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We saw the “Green Smudge” at sunset the other evening from a small boat in Caxambas pass. It was a smudge, a gorgeous green glob that sort of enveloped the sinking golden ball of sun. It lasted maybe 30 to 45 seconds, then disappeared as the sun slipped below the horizon. It was wonderful and a huge surprise.

There may be more people looking for the elusive green flash than are searching for the Holy Grail. At my last “green flash” search on Google, there were 24.3 million entries.

Not all were about the phenomenon itself, however. There’s the Green Flash Brewing Co., a Green Flash record label and of course the well-known Green Flash restaurant in Captiva, north of Sanibel. Captiva took a big hit from hurricane Charley in 2004 but the Green Flash had only minor damage and was closed for just six weeks.

The other green flashes are nice, but not elusive, as is the sunset green flash seen once-in-a-blue moon. Experts say this light refraction situation actually happens as often as twice every 30 sunsets, but to see it, conditions must be just so. And one must be looking carefully at that particular sunset.

We’ve all heard about it for years. I read in a Crystal Cruises newsletter that: The green flash can occur at sunrise as well as sunset. Who knew?

In Norway, the green flash in midsummer can last as long as 14 minutes — seven minutes during the slow sunset and another seven minutes at the sunrise, which follows immediately.

The longest green flash on record was in 1929, reported by Admiral Byrd’s expedition in Antarctica. It lasted, on and off, for about 35 minutes. We settle for more modest green flashes from our vantage points here on Marco. We know it doesn’t appear on demand.

Friends or relatives who join us from up north almost always expect to see the flash.

“Tonight’s the night, I just know it,” that sort of positive thinking. It almost never works. But it can delude even the most levelheaded among us. One relative insists she sees it about every other sunset.

“There, see it, not too big, but there it is, oh, it’s gone now. Did everyone see it?”

Um, no. The sun melted into the horizon in all its beauty. The green flash was in the eye of the beholder, perhaps, but in no other that night.

Until last week, it had been years since I’d seen it. I vividly remember the first time. We were with friends at Hideaway Beach, walking down the steps of the old clubhouse as the sun dipped into the gulf. Bang, there it was, a flash of green haloing the tip-top of the sun and shooting out on either side along the horizon. It lasted two seconds, clear and bright and worth waiting for.

My years of skepticism, of doubting and occasional smirking at a seemingly endless parade of green-flashless sunsets melted away in a flash. Now I say to those still searching, hoping, waiting, squinting, sometimes imagining a flash when one doesn’t exist, “It’s OK, you’ll see one someday.”

I fear the world is made up of two kinds of people — those who’ve seen the green flash and those who haven’t. I’ve made the cut. One day I also may see the northern lights, a UFO, Big Foot and the Skunk Ape. And I may even discover that the Green Hornet was real.

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Chris is a former news anchor for CNN and for ABC-TV stations in Atlanta, Houston and Washington D.C. Email: chris@chriscurle.com.