Purple lightning

Imagine being in a small inflatable boat in the Caribbean sea, with rain pelting down and purple lightning streaking across the sky. That was my reality yesterday. It started raining in the morning when our boat trip was postponed due to rain. However, it cleared up later in the day. Five of us went out in the boat; three were dropped off at a small island to search for a specific intertidal snail, and two of us went to the mangroves. It started pouring as I was standing in the forest recording data, but I managed to bail most of the water out of the boat by the time we got back to the island to pick up the rest of the group. Then the rain became a thunderstorm. We pulled our snorkeling companions out of the water and waited under a thatched roof hut...the rain continued pouring down, thunder rumbling and lightning striking uncomfortably close by. We crossed the island to wait near the boat. By then, the island's caretaker (the island is owned by a German man who was not present) joined us and we all waited under their glass-roofed boat launch. The rain came harder and harder, the thunder rolled loud enough to wake the dead, and a howling wind started up. We huddled against a wall, wearing our lifejackets to insulate ourselves against the wind in hopes of staving off hypothermia. We waited half an hour or forty-five minutes, then realized we better get going before sunset. We armed ourselves with buckets and bailed a huge amount of water out of the boat. The rain had let up, so I thought we were homefree. But though the sky was clear and beautiful behind us, it was dark and stormy in the direction we were heading. It was only a 20-minute boat ride, so it couldn't be so bad, right? The rain wasn't bad at first and neither were the waves, but as we made our way across the bay--that is, we became the only object in a large expanse of open water--we saw lightning across the entire sky. Purple lightning! I don't know what made it purple, but it was a brilliant violet color. As long as it was horizontal, I thought we would be fine. All of a sudden I saw vertical lightning, hitting water way off in the distance. We were only halfway to our destination, and though the lab was in sight it felt like it took forever to get there. As we approached the waves became bigger and bigger, crashing into the reef. Finally, we arrived. Back at the lab there was no power from the storm. At least we had hot water so we could warm up from the wind and rain!