The weather laughs at sailing plans
Issue 56 : Sept/Oct 2007
It was late May when we took our first sailing vacation of the season. Our vacations come, if at all, between production cycles of this magazine. Late May, in Minnesota and parts north of Minnesota — particularly those associated with Lake Superior — isn’t necessarily blessed with balmy weather. The leaves have finally come out on the trees and the days are definitely getting longer, but winter is not forgotten. Yet sail we must. When else?
So it was that, nearly a year ago, I made a plan for our first sailing vacation of 2007 to occur in late May. “During that time,” I told Jerry, “we’ll take Mystic north.” We’d be leaving from Duluth/Superior on Lake Superior’s extreme southwestern edge, headed toward Thunder Bay, Ontario, 160 nautical miles to the north, where we’d sail for the summer. But I promised him that this would not be just a boat delivery. After a rushed and frozen delivery last October, I assured him that we’d stop and smell the roses (or whatever early spring blooms are about) along the way, stopping in at the Apostle Islands, Isle Royale, and possibly even the north shore on the Canadian side of the lake. In addition to finding forests with early spring lady’s slippers in bloom, we’d look for loons floating about with young ones on their backs. Idyllic.
Who knew last fall that this would be a particularly cold May? Come to think of it, it seems like many of our recent springs have been particularly cold and slow to arrive. Our departure date came. Fate sealed, off we went for our very cold and rather soggy vacation. It could always warm up, couldn’t it? We’d seen a few very warm days already. It could happen. In fact, we arrived at the boat at noon on the first day wearing shorts and were still in shorts that evening as we sipped wine in the cockpit and watched the sun set over the masts in the marina. Still, we had our long underwear and a couple of winter parkas packed. We may be nuts, but we’re not fools. Lake Superior doesn’t tolerate fools.
Frightful weather
For the next two days the weather in the twin ports of Duluth, Minnesota, and Superior, Wisconsin, was frightful. But no matter. We weren’t ready for that vacation quite yet anyway. Mystic had been launched … but not much more. We hadn’t bent on the sails, installed the latest gadgets, cleaned her up, or moved cartloads of provisions aboard. So we busied ourselves in getting ready for our cruise. Even a freezing day in the marina is better than a day in the office.
And it was freezing. One morning there were snow flurries on Minnesota’s north shore of Lake Superior and all the way up into Ontario. Cold we were prepared for. But the strong north winds kept us shorebound for several days. Did I mention the occasional rain and thunderstorms? Finally, we got an opening in the weather. It was enough at least to make a jump to the Apostle Islands, a day’s sail to the north. Based on the weather we were monitoring closely, I made the call that Tuesday would be a likely day to make our first passage. And herein lies the point. I made that decision, just as I had chosen the timing for this vacation … realizing the constraints of magazine production, of course. But the planning had been mine.
So when we got out there onto that very cold lake and headed directly into extremely lumpy and confused seas, so when I got seasick for the fi rst time in more than 15 years, so when there was no harbor of refuge and the only choices were to go back (and we refused to do that) or slug onward, so when the next respite from this endless pounding and horrible cold would be hours away, so when I began to have dark thoughts along the lines of: “I wonder what it is that people see in this sailing stuff anyway?” I had no other choice but to go gamely forward with the plan, my plan . . . such as it was.
That sly fox, Jerry grasped this subtle distinction long ago when he asked me to be in charge of our vacation planning.
Thank you to Sailrite Enterprises, Inc., for providing free access to back issues of Good Old Boat through intellectual property rights. Sailrite.com
