Skirting the Line
S7°56.24′ W152°43.39′
0730 ZULU
The world is a million shades of blue. I lean back in my seat, relaxed by the transition that is the hot light of day to the calm blues of dusk. The air coming out the gasper vent by my knee is now noticeably cold. When I cranked the vent full open just prior to takeoff three hours ago, it was fighting a losing battle with the heat of the day, but now I close it as the cooling is no longer needed. Outside, the last bright rays of sunlight have spent the past twenty minutes turning the western sky into a fingerpainting of oranges, yellows, and golds, but with a final turn of the earth, the sky embraces the dull, desaturated wash that darkens as it spreads upwards.
As this symphony of light has been playing out overhead, the darkened shoals and shadowed beaches of Christmas Island have been sliding by underneath our wing tip. It was only a few months ago, while flying with an Australian expat, that I discovered there were two Christmas Islands; the ones we are currently passing over—also known as Kiritimati—and the other one—located in the middle of the Indian Ocean, some 1600 miles to the northwest of Perth, Australia. I momentarily consider sharing this fact with the captain, but he seems content with the current silence, so I don’t.
Kiritimati, with its unique town names of London, Paris, Poland—and Banana—slips away into the darkness behind our wing, replaced by the faintest of glows along the western horizon. That glow fades as the sun continues its journey towards tomorrow, but a new glow soon appears; this one on the radar display screens. We are rapidly approaching the equator—our NAV readout has been showing single digit latitudes for the last five hundred miles—and with it the band of thunderstorms that typically hang out here for much of the year.
On the last satellite image we pulled before leaving the gate, the bulk of the weather was still to the west of our route—a route that our dispatcher had built with a conspicuous bulge to the east in the middle of it to avoid the weather. The weather was moving eastward but, in theory anyways, slow enough that we should be able to sneak by before it covered our route to the south. From the plane’s radar display, that appears to be holding true, as the majority of the swirls of yellow and red are west—to the right—of our flight path. That makes me feel a bit better, but my hope of a smooth passage is somewhat eroded by the constant flashes of lightning I’m seeing in the far distance out the front window.
We close on the line of weather, now talking to Papeete Control via datalink. They are quick to give us a requested east deviation, and as the plane banks to the left, the lightning slides out of the center of our view. Minutes later we enter the outer bands of the storms, comforted by the smooth front of the clouds—visible in the light of an almost full moon—and the lack of colors other than green on our radar display. The ride remains mostly smooth as we push through the thick grayness, while the dampness of our surroundings seems to seep in through the air vents.
We are under radar control now and are given a turn towards the initial fix for the approach. I punch it into the flight computer and the Captain and I stare intently at our display screens as it draws a line from where we are to where we want to go. The line keeps us clear of the weather so the Captain gives me a thumbs up and I press ok. We tack to the right. The clouds seem to thicken and within seconds the ride deteriorates. There is still nothing showing on the radar, so we press onward, while beginning our descent towards the ocean 39,000 feet below us.
The bumps increase in intensity and the sound of rain pinging off the windshield is audible over the wind and engines noise. The air suddenly feels warm, and a glow begins to form around us. Seconds later a latticework of purple energy strobes across the windshield. The bumps don’t seem to be getting any worse, but I slow the plane slightly anyway, as the St Elmo’s fire continues to cover the windshield in its flashing spiderweb of light.
The lightshow lasts for another few minutes and then diminishes as we approach the backside of the weather. The ride smooths out and the world surrounding us seems to lighten slowly, shifting from black to a gauzy gray. Seconds later we pop out of the clouds, into a starlit world. Ahead, in the distance, the scattered orange lights of Tahiti shine on the horizon line, while closer in the hulking, shadowy peaks of Morea thrust upward from the sea. I stretch my hands and arms out in front of me in anticipation of the upcoming approach and watch as we track across the moonlit tropical world below us.
