Great Lakes on the Great Loop
Oceans Masquerading as Lakes
In the badlands of Arizona, I got used to the dangerous side of Mother Nature. Slithering reptiles, venomous spiders, godawful heat, killer bees…even marauding black bears in the high desert canyons. You can add to that list, summer monsoon storms that fill the air with lightning, ear shattering thunder and the smell of ozone. That particular smell became all too familiar recently while traveling up Lake Huron on our Great Loop voyage.
Mother Nature has a different deal going on in the Great Lakes, where summer storms come on fast and furious with little warning. Cautioned by those who have been caught out, we check the weather daily and stay put when the forecast “turns gloomy” as the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald song goes.
But it was a brilliant day with no hint of gloom as Star Dust motored along the shore of Lake Huron. The sky and water were robin’s egg blue, and the water glassy calm. The boat sliced through the mirror-like water and I sat on the bow taking photos of white and red lighthouses amid miles of green forest along the shore.
Lake Huron has 3,800 miles of shoreline
The miles ticked by, and we decided to take advantage of the conditions to go further than our planned stop. Making lunch in the galley I noticed long banks of white puffy clouds building along the shore. Handing Glen a grilled cheese, “Those clouds are building. Maybe we should max the throttle and get to the marina faster.”
“Nah, I just checked, the weather forecast is solid. I’m enjoying the beauty.”
An hour later, the wind increased, changed direction and the waves became confused, churned up by the sudden shift. Now, without discussion, Glen goosed the throttle to get us closer to harbor.
The white puffy clouds along the shore turned grey, flattened, and widened, darkening earth and sky as it moved over the water. When the temperature dropped, I knew it was a sign of bad things to come. Grabbing our foul weather gear from a downstairs locker, I battened down everything below decks and joined Glen up on the flybridge. Wordlessly, I laid out two life jackets within easy reach. Just in case.
Glen hunched over the radar, looking for an escape path from the building storm. The radar showed large cells both ahead and behind us. I touched Glen’s shoulder, “How could the marine forecast miss something this big?”, trying to deflect responsibility for pushing our luck.
Studying the chart I saw that the nearest refuge was a manmade harbor over an hour north. The harbor behind us was about the same distance so we forged ahead, forced to go more slowly now, because of the waves.
Ozone in the Air
A curtain of black clouds first touched us as light rain, but the air smelled like ozone. That meant lightning. “There…Glen, do you see that?” pointing at a place in the dark sky where I had seen a silver streak, and then we heard the crack of lightning. I glanced down at the instruments. They were working fine. Other than losing electrical systems, I have never found a good answer for what else happens when a power boat gets struck by lightning and prayed that I would not have to find out.
The temperature dropped again, like opening a freezer door at the grocery store. Now the rain pounded like thrown gravel, hitting the enclosure hard. The boat swayed in the white-capped waves, like we were out on the high seas instead of a large lake. Star Dust wobbled and pitched, trying to move through the agitated seas as Glen angled offshore for more elbow room and a better angle of approach to the waves. The new heading eased things a bit, Star Dust now taking the sea between her bow and beam.
The dinghy and outboard strapped to the stern transom must have been having a rough time, but I resisted glancing back to check. If the dinghy was torn off the transom by breaking waves there was nothing we could do to save it during the storm except hope it would not take the davits and deck along with it. Suddenly I flashed back to an old saying from my Army days: “Hope is not a planning factor.” Indeed, it is not.
Crashing through the steep waves, I was acutely reminded of the biggest difference between power and sailboats. Power boats can roll too much, take on water, and never recover. If the engine compartment flooded there went all six big batteries. Without power nothing would work and we would not be able to send a distress call on the marine radio—we would have to be spotted. Glen and I would have a hard time if we foundered in those northern waters.
Why did I think of the worst possible scenario? I did not want to think those thoughts, but I could not control it. . Breathe, I told myself, trying to shake the fear. Breathe. Inhale, exhale, breathe… look for a way out.
I studied the radar like it was a crystal ball capable of revealing a brilliant solution we had not thought of. But there was no out-running or turning back. We were in the middle and the storm extended from land at a 90-degree angle. Breathe, I told myself, inhale, exhale, breathe, again and again.
Bad to Worse
Glen worked the throttles, nudging Star Dust faster, then slower, testing to see what eased the pitching and rolling. He was a force field of calm energy and I stayed close to absorb some of his power. It had been a long time since I’d been so afraid of something. Probably not since we sailed around the world, and I never imagined there was anything on inland waters that could match the fury of the ocean. I was wrong.
A strange rumbling came through the darkness, rolling on and on like a barrage of artillery or someone banging on a sheet of tin roofing. Sound effