Encountering Morgan le Fay - 26 May 2017

Saturday 26 May, we depart from Utö marina around 10:00, to reach the Norhamn of Öja for the night. Very warn sunny day, the summer is there for now...

Passage through the Ryss-sundet, 2.5 metres deep, and not much wider than the boat.

This should have been an eventless nice cruise, but it was without counting on the tricks of Morgan le Fay.
Heading south-west after passing the southern tip of Nåttarö, we get intrigued by the appearance of the southern part of Öja, where the Landsort lighthouse is located, an iconic land mark with its triangular top. The pictures below are taken with a 400mm sense, and allowed us to see what seems to be a cloud around the light house, which makes no sense when you know that the light house is like 15 metres high!

The dark top area is quite marked initially, but does not make sense for who knows Öja.

As we approach, in a few minutes, the dark area starts vanishing.

To completely disappear after 20 minutes.

The initial cloud theory does not stand, and we remain puzzled. But then, looking south we come across a "boat" attracting our attention for its high appearance over the horizon. Magnifying the picture taken by the 400mm brings the start of an explanation and lots of questions...

Are we are being tricked by Morgan le Fay showing us a fata morgana.

On the back of the boat, you can see 5 helms on top each other in reverse positions!

Few minutes later, two boats inverted. Strange feeling of entering an unknown world

As the boat passes, the distortion increases.

Final view of the two inverted boats.

What we learned from this incredible vision is that the line that we are used to see at times above the horizon is not necessarily a line of clouds nicely aligned, but a fata morgana that will remained unoticed unless some boats are caught in between these two worlds...

Where it all started and ended...