We took a lovely three mile walk along …. Bear River Valley Trail, then circled back to town for lunch at Chandlers. While we enjoyed lunch, we talked about plans for our cruise to Mackinac Island tomorrow. As all harbors have different slip check in times, we decided to call to see what time ours would be available and plan our departure accordingly. As John was checking, he realized that we were actually supposed leave Petoskey to be on Mackinac Island today! It was 1:00 by that time, but we decided it would be no problem to run a couple errands and quickly batten down the hatches, get diesel and do the general prep to leave harbor and be out by the latest 3:00 p.m. The cruise should take three hours, giving us plenty of time to be safely ensconced for the night in Mackinac before the sunset at 9:00. We checked the wind speed, 13 knots, and wave height, 1-2 feet, so off we scurried to get under way.
We left the harbor on time but within 20 minutes of cruising the open water, waves began to splash high enough off the port side bow to give us a pretty good dousing through the sun roof. We closed the sunroof and carried on. 20 minutes more, and the waves seemed bigger and the boat pitched enough that I had to hold on to stay in my seat. I asked Captain to deploy life vests, which he kindly did. Up ahead the skies were looking a bit ‘squally’ and the sea was getting rougher. Captain John re-checked two marine weather reports and both said 1-2 foot seas and 13 knot winds. He said, ‘this just doesn’t seem right. How can this be 2 foot seas? ‘ Last fall we had crossed the lake in 5 foot seas with Captain Tim, and although it was not relaxing, it didn’t feel as scary as this. I started asking John if we could find a harbor as I was getting a little worried. I just have no idea of what kind of pitching, rolling and crashing a boat can handle before it’s floating upright ability is compromised. I was working to stay brave, thinking that panicking doesn’t help anything, and if we should make it safely to Mackinac, which we probably would, I would just be more thoughtful about researching the weather in the future and just say no to any rough water.
A few minutes later he checked the weather again, and this time, finally, it began to report quickly rising wave heights, 33 knot winds, squalls and lightning strikes… advising mariners TAKE SAFE HARBOR. Hmmmm. I watched the Captain consider this news, and while I wasn’t sure, I believe he was thinking, well, we’re all the way out here in the middle, we might as well make it to Mackinac… As you all know, he’s pretty tenacious and likes to stick to his plan. Suddenly amidst foaming spray, crashing waves and pitching, the large glass door of the cockpit jumped off the track, shoe baskets, tissue boxes, sunglass cases flew, …. And after several minutes of chaos, when we felt that we had stopped all the loose objects from flying and had the door held up to be sure it wasn’t going to crash to the ground, the Captain conceded. We turned around (just in time too, as the clouds were gathering darkly on the horizon now behind us), and we headed to Harbor Springs where the protected harbor had little wind and no seas. Aaaaaah. I think the sliding door may have saved my life by giving John no choice but to turn back. And as long as we’re all fine, it just adds to life’s adventure.
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