Lake Huron or bust
Issue 44: Sept/Oct 2005
DIFFERENT PEOPLE ARE DISPOSED TO DO DIFFERENT THINGS. When I met my editor and wife, I was happily sailing around triangular race courses on a large lake in the Minneapolis suburbs. I had been doing that for many years and was quite content to continue thus . . . into the foreseeable future. She was a sport. She became my crew. Finally when our relationship was strong enough to withstand it, she asked what was the big deal about sailing around buoys a mile apart in the same part of the same lake three times a week, spring, summer, and fall.
This line of reasoning lead to our buying a nice coastal cruiser, which we kept in the Apostle Islands of Lake Superior . . . 250 miles from our home. After about a dozen years — during which I was completely contented sailing on Lake Superior — she began a campaign to sail elsewhere. I tried to ignore this. The messages got stronger. Her log entries, which had once waxed poetic, were getting shorter and shorter. She had the wanderlust.
Now, Lake Superior is not that small and confining. I got out my Economist Pocket World in Figures and looked it up. According to that reference, there are 174 countries in the world; 61 of them are smaller than Lake Superior. The lake is larger than Ireland. It is about the size of Switzerland and the Netherlands combined. I was happy in Lake Superior, and I was quite content to continue sailing there . . . into the foreseeable future.
Nope.
When a guy has a wife who is a skilled and enthusiastic sailor and she wants to move on, it is certainly in the best interests of the man, woman, boat, and the plot line of the story to move on. So other than shakedown cruises to make sure Mystic is ready, the first real sail of the season will be across the lake 400+ miles west to east, through the Soo Locks, and across half of the North Channel in Lake Huron.
There now, that will be an all-new cruising ground. All new . . . for a while. Then what? I’ve seen it happen twice now. I think I know what’s next.
Thank you to Sailrite Enterprises, Inc., for providing free access to back issues of Good Old Boat through intellectual property rights. Sailrite.com
