Fire In De Sky

I wrote this as more of a journal entry than anything else, sort of a reminder of a very manly afternoon I had (except that I don’t keep a journal. I don’t consider them the least bit manly.) The evening then turned into something quite spectacular.

A Most Interesting Afternoon

Ya mon. The boat reached Lee Stocking Island around noon. That gave us eight hours of light to f**k around with. We discovered some mooring balls off of an abandoned marine research facility to tie up to. Once secured, I swam into shore and ran across two locals, Marcus & the other guy, doing demo work at the old center. I asked about any conch in the area. The other guy pointed to an island about a mile away and said,
“You’ll find plenty of conch there”.
“Cool!”
After swimming back to the boat, I informed el Capitain, who is generally quite keen on conch. He gave me a look similar to when you tell your cat it just won the Irish Sweepstakes.
I looked at the distant island and then at our conchless cooler.
“What the hell” I thought and splashed the kayak. 
The breeze was out of the east. The island due south. That would place the wind & waves on my beam (a.k.a. “side” for any of you non-nautical types) for both legs of the voyage. No problem there. 
I tossed my mask & fins and a bottle of water into the kayak. I thought about my life vest but decided it was too hot to wear.

Thirty minutes of paddling brought me to the lee of Norman’s Pond Isle where I donned the mask and floated with my kayak over the flats. Tens of thousands of conch shells, all emptied a long time ago, drifted beneath me. It was a graveyard, a lifeless place except for a meddlesome barracuda. I’d chase it away, then the minute I’d turn back, it’d resume stalking me. Some divers call them the “blondes of the sea”. 
There were squalls in the area and I noticed one building up to the south. It appeared to be headed my way. I beached the kayak and constructed a shelter using some old netting I dug out of the sand that I wound between two small trees. I added some palm fronds then part of a plastic blue bucket I found. I looped some old discarded pieces of rope over the whole mess and stuck a cracked plastic jug under it as a stool. Then I waited. The squall reached the tip of the island and veered east.
Still dry, I opted to walk the rest of the flats and eventually found a conch big enough to harvest. A loud crack echoed off to the north, a direction obscured by the island. North was also where the boat was moored. I leapt into the kayak and headed east. When I rounded the point, sinister black clouds filled the horizon. Sheets of rain were already sweeping over an island off to my left.
I started paddling, hard. The wind changed direction and picked up. It gusted out of the north, right on my nose. I had to buck building waves and a strong headwind. Off of my right shoulder, the clouds were anvil shaped. One looked like Lazarus pointing a menacing finger at me. The life vest now seemed like a brilliant idea. 
I paddled harder as rain began to fall. Thirty minutes later I was only halfway across. The wind continued to increase along with the waves. I leaned forward and kept stroking. Twenty long minutes passed until I spied a shoal and veered towards it. I knew that would increase my distance but figured I’d only be fighting the wind then and not the waves. 
When I reached shallow water, Lazarus suddenly pointed to the right and moved off. The rain lessened. By the time I pulled up to the boat, the wind had died and the sun returned. It was as if nothing had happened.
I lifted the kayak up on the forward deck & secured it, then attached another line to the mooring ball in case another squall blew up. I hosed off my gear, then myself and went below to fix dinner. 
The sun soon set & a full moon rose in the clear, calm evening sky. I was fixing some peas & rice when the Captain hollered from the stern deck, “Look out of the port window!”. This was most unusual for the Captain as he rarely says anything. I believe it was his first utterance in over three weeks. I looked out and did a double-take. Forty-five degrees above the horizon was a phosphorescent cloud being created by an undefined object’s exhaust. It was extremely bright. I presumed it was a rocket.* 
Its thrusters abruptly shut down, leaving the cloud in it’s wake. The object was long, with a light on it’s front and one on it’s rear. They were clear lights. None were blinking. There was no upward angle. It was moving horizontally across the sky from north to east.** 
I waited for the object to reach the full moon’s ambient light so I could discern it’s shape. However, when it was perpendicular to our bow, it made a sharp left. A little below it, its twin appeared. One light in front & one in back. These blinked off, on, then off and disappeared***. The main object’s now one visible light brightened, then dimmed and disappeared. The only thing left in the sky was the glowing cloud. We both watched it for a full fifteen minutes until the phosphorescence**** vanished.
I have no idea what it was. The object(s) were silent. I would’ve expected a noise from a jet or rocket.***** They didn’t resemble any aircraft I’d ever seen.
It could’ve been a missile launch, but I’m not convinced. What I can say is, it put on a helluva good show.

*       Nasa.com referenced a launch that day but it wasn‘t logged on their site.
**      Possibly an optical illusion based on my location?
***    This could’ve been a multi-stage rocket with the first stage being ejected?
****   Perhaps particles present in the unspent fuel glowed in the dusk?
***** Maybe we were too far away for the sound waves to carry?