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Sailing
Western Lake Superior
by Sam Huonder
So
who wouldn’t want to own a sailboat?
This is the question I ask myself, somewhat bitterly,
as I climb back into my bunk at 5:00 in the morning,
the second time I was up checking our anchor set
because the wind shifted. It started at 12:30
a.m. when I had been wrenched from a sound sleep,
knowing something was different. The anchorage
that was peaceful when I went to sleep had a screaming
northwest wind blowing through. This time I laid
there for a few minutes waiting and hoping that
Jim would feel it and wake up. But either he was
sound asleep or doing a good job of faking it.
So I got up and checked the anchor again and determined
that our swing was safe and we weren’t dragging.
 As
I wrapped back up in the V berth, I was feeling
pretty sorry for myself. Before drifting off to
sleep again I started counting my grievances.
The first five days of our two week sailing vacation
had not gotten off to a great start. First there
were battery issues, necessitating the replacement
of our house bank of batteries. Then there was
the broken shackle and the mangled sail slide
and the broken reef point and the collapsing boat
hook along with an autopilot that when turned
on caused the boat to turn sharply and unexpectedly
to port or starboard. With this inventory in progress,
I drifted off to sleep again.
My husband Jim, our friend John
and I had left Bayfield late on Tuesday night,
hoping to make it to Isle Royale. We had tried
to set sail earlier in the day but forecasted
bad weather kept us in the marina. Finally at
about 8 p.m. Jim and John could no longer stand
my taunts and calling my bluff said it was time
to go. Lack of winds meant we had to motor as
we headed into the North Channel and made our
way past Madeline Island but we weren’t
worried, we would just use the autopilot. Well,
at least that was the plan but the AP had other
ideas. I steadied Emmanuel on her course and then
turned the AP from standby to auto. What a surprise
when the AP slammed us into a hard turn to port
and of course I can’t turn off the Auto
because the wheel is spinning and I can’t
get my hand in between the spokes to shut it off.
 Finally
I am able to stab the little button and turn the
boat back to the original heading and catch my
breath. Jim looks at me and asks what the heck
happened. I shrug my shoulders and say let’s
try it again so we did. Again, steady the boat
on her course; turn on Auto and wham, hard turn
to starboard this time. More frantic efforts on
my part to reach the off button and regain control
of the boat once more. By this time Jim and I
are a bit shaken and utterly at a loss so we resign
ourselves to hand steering. Not a happy thought.
We have over 80 miles and 12 hours to go and someone
will have to be actively helming it all the way.
Oh well. Sailing teaches you to be flexible, we
tell each other, so we’ll adjust. It was
full dark by the time we passed the northern tip
of Madeline and rounded Stockton to port and it
was pretty cool being out there in the dark all
by ourselves. I made a fresh pot of coffee and
Jim and I sat in the cockpit chatting while John
tried to get some sleep below. Since our visibility
is greatly reduced I am now keenly aware that
I am sailing between Stockton Island to port and
Michigan and Outer Island to starboard. But I’m
not worried for I have radar and GPS! Who needs
stars to guide me, I have technology. (Note to
self - after installing a hideously expensive
new radar/chartplotter MFD, take the time to learn
it before expecting it to guide you through a
night sail with little visibility, you doofus.)
I can’t for the life of me figure out how
to steer the course I have laid in. I try following
the little cursor and the dotted black line on
the screen. I make a 30 degree turn to starboard
and Jim pops out of the cabin, “Everything
okay Hon?” he asks. I smile and say cheerfully
“just a little course correction, no problem!”
A few more minutes pass and I’m confused
again. This time it’s a 45 degree turn to
port. Jim pops his head out of the cabin again
with a quizzical look and I give him the thumbs
up. A few more minutes go by and I turn hard to
starboard again.
 This
time Jim returns to the cockpit asking me “Another
course correction Dear?” Just a minute later
John lumbers out of his berth and up on deck and
asks what the heck I’m doing. By now I am
thoroughly demoralized and I turn the helm over
to the men and seek refuge below with my paper
charts. All this electronic stuff has my head
swimming. I can hear John and Jim conferring in
the cockpit trying to figure out the problem with
the autopilot. I join them shortly thereafter
and we try to puzzle out the radar and chartplotter
but we are no match for the little gray box. John
and Jim point out that we are all tired, we’re
having equipment problems and we have no good
reason to press on to Isle Royale. Nothing kills
cruisers like trying to stick to a schedule so
we decide to turn back. There is enough light
from the quarter moon that we are confident we
can get back to Julian Bay and get the anchor
down. It’s about midnight by the time we
are settled in and while John and Jim head for
the cabin and some sleep, I find myself held on
deck, spellbound. As fascinating as I find the
Apostle Islands to be during the day, nighttime
has a strange allure for me which probably goes
back to my childhood when I loved to sneak out
of the house. In pajamas and bare feet I would
wander the neighborhood in the wee hours of the
morning, loving how different, how foreign and
mysterious the things I knew in daylight, seemed
in the dark of night. I have always been a bit
of a night owl and I love being up when the rest
of the world is sleeping. I sit on the bow pulpit
seat for a long time until fatigue wins out and
I go to bed.
Wednesday arrives with lots of
sun and wind so we head out of Julian Bay and
turn to port. Our course, which takes us northwest
with wind out of the north at around 20 knots
means some hard upwind sailing as we pass Cat
Island to starboard with Manitou and Ironwood
to port. By early afternoon we are drawing near
to Devils Island and the wind while staying off
the starboard bow is now sending big rollers right
at us from the open lake and we start taking the
4 and 5 footers on the nose. While Emmanuel, our
1995 Hunter Legend 40.5 has no trouble staying
on her feet in these conditions, we decide we
have had enough fun and abandon our plans for
heading to Silver Bay. We fall off and start to
consider where we will spend the night while I
go below to assemble some sandwiches for lunch
on the go. We decide to head for Raspberry Island
and while on the way John finally forces our Garmin
3210 chartplotter to give up its secrets. Finally,
we have a basic understanding of its many screens.
There is much joy aboard Emmanuel
as I pass around the ham sandwiches. At Raspberry
Island we tuck in behind the sandy spit and start
to relax and Jim turns on the VHF to check the
weather when NOAA chimes in with the report of
winds switching to the NE after midnight, which
makes our anchor spot a bad choice. Up comes the
anchor and we start our search for a good overnight
spot. The lower water levels this year make it
chancy to tuck into Oak Island on either the southern
side or the sandy spit on the southeastern tip.
We continue our search and eventually make our
way to Quarry Bay on Stockton Island. I find the
whole thing disheartening. Here I was expecting
to be in Isle Royale and we’re almost back
where we started from. By the time we get the
anchor down I am feeling somewhat grumpy about
the whole thing. About that time Jim has the binoculars
out and is inspecting the other boats in the anchorage.
 “Hey
Sam” he says, “there is a Catalina
36 over there by the name of ‘Our Lady’,
isn’t that Marek?” he asks. Marek
was a fellow sailor we met at Rocky Island and
shared a bonfire with a couple of years ago. He
and his wife Dorado came to the United States
from Russia back in the early 1980’s. We
had struck up a conversation that night because
I have always had a small interest in Russian
history which was the result of a fascination
with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the Russian novelist
and historian back in high school. Some moments
live in your memory forever and that night will
always be one of them. It was mid October and
it was a cool evening. There were three sailboats
that night at Rocky Island and the folks on Pendragon,
an absolutely gorgeous Lord Valiant, started the
impromptu get together. The bonfire burned and
Marek spoke and told stories of his life in Russia
and gave me the smallest peek into what the words
Gulag and Purge meant to those who lived through
it. After that night Marek and I stayed in touch
by email but had lost contact when I left a previous
position back in September of 2006.
Now here we were almost 2 years
later. Jim hailed Our Lady who responded quickly.
We issued an invitation to join us for dessert
and coffee, which was accepted with alacrity.
Jim, John and I dined that night on BBQ ribs with
green beans and corn bread. A quick galley clean
up by the boys and we were ready for our company.
I dug out my stash of homemade chocolate cupcakes
and made a pot of coffee. Just then we heard the
buzzing of an outboard heading our way and we
went out to the cockpit to greet our guests. That
night Marek was accompanied by his lovely wife
Dorado and their handsome son, Alex. It was a
happy reunion and we sat and talked until dark.
In the next issue: Follow
Emmanuel to Silver Bay and Split Rock Lighthouse
on the North Shore of Lake Superior.
Sam Hounder is former Commodore
of Black Bear Yacht Club and Rear Commodore of
Sailfest. She and husband Jim have been sailing
together for about 15 years. They keep Emmanuel
in Pike’s Bay Marina in Bayfield, WI.
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