Arctic Solo Sail

Waiting a change in the weather

I’ll complete my trek across the Keweenaw today and head toward Marquette.  I stayed longer than expected due to stiff wind in both directions over the last two days, but today the sun is bright, the sky clear and the wind, though from the wrong direction, light enough to allow progress to the east.  Tiny is on his way to Whitefish Point, where we hope to visit the Shipwreck Museum and go out to the Edmond Fitzgerald site and hold a bell ceremony. 

 I don’t know where I’ll be stopping along the way.  There are still a lot of things to see and do.

Houghton has been a great place to rest up.  There are lots of interesting people and history here.  I love being tied up right down town and talking to the people as they stroll by.  Every once in a while a true sailor and kindred spirit will come by, like my new friend Bill.  He brought me three things a sailor “needs” on a boat, music, a good read and raspberry jam!  Homemade right from his own vines, mind ya.  I put it in my yogurt.  He reminded me of Dan and Forest that gave me wonderful smoked fish, and Mark with his most helpful book, The Superior Way, all from Two Harbors and of Stephan in Grand Marais and his wonderful photographs. 

Another gentleman and his daughter stopped by offered assistance getting propane or supplies.  Just good people wanting to be helpful. And I mustn’t forget the Lift Bridge operators so helpful in gettng me through and on my way even though I missed my chance to go through with the M/V Ranger III, (the National Park vessel that was returning to homeport).  And the young newspaper man who worked hard researching out who I was and how to get in touch with me then spending time this morning before I sail to listen to the “tales” of this particular ancient mariner.

I believe there in is the real adventure, the people!  The people that pass, even though so briefly, through the life of a traveler/sailor.  To all of you, I will not soon forget your kindnesses.

Through the trees

 April 23, 2009  The trek to the waterfalls and the walk in the woods refresh my limbs and spirit.  The waterfall was spectacular, the whole river cascading in to the crevasse and then rushed on.  Where is everyone!  They are missing it.  When I come back to just sail Gitche Gummee it will be in April.  Sure, I’ll have to wait on weather and ice but the solitude of the lake is worth it.

I stick the dagger board in the mud leaving Black River in a bit of a blow.  The wind is off shore out of the south and building.  I hug the right side of the bank knowing there is shoal water but feel that is better than the rocks on the left side.  No margin there.  But I catch the shoal and come to a quick stop.  It’s an easy fix, just release the dagger board until the vessel starts to move again.  I also unseat the rudder to allow it to swing up not wanting it to stick in the mud.  This will be a problem later when I neglect to reseat it home before raising the sails.

I pick my way carefully out past the breakwaters avoiding the shoals that have build from the muddy river.  To be named the Black River it was one of the reddest rivers I’ve ever seen, a dark brick red.  As the depth increases I make prep to raise sail. 

A reef is in order this morning, and off we go but something is not right with the steering.  I have to hand steer and man, is it hard.  When I try the autopilot again I’m swung around and into irons.  Wind building 20+ knots.  Underway in the wrong direction, back to hand steer, set auto pilot, into irons again.  Then I see it.  The casing holding the hard mount of the autopilot is broken. The rudder overpowered the autopilot and broke the mounting.   My heart sinks; it’ll be a long day hand steering to the Keweenaw.  The wind is abaft the beam and stiff, boat sailing 12.5 and steering is hard, must need the head sail for balance.   Try to set the rudder home as it dawns on me why I’m having difficulty.   The rudder is a “balanced rudder” which means in the proper position it uses the waters force to help provide the power to move the rudder.  That’s why it steers so easily with the auto pilot. 

Dang it, another hard lesson to learn.  Too much pressure to bring the rudder where it belongs, to busy just maintaining a course and sorting out lines to get things done.  This all would have been so easy with the sails down and the rudder in place.  Why do I only remember those lessons that cost me time, money, headache or heartache?  I catch just the right moment to head down wind without jibbing and get the rudder seated home.  Life is getting better by the minute, but still I have to hand steer which at these speeds is fun, well fun for about 15 minutes, then I’m cold and wishing for my hot cup of coffee just two feet out of reach. 

