Fog

Fog requires concentration. Fog requires subduing gut wrenching, heart pounding and nail biting panic. Fog requires not trusting your senses. Fog requires the realization that you can slow down or even stop. Fog requires protocol.

Radar, chart plotters and radios can negate fog if you are mindful. But fog is the “mental” mother of all weather on the water. The wind and waves of storms are a physical challenge; fog is an intellectual one. The blessing is that calm water usually accompanies fog. The wind that creates havoc on the water also carries away the fog, so it is a mixed blessing.

Fog is the nearest I get to a cloud other then when flying through one. In a plane I am cocooned within a quarter inch or so of aluminum. In a boat I am in contact with it. I can open the pilothouse door and touch it, and it is like being rained on without the rain. Sounds like a koan: How can you be in the rain without rain?

I start out sounding the horn every two minute but slowly realize that nobody, if there is anybody, in the vicinity is doing the same. I am not sure why. Some will announce their presence over the VHF radio, “Securite-Securite this is the recreational vehicle Carrie Rose out of Charlevoix northbound to Gray’s Reef Passage.” This may get a response or may not but at least I have made the world aware of my intentions.

Now I set into a routine. One by one I scan the instruments, paying particular attention to the radar and the chart plotter. I adjust the autopilot to keep on my prearranged course and react to blips on the radar. Your microwave is essentially radar but instead of popping popcorn mine allows me to see an unseen world. When dots appear I track them to see if the dot and me are on a collision course.

This year for some unknown reason I knew how to use all the buttons (16 and 3 dials) on the radar. Don’t ask me how. I have been reading the manual for years and never figured them out until now. The two most useful turned out to be EBL (electronic bearing line) and VRM (variable range marker). With these two markers I can assure myself that I am on a safe course in respect to other traffic or obstacles in the area. Plus it helps to wile away the time between harbors.

This is a concern I did not have on my sailboat. Sailboats are needy. They require constant attention to do their best. On a sailboat I have to respond to every change in the weather, whereas in my little trawler I mostly just plow through it, watching the wind gusts and shifts outside the ten windows of my pilothouse. It is an interesting change in perspective.

In the fog there is no perspective. It is easy to over compensate and end up going in circles. As obvious as it sounds I have learned to slow up or stop if I get confused. Cruising has a momentum that is difficult to override. All kinds of vessels become casualties due to this, from small fishing boats to super tankers. I do not plan on being one of them.

I find that when I am safely in port I have an intense pain, well pain may not be the correct word, maybe awareness of my solar plexus is a better but more obtuse description. I start to do the deep abdominal breathing I learned in yoga decades ago and it eventually subsides. A glass of wine doesn’t hurt either. Later as I lay in bed I relive the experience. During the debriefing I focus on details and look for the lessons imbedded in the undertaking.

That is what makes fog and cruising compelling. It is not all fun but it is on the edge of what awareness is about. Every second, whether painful or not, is precious: one time, one meeting …