Wine~n~Trip

The fog bank appeared like a figment of a nightmare. No battery power meant no RADAR, no running lights, and no VHF radio. At least we had our handheld GPS, our only instrument that operated on AA batteries, so we could navigate. We motored through the straits of Juan de Fuca, deadheading—hopefully not heading to our death—to our home port of Seattle.

Anchored in Reid Harbor the day before, we had hiked Stuart’s gravel road to the one-room schoolhouse where John selected a t-shirt from the honor-system treasure chest. While John rested his sore foot, I continued on to the Turn Point lighthouse.

We soon discovered that our batteries were running low. Despite running the engine for an hour, the batteries refused to recharge. It was getting dark. We decided to pull anchor and motor to a harbor with a dock with electricity to charge using shore power.  As we entered the channel and realized that our running lights could die at any time, John decided to return to Reid. “Never leave a safe harbor,” he said. It rang superstitious to me, but motoring around in the dark felt ominous, even under the safety of the stars on this clear night.

John steered us back into the bay, picking out the entrance islands to guide our way. After I took my position behind the helm to set anchor, a cracking noise like fireworks resounded off the surrounding hills. Fwap, fwap, fwap. Closer and closer. “Sounds like a seal caught a salmon,” John said. Aha, a sensible image to go with the scary sounds.

In the morning, our engine gagged when John turned the key. We were dead in the water, without a breath of breeze. After a kayak trip to our neighbors on the hook, John found a powerboat owner willing to loan us his small battery to jump start our diesel engine. That was at nine.

Now, mist clung to my hair. I ached for the secure and sunny anchorage we had left behind. Perched on our nonskid cabin top, I shivered and drew in a ragged breath. “Watch out and listen for ships,” John said. “They will be on us fast.” Over the hum of our engine, I heard a fog horn off our starboard bow. Squinting into the heavy air, I waited for a shape to appear.  Nothing came.

A blue sky deceived me into thinking the fog would clear. Instead, it constricted, slicing visibility to about 40 feet.  Time and space condensed until my head spun. Shaking off my dizzy spell, I saw a dinghy with people and pointed it out to John.  “Look at those people in the dinghy. They have it worse than us,” I said. My mood lifted.

“You mean those seagulls riding on a log?” Sure enough, I had been deceived by my eyes and mind. It had happened before in the fog.  I walked back to the cockpit and put on my life jacket.

A sailboat appeared, the skipper peered occasionally down the companionway to his instruments He waved and slipped behind into the silvery curtain. Another sailboat materialized from the mist. We crossed paths. His RADAR detector was mounted on his spreader.  I ached to trail these sailboats to take advantage of their mechanical sight, the RADAR. Yet, John held his course. Biting down on the sides of my mouth, I stopped my teeth from chattering, but my mind spun with the what-ifs.

After three hours of worrying about being pulverized by a container ship, the sun finally melted all traces of my milky nightmare. I spent the rest of the trip watching pods of porpoise and seals feasting on salmon. Twelve hours after departing Reid Harbor, we had, at last, arrived in Seattle. I was granted my wish: a sunburst of light at sunset that infuses the night sky with streaks of blood orange red.