Think tommy think.  I dig out bungee cord and make a makeshift auto pilot just good enough to let me get my coffee and another jacket.  Think tommy think.  I retrieve the autopilot off the stern, broken for sure.  But how can it be repaired, epoxy, maybe, but that’s with Tiny in the motor home.  14 kts!  16kts!  At least the sun is shining and the wind is steady and coming from off shore, there is no swell and little chop!  17.5!  It’s just as well I am at the helm.  Adjusting course for to clear the point of land ahead, the speed drops its top ends but raises the average over the ground.  The GPS averages the speed over the ground from fix to fix but the speed log is on the bottom of the boat and measures the water sweeping past the hull.  My bungee cord autopilot is doing ok.  It buys me a few free minutes to examine the auto pilot again and the idea hits…of course, duct tape!  The handyman’s friend.  Thank you, Red Green!  Except in my case I’ll be using 3M high dollar green masking tape.  The old Coast Guard adage comes back to me, “if you can’t tie a knot, just tie a lot!”  Well, I use a lot of tape.   My auto pilot looks more like a pressgangs billy-club than an auto pilot but I test it out.  And, it works.  Life gets real good, real quick.  Oh, to not have an auto pilot, then to have an auto pilot, is a rush of joy the likes of no landsmen will ever know. 

And the day!  Sun and clear horizon and the almost warm wind so steady in the perfect direction.  The CAP’N LEM sings a song of speed and spray as we wobble our way toward the Keweenaw Peninsula and the Portage waterway.  Wobble I say because the autopilot is not a perfect helmsman.  Then, once, just once, and just for a second, on the through-the-water speed log, 21.5kts!   The line from the old sea shanty becomes reality.    “No mortal on earth like a sailor at sea!”

Right at sunset, the anchor is down just inside the west entrance to Portage Ship Canal at Lat 47® 13.828’W ~ Long 088® 37.948’W in 16 feet of water, having traveled 70 nm in 10 hours from Black River and 453 nm form Two Harbors.  

So ends this day.  So ends this good day.

0449, April 23, 2009, CAP’N LEM is moored to the wall at Black River, waiting dawn.  Well, no, not waiting…more like anticipating dawn.  Waiting implies I have nothing to do and there is much to do in the dark before dawn on a boat.  The baser things of life must be attended, like get the coffee water hot.  (Now that’s waiting!  Dang microwaves have killed what little patience I ever possessed. )  The ever present pick-up, straighten up, and put away in a space the size of a walk-in closet, an unexpected bump against the boat that demands I look or no peace of mind, out I go with shoes this time.  All is well and in the northeast just a kiss of morning light. 

Below again, I have my first cup and read.  I’ve started again Chris Duff’s wonderfully written adventure book, On Celtic Tides, about his sea kayaking paddle around Ireland and then feel a bit ashamed of the creature comforts surrounding me.  I move closer to the fireplace, sip my hot coffee and the feeling passes.

Adventure is like Einstein’s theory of Relativity, basically what you see depends on where you stand or sit in my case.  (My own condensed version, sorry Albert) and though deeply personal it can be shared.  So for a few moments I’m there with each stroke of the paddle as he pulls for a distant headland in a turbulent sea and the heart break of turning around only to repeat the task over again.   It is the great gift of my teachers to me, and I am reminded to say to them “Thank you, thank you so very much for your hard work force feeding me such a wonderful gift.  I can read, now.  And I love it.  It doesn’t matter that my dyslexia kicks in sometime and I read backward or the same words over and over like a tire spinning in mud, I still love it.  Thank you from the very depths of my heart, dear Teachers!”   And because I can read all adventure is at hand.  And that reading inspired me to action, to seek my own little harbors of self-discovery.   Oh thank you for Robin Graham’s Dove, Tristan Jones’ Ice, Joshua Slocum’s Sailing Alone Around the World, Moby Dick, Riddle of the Sands and Joseph Conrad.  Dear teacher, you gave me Joseph Conrad!  And I went with him into The Heart of Darkness and the Typhoon.  I jumped ship with Lord Jim and never forgave myself.

