of the United States except in unusual conditions.”

“Maybe you could if it was some kind of unusual phenomenon,” Larry said. “I’ve read somewhere that solar storms can sometimes send a disruptive pulse through our atmosphere. I hope it’s just temporary, like the interruption of radio and TV signals you sometimes get during a strong electrical storm.”

“How are we going to navigate without the GPS if it doesn’t come back on?”

Larry laughed. “We’ll just have to do it the old-fashioned way—with the compass,” he said as he pointed to the big Danforth steering compass mounted on top of the wheel pedestal. “Or the stars.” He nodded to Polaris, still hanging low over the horizon in the general direction they were sailing. “At least we can get the coordinates of the last position the GPS fixed on before the signal went out. Keep her on course; I’ll go down and get the paper chart and my logbook. We’d better plot a DR course and start keeping track of things right away.”

“DR course?”

“Dead reckoning. It’s another big part of the old way of navigation. Basically involves knowing your approximate ‘speed made good’—that is, the actual speed over ground, taking into account adverse or favorable currents—and the distance to your destination, then calculating how long it will take to get there assuming the same speed is maintained. Of course there are other factors, like sideways set from currents and such, but on a short passage like this it’s relatively easy to get accurate enough.”

“You call this a short passage?” Artie asked, at the same time noticing that for the first time on the trip he didn’t feel seasick anymore. Maybe it was the excitement of all that had happened that had taken his mind off it. “What do you call a long passage?”

“Sure it’s short: 350 miles?Three days and three nights, tops. Like I told you before, a long passage is a whole ocean. Like the run I did from Cape Town to Barbados last fall.”

“You can have that! This is long enough for me. Seeing those lights almost made it worth it, though. I wish you could have seen them yourself. Dammit, come to think of it, I wish I had thought to get a photo! I had my phone in my pocket. Casey would have loved to see that. I just didn’t think about it, it happened so fast.”

“Maybe she saw it from there,” Larry said.

That thought had not occurred to Artie, but of course, if it were some big event like a solar flare, it probably would have been visible all over North America as well. After all, it was in that direction. “Well, I wish she could have seen it, because it was so unusual, but the dad part of me hopes she didn’t, because it happened at about two a.m., her time, and I hope she was in her room sound asleep.”

“But you know she was just as likely to be out partying,” Larry said.

“Nah, I know she does a little, but not on a weeknight. You know she’s pretty serious about school.”