hafoc | Government Island, 1988

Some hours after dawn, I awaken and sit up. THUNK! Eyes swimming from the blow against the overhead, I sag backward. And of course the table, which when down makes up all of the forward berth from my butt to my ankles, slides out from under me and dumps me on the cabin sole.

There are five of us aboard Fencer; Holmes and Watson, Smith and Wesson, and me. I'm the only one in full-sized human form, though. That is just as well. The 14-foot microcruiser has berths for three, officially, but the two which extend from the cabin back under the cockpit seats are so short and narrow that my feet get stuck in them and I can't turn over. And you will turn over, or want to, because the mattress is two inches of foam over fiberglass.

I anchored out in Whitney Bay overnight. Now I get breakfast from the ice chest, raise anchor, and head out onto Lake Huron.

I'd like to say I sailed, but those beautiful hot days of summer, when you want to be out on the water, are the worst possible days for sailboats. There is no wind I can feel. I manage to sail out of the bay anyway, quite a feat under the circumstances. But I'm going nowhere by wind today. So I fire up the auxiliary engine-- a grandiose name for a 3.5 horsepower outboard that would be a trolling motor on any sensibly-sized boat.

It has power enough to move Fencer, and to spare. I cruise along at about three knots. Being a sailboat with a deep hull and a weighted, winged keel, Fencer has a displacement hull. Three knots is her hull speed, and she won't go any faster. Move the throttle on the outboard past half and she squats in the water, trying and failing to climb her bow wave. It's better to let her proceed at her own pace and save the fuel; if you prod her, she won't go any faster anyway.

I know she's doing three knots because of my sophisticated knotlog. It consists of an old tennis ball tied to a long kite string. I have calculated how far Fencer will go in 20 seconds at one knot, and I have tied a knots in the string with that spacing. All I need to do to know my speed is toss the ball overboard and count how many knots pass between my fingers in 20 seconds. Where do you think the term "knot" for a boat's speed came from in the first place?

I have a compass, too, and a good chart book. Not that I need it. I'm not likely to go aground here. At the most, I'm six miles offshore, and in a couple hundred feet of water. Fencer draws 19 inches.

I do have to keep an eye out for fishing nets. I have to swat the lake flies, who look like regular houseflies but bite. And I have to keep the sunblocker on and drink lots of water, because there are few places hotter than a becalmed sailboat, made of nice reflective white fiberglass, on a blazing summer day.

After a while I start to get creeped out. Huron is a scary old lady; doesn't care if you live or die, would be glad to see you die in fact. I don't know how many of the fishermen and pleasure boaters know it, but there have been something like 10,000 shipwrecks in the Great Lakes. Huron, being in the center of them all, has more than her share. Lake Huron has to be the biggest unmarked mass grave in the US and Canada. Just has to be.

I open a can of Chunky Soup and eat it, to distract me from the creeping horrors. I have to stay at the tiller, so I can't fire up the alcohol stove. Still, cold soup isn't bad when you're hungry.

It takes me until evening to make it to Les Cheneaux. I duck down one of the "cheneaux" between the islands and find a raft of other boats anchored out behind Government Island. Many of the people to whom I speak across the spaces between our boats are upset that the small boat harbor is full, so they have to anchor away from shore power, beer runs, and air conditioning. I'm not in that financial league, so I'd planned on doing this. No sweat-- not after a dip in the lake, anyway.

In the evening the sun goes salmon-orange as it begins to set behind the trees. The sky becomes a pale pink, and the water is nearly calm. It has enough of a swell on it that it breaks up into bands of delicate pink and the palest green, living colors with enough beauty to revise my whole attitude about 1950s color schemes. Now I know what they were aiming for. But only the Gods paint with such wonderful colors.

Yes, it was a hot day, and that little outboard motor burned almost a gallon of gas getting me over here. But I can look at those wonderful colors, crack a can of Coca-Cola, pretend I have a dash of rum to add, and stand there in the companionway hatch sipping my half-imaginary rum and coke, Lord and Master of my own little seagoing world. I can look out at that incredible sunset and know I'll remember it for the rest of my life. That alone was worth the trip.

The Lord and Master isn't wearing any pants, for it is very hot and humid in the lee of Government Island this evening. But what shows of him is respectable enough, and what's left isn't anybody else's business.

And now the stars come out. I run my anchor light up to the peak of the mast and go below to sleep. I am exhausted. I will sleep well tonight.

THUNK. Sliiiiiiide THUMP. DAMN IT!