There it is, day break,  then the earthturning we call sunrise.  And thank you Chris for sharing what you did in such a way to encourage me to do this here and now.  Encouragement is so important.  To those discouraging spirits, those whiners so ready to tell us “you can’t get there from here” I say this “Pox on you and may your potatoes rot in the ground.  I can or I’ll die trying.”  I will yet be cold and wet, tired and lonely, discouraged and defeated, and scared to death, but not today.  Today I sail to the Keneewah.

The bridge over Black River

The ice is melting.  Of course that’s a fine thing, for one wanting to travel by water to the far north.  But something I will miss is the free ice for my cooler.  I just reach down from the trampoline and scoop in out of the lake, but now I have to go ice hunting. 

I sailed Madeline Island on the west side and turned east between her and Michigan Island.  Wind was Northwest at 15 kts so the course was direct for Black River.  The day was sunny and almost warm, warm being a relative term here in April.  But alas the wind died and I motored.  If you expect me to be a purest and sail every last mile, your expectations will be a disappointment.  I’m a traveler as well as sailor and motion is important to a traveler.  So I came into the exquisite little harbor known as the Black River.   There was only one fishing boat, THE THREE SUNS, beautiful in spite of her age, rust and storm tossed life on the lake, a beauty not needing teak trim or even a smooth paint job, but beauty  none the less.  Beautiful as hard honest work is beautiful that speaks without pretence “I am what I am”.  I took a lot of pictures of her.    

I tie up then off to hunt for, you guessed it, ice.  Along the shore was the remnant of the very ice that had held me back from Bayfield and the Apostle Islands only two weeks ago.  The ice was filled with the gravel and sand it must have picked up being pushed up on the shore by the wind and I’m reminded it was ice that made the lakes to start with.   But today I only want enough to cover the bottom of my cooler.  There is something immensely satisfying about picking up a much needed item from nature’s bounty for free.  Ok, it was no free lunch, but free ice to keep a rather inexpensive lunch eatable, is a good thing, don’t you think?   Too late for the milk, though.

Lat 46 degrees 40.0 minutes N ~ Long 090 degrees 02.9 minutes W.  Traveled 36 nautical miles today and 383 so far.

THREE SUNS

April 20 thru 22, the CAP’N LEM is moored port side to the city pier Bayfield WI waiting winter to pass.  Snow yesterday.  Snow again today and wind and gray and all the things of December revisited here in April to remind me of the land I want to go.  Such an education I am getting.  The Lake is my University.  I’m learning how to dress to stay warm and dry on the CAP’N LEM and still get things done and move about the boat.  I’m learning about how much propane it takes to heat the cabin, how much water I consume in a week, what foods are easy and tasty to fix when it’s blowing cold outside and I’m sailing 10 knots.  I’ve learned that if it is cold and the boat is rocking, clam chowder is easy to make, warm to eat and it taste good every time it’s fixed, even breakfast. (Note to self: Buy more clam chowder.) I’ve learned how to cook a very large fish (steelhead from Forest in Two Harbors) in a very small pan.  I’m learning how glad I am I made the hard dodger to cover the companion way. My little window on the world as CAP’N LEM glides over the Great Gitche Gummee, keeps the cabin dry in my comings and goings to do the ships business.

Even the waiting has great value.  Waking at 5 o’clock as is my habit, I can think, I can write, I can read.  I’m reading Shipwrecks of Lake Superior, a compilation of stories by various authors on the many vessels, men and women who have paid with their lives for the privilege of crossing the Lake.  I write my log.  I think of the miles to come and the miles gone by and I think of you.  What would you want to see?  Where would you want to go?  And I go there.  I think you would want to see Madeline Island.

Bayfield WI city dock

I remember the time I saw the LADY WASHINGTON coming out of the fog firing her 5 ponders at the LYNX in Port Townsend Bay on Puget Sound back in the fall of ‘05.  What a sight.  What a trip back in time.  I had sailed from Port Angeles (PA) with my friends and shipmates Seth and Frank to attend the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival.  We had sailed my ketch AVANTI in the fog all the way from PA not seeing a thing but the water around the boat.  That made for a lone 36 miles, I tell ya.  When we rounded Point Wilson from the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the fog started to break apart just enough to discern where we were, and then canon fire! Canon fire unmistakable! Right there in the fog! Then we could see the flashs in the fog, then the two ships side by side full sail and firing away coming out of the mist as they raced for Port Townsend.  My fate was sealed.  I knew  right then that someday I’d sail as crew on that magnificent brig.

It wasn’t until later that year that I ran in to Captain Bill Larson at the YMCA in PA that I started to get the encouragement I needed to get moving toward making it happen.  Capt. Bill had been master of the LADY WASHINGTON for years in her early days of sailing out of Gray’s Harbor Historical Seaport, Aberdeen Washington.  I seems like every time we talked he’d ask, “when are you going to sail on the Lady” so I started to get cracking and sent in my resume’.  Something about it they liked because I got a call from the Operations Manager offering me a position as mate aboard. I’d sailed every ocean of the world but never had I sailed on a Square Rigger!  Oh the things our egos get us into.  I was just going to go for a two week training cruise but … “Me? Mate on the LADY?  Four months?”   

Being a cautious sort though, I did have to check them out before making that sort of commitment.  I went on a Battle Sail as a paying passenger, which was hard for a master mariner like me because as old Ishmael of Moby Dick said about paying as a passenger and being paid as a crew, “there is a difference between paying and being paid, and it is all the difference in the world”.   But what I saw as a passenger was that the crew was having so much fun!  They ran up the ratlines, they screamed back the orders, they hung from the rigging, they sang sea shanties.  They hooked me like a fish!

Sailing south aboard THE BRIG LADY WASHINGTON fall of '06

Rough.  Started calm but built steadily from the Northeast.  First it was fog with light north wind that veered around to the Northeast and strengthens to 20 knots gusting more at times.  I could tell something was coming the way the swell, yes “swell”, was running from the northeast long before the wind picked up. At lease it blew the fog away.  Oh, but what a perfect wind for the Apostles.  10 knots steady speed with lunges to 12.5 and the ride was on.  Fifty one nautical miles without a tack. 

The Cap’n Lem is so stable.  Were she a mono-hull on this tack, I’d been beat half to death riding in the trough this way.  But the amma in the water balances the amma out of the water and the end result is speed.  Will I ever have the patience to sail AVANTI again. 

I sail passed the wreck of the 338’ wooden schooner PRETORIA which foundered on September 2, 1905 at the north end of Outer Island.  I feel such reverence here where so many rocks are headstones and so many shoals are footmarkers to the watery graves of so many good people.

 I found sheltered anchorage at Lat 46® 54.84’N ~ Long 090® 33.35’W behind a spit of land on Stockton Island.  Do they call them spits here?  It looks like a spit to me.  Anyway, it blocks the waves but not the wind like a spit.  The wind died in the night but comes back with a vengeance in the early morning.  I wake up to slapping halyards and the howl of wind in the rig.  I lay there still and quiet like that might make the wind go away, asking myself, what’s different? Something is different.  Something isn’t there that should be there?  Something just changed and I haven’t grasped what.  Then out the hatch into the cold.  Yip, the anchor let go and drug.  I’m in deep water.  Check the GPS; check the fathometer, 165 feet.  What was missing was the feel of the CAP’N LEM changing headings as the anchor pulls up short and changes her swing heading.   I’ve gone a quarter mile out into the open water.  There won’t be any sleeping here.  I’ve got sea room, blessed sea room.  No hurry now, make coffee, dress, start the day.  I might as well make use of this wind and head for Bayfield 14 miles away.  On the bow the anchor is hanging straight down. 

I would a’, I should a’, I could a’ but I didn’t.  I didn’t put out enough anchor rode, I didn’t set the anchor alarm, and I didn’t put my shoes on, just more lessons learned.  Note to self: leave shoes right by ladder.  It’s darn cold in socks on deck.

Dawn breaks, all’s well, making 6 -7 kts under head sail alone running with the wind.  Ice chunks, big ice chunks ever where, but clear passage through.  

I dock the CAP’N LEM at the city pier Bayfield, Wisconsin on the morning of April 19, 2009 after having sailed 347 nautical miles to get here.  Bayfield was to be my first stop when I left Two Harbors, Minnesota on April 6^th.   See what I mean about my “plans”.

Looks like an ocean from here!

