Mañana

We woke up to the pitter-patter of rainfall on Carrie Rose’s front hatch. It is directly above us. When there is nowhere to travel due to rain and thunder at the beginning of the cruise it is concerning. Later in the cruise, when more relaxed the sound of thunder will be comforting, but today it is annoying. A decision will have to be made, go or not.

I reach for my phone and summon up the radar app. Telecommunications is slow in the Upper Peninsula, MI, so the wisp of red, yellow and green reflections off of rain and clouds appears in a pixelated mass at first and then more defined. A narrow band of red dots is making its way across our location. One after another appear. As I write this we sit in a lull between red radar dots.

Red, as you can imagine, denotes the worst clouds that are dense with moisture and reach high into the sky. Red is to be avoided if possible and that is one of the rules I try to live by. Conditions can deteriorate quickly on the lake. Within minutes it can go from a calm to a Turner painting.

Then there is a knock on the door and Bill from Dolly appears. We are leaving correct and I know more than to question his fifty years of experience. Quickly the boat is readied to leave. It is important not to rush. To rush is usually to slow down. Twenty minutes and we are at the dock pumping the head. I ask the young kid if this is a great summer job and he affirms that it is.

Then we are out cruising. It has taken a long time to get out on the water this year, but as this day on the water goes by — 7 hours and 37 minutes to be exact — it all comes together. Carrie Rose has passed through these waters before and it makes all the difference. As they say I can relax a bit and smell the roses.

My other cruising partner Dave on Sir Tugly Blue is ripe with technology. He radios to inform me that a 700-foot bulk carrier will be passing in front of me in twenty minutes. I turn to look and sure enough there it is. I had my radar set to only a 2-mile range and so I missed him. After some discussion with the John L. Block I slowed down and do a 360-degree turn. He thanks me and I wished him a great trip.

Now I have to catch up with Dolly and Sir Tugly Blue, and manage too right before Detour Passage. A thousand footer to my right, a seven hundred footer ahead and to the right two other behemoths in line to transit the passage like the airplanes in the sky over our house following each other to O’Hare airport. My compatriots make it across the passage but I decide to let the tug-barge combo pass in front of me. Another couple of 360’s and then I am behind him in his prop wash.

We head north into the calm beautifully wooded island territory of the North Channel and I have to pinch myself. Once across the North Channel and docked at Thessalon, Ontario with the sun high in the sky, the crystal clean air and the light, oh the light! Then I realize that there is no manana, there is only today . . . and today we saw a single loon off St. Martin’s lighthouse and what could be better than that.