“It is just a squall. They come on you fast, and they leave you fast!”
The heat wave continues. Nonetheless we were up with anchor weighed by 8am. Sarah and Collin helped me which was really nice. Sarah raised the sails. The morning was very hazy and the air was thick and humid. Our guests and Captain had some Little Debbie snack cakes for breakfast, I grabbed some boiled eggs and settled into what we thought was going to be a nice downwind sail home.
After breakfast I went down to take advantage of some typing time. I wrote my blog and while I was taking advantage of good cell service near shore Captain called down to me and asked if I had looked at the radar recently. Captain and I can’t recall if we doubled checked the weather before we left or not as I type this. In hindsight, even if we did, I do believe that these extreme heat conditions do make the weather environment very unstable and unpredictable. As I pulled up my radar, I saw a massive storm front coming up from behind us. Captain could see it in the clouds; that’s what made him pull up his radar.
Yep, time to stop everything and go full First Mate.
First things first. Batten down the hatches. It was funny, because Sarah was enjoying the calm sail up at the bow, completely unaware of the change upon us. I was right below her in the V-Berth shutting the windows and gave her a startle through the open hatch!
Secondly, secure all items on deck and below. Make sure draw locks are locked, lee clothes secured down below. Make sure solar panels are tucked down below, Kona’s dish, etc. etc. etc.
Third, grab the foul weather gear and tethered life jackets and politely tell your guests that “we are expecting a squall, it shouldn’t be a big deal, but you may want to go below for a bit here.”
Fourth, go look Captain directly in the eye and say “What is the plan?” Captain said he was keeping a close watch on the water and when he see’s the wind coming, we can lower the sails and motor through the winds.
(Said in Morgan Freedman voice) This is when Debra remembered that there is a subtle difference between the thrill of being alive, and realizing you should have reefed earlier.
I told Captain that we have a lot of stuff on deck and when shit goes down, it goes down fast. I don’t want to be up deck trying to lower sails in something that could be bad. If it’s nothing, we can put the sails up afterwards. “It is just a squall. They come on you fast, and they leave you fast!” (One of our many Captain Ron quotes). He agreed. With that, we brought in the jib and then brought down the main.
Then we waited. Captain had on his foul weather pants but was delaying his jacket and life jacket because of the heat. I was already in my jacket and life jacket, because it doesn’t go on quickly…. I was in no mood to play with the gods today.
And just like that, from behind us the water turned black. From the horizon, about 3 miles, it was on us in about a minute. Just barely time for Captain to don on his jacket and life jacket. Let me just put this in perspective. There is no way we would have gotten the sails down in time. Captain is a very skilled sailor; our point of sail was downwind and with high winds like that we could have been blown over with our full sails and capsized no matter how good he was. In fact, this stormed set off water spouts on the other side of Door County, capsized a sailboat in Michigan and threw unexpecting jet skiers off their vessels. There were a ton of Coast Guard calls coming in around 11am for when the storm hit MI. That means the storm crossed lake Michigan in less then an hour and half. I saw tons of videos from sailor forums we are on. I am unaware if all people thrown into the waters were accounted for.
Alas, because I was cautious, we rode the storm out just fine. We had winds about 50 miles per hour. We don’t have wind instrumentation on board, but we can tell from the Beauford Wind Scale (It’s super neat and a cool party trick to share with new sailors). Our flag was whipping like mad. The seas turned to white caps very quickly and we had sea spray. Poor Captain was outside for the worst of it. I was holding steady just inside the companionway to be of quick service. I eventually joined him up deck and we just sat in the rain and calming winds. Because we had calm seas before the storm and it was short lived, we never got high waves, just a fun little ride. Everyone down below rode the storm out well, or at least saved face well enough. Except Kona, she was very clearly upset that she had been demoted to ride out the storm down below as well.
By 11:30 we were docked back at our Marina. I gave Captain his traditional “thank you for safe passage” along with a kiss and beer then got to work on dock arrival chores. The day hot, humid and clear; as if our little adventure two hours ago never even existed to the people on land. Surreal. The crew was hungry so we made some Ramen and made some plans. The decision was made to take advantage of the free kayaks at our marina and go up the Cedar River!
It’s been a long time since I have gotten to go kayaking. I wasn’t able to fit Kona in for the ride which she was upset about. We had a lovely paddle upstream with the wind to our backs helping. We saw a blue heron, lily pads and a really big snake in the tannin waters of the upper peninsula. The wind was pretty brutal on the return, but it didn’t seem that much harder to get back. I was just happy to have the breeze and splashing water on myself with every stroke. The best way to beat the heat when you don’t have A/C, play in water.
Upon our return we were all ready for dinner. We took our guests to the Halfway where we enjoyed a wonderful dinner and talking with all the locals.
Captain really wanted to have a fire at the marina fire pit so that is how we ended our day, enjoying time with Captains nephew and new love, playing frisbee with Kona and regaling their first ever pirate stories…and boy did they get some!