On the morning of 18 April 2009, I feel the dawn just over the horizon and wake.  Today I plan to sail on the promise of good wind for the Apostle Islands along the south shore.  I hear with the minds ear my dear Godmother and Prayer Warrior, Irene, speaking with the wisdom of her 90 years, “Tommy, if you want to make God laugh,… just tell Him your plans.”

I sailed on the Research Vessel CORY CHOUEST on an around the world trip with Captain Russell Bosigua (Forgive me, Cap, for misspelling your name.  That was a long time ago) in 1992.  We did a global warming experiment in the southern Indian Ocean off Herd Is.  We did?  They did.  All I did was drive the boat when it was my watch.  The important thing is on the bulkhead of the mess deck was a poster with words so powerful they changed my way of thinking forever.  I do not know who the words were attributed to but they shook my foundations.  They simply said this:

The course of your life is not determined by the way you wish things were, but by the way you deal with how things are.

So, I adopted them as my life’s motto and like never before it must be at the forefront of every choice I make on this voyage.

One of the things I love so about sailing is the real and immediate need for clear precise choices.  You see, by nature I’m an emotional based decision maker in desperate need of becoming be a principle based decision maker.  Emotions change and feelings change and they are not reliable for making decisions.  (LUKE SKYWALKER!  DON’T TRUST YOUR FEELINGS!)  But principles are steadfast and unchangeable.  If I make my decision based on the principles of good seamanship I will make good decisions.   Irene again… “Right  actions bring good consequences.” 

The constant correction of course that must be made as the bow hunts its way through the water is the every reminding factor of what I wish for and what I get are always in conflict.  The uncontrollable forces of wind and tide, light and dark, known and unknown will be at play to thwart my wishes and must be dealt with in their turn with the best unemotional principle based choice I can make.

 And, whee, all I want to do is get across the lake.

15^th day of April, a day of waiting.  Warm with a bright sun.  I moved the boat to the Bolder Park wall on the northeast side of the harbor to get more exposure to people.  Thanks Harley for the use of your dock while I waited for the ice to move on. 

0358, on the 16^th day of April, 2009 the Cap’n Lem is moored portside to the wall at the northwest end of Grand Marais, MN.  My eyes open.  I get up.  Sleep on the boat is not hard.  It is sound, restful and delicious, but when my eyes open, I have to get up no matter what time of morning.  It is as much a part of me at this age as my long gray hair and my driftwood face.

So what does a sailor do at 4 o’clock in the morning tied to the wharf?  Well, this sailor drinks coffee, (Folgers Instant: the finest kind) writes in his log and reads.

My fascination with the shipwrecks of the Great Getchee Gummee grows with each crossing.  I know so little about this inland sea but I’m learning and my respect grows and grows.  I read words like “lost with all hands”, “a strange disappearance” “vanished”, and “a heart breaking disaster” and they melt from the pages into my imagination.  Steel ships, wooden ships, sail, steam or motor.  It doesn’t matter.  When the Lake was angry with wind and snow, men and women died.  I’m reminded to caution myself once again of the sea’s magnificent indifference and how it hasn’t the capacity to care whether I live on its surface or die under its waves.  After all, it is merely water.  Water, the great giver and sustainer and taker of life. It is inanimate.  It only seems to have the personality my imagination gives to it.  It only seems to direct its anger at man.  But in the end analysis, it is only water doing what waters do.  And me?  I’m an intruder testing my wits and cunning against cold and moody nature.  On the Lake or the ocean, the only thing separation me from a watery death is the integrity of the hull of the wonderful little ship I call the Cap’n Lem.  (Take care of your boat, Tommy.  Take care of your boat!)

Read enough, write enough and dawn will come.  The imagination that puts me at the helm of the LEAFIELD as it vanishes in the Great Storm of November 9^th 1913 west of Isle Royale gives way to the reality of light and a calm beautiful day, one more day for the ice to melt, one more day to prepare.

There are worse things than the danger of shipwreck and drowning to me.  The danger of doing nothing, of giving up and letting dreams die.  These things scare me more than anything the sea has to offer. It would be living death to sit by the fireplace safe and warm thinking of what I might have done.  So at age 63 I set sail aboard the Cap’n Lem. After all I’m younger now than I will ever be again.  So “Come on Lake!  Come on Ocean!  You’re a brute for sure, but you are a dumb brute and I will trick you into allowing me across for I am a Master Mariner and I have honed my craft for 43 years just to get ready for this day.”  (Yet, in my heart I know I will ever remain a sea fearing man.)

Morning April 13^th, my harbor home is ice chocked with new ice and small growlers.  The new ice stopped the Cap’n Lem’s swing at anchor and the march of the old ice into channel so the night was the quietest yet.  Slowly, very slowly I worked my way out of the anchorage into open water so I could try to get into the next channel to find the place where the Steamship America went down.   It is reported the bow can be seen just below the surface in 4’ of water.

It was not to be.  The ice was thick and fast against the big island and Thompson Island with lots of large broken growlers.  No place for the Cap’n Lem to be, for sure.  The wind is NNW and it takes me out past Rock of Ages Lighthouse again.  I feel a kinship to its loneliness this cold April day but it must stay put while I must move on.  The Keweenaw needs me to sail through her waterway so across the big lake I go again.

A ship!  I see a ship!  I watch the bearing drift.  There is none.  And what that means is unless one of us changes course or speed we will try to occupy the same place at the same time.  In sea going terms that’s called a “collision” and no matter who’s at fault, it will still be bad for me.  I recall Carl Sandberg “whither the rock bumps the jug or the jug bumps the rock, it’s still bad for the jug”. 

So I call her on VHF channel 16, switch to channel 8 and let her know who I am and that I will alter my course to go behind her.  She was the EDWARD L RYERSON.  I also call her later to inquire how I look on the radar.  It’s always good to know if I can be seen in a fog.  She let me know I painted a good image.  “Thank you, crew.”

On the horizon toward the Keweenaw Waterway west entrance, white.   Closer, of course it’s ice again, only this time it’s big ice, old ice, boat eating ice.  I test it down one lead to see if there is a way around but no, not now and the wind is picking up.  No place for the Cap’n Lem here either.  Well, beautiful little Grand Marais MN was a nice place to visit.  I come about and head back.  I believe I might be doing this a lot before I see the likes of Nome Alaska.

Its 55 miles to GM but only 40 to Horseshoe Bay.  We’ll see.  Oh, but what a ride.  The wind builds to a snappy20 to 25kts but I’m on a broad reach and the Cap’n Lem is loving it.  I get a steady 12kts with runs as high as 14.8.  Much faster than I’m use to but all is well and it I can slow easily by turning down wind.  That’s what one does with a trimaran to depower.

And then the dark and with it all the doubts one can have on a small boat alone at night, in the dark.  I check and recheck.  The autopilot is tracking well, Betty is making power, the running lights are burning bright, the radar… the radar transmittion does something weired to the autopilot.  Well, I don’t need this right now! Turn it off, turn it back on, yep something is going on. I suspect it’s the wiring to close to the fluxgate compass that when the radar transmits it pulls the autopilot off course.  Think, what have I done, ‘I looped the excess wire for the radar… and it’s too near the compass.  Ok, deal with it; just use the radar in spurts with the auto pilot in standby.  That works.  Check the GPS.  Lots of sea room.  All is well and very dark.  All the lights on the horizon seem to be houses ashore.  No boats, that’s good. There is a flicker to an a/c light that is different than the steady shine of a dc light used on a boat or an aid to navigation.  It’s very subtle, but years of going to sea have taught me what to look for.  But still, I had best check the horizon again with the binoculars.  It’s dark and I’m afraid of the dark. 

Closer to shore now the wind eases a knot or two.  My GPS keeps record of my track line.  I’ll use that to find my way back into the Horseshoe bay never forgetting there are rocks to the right of me and rocks to the left.    I go back to douse the headsail from aft, go forward to ready the anchor, go back to check the position,  go forward to let down the anchor, go back to steer the boat into the wind and set the anchor, go forward to douse the mainsail, go back to secure the rudder, go forward to check the anchor, go back to check the position.  I’m home for the night.

I have traveled 91 nautical miles in less than 12 hours and crossed Lake Superior twice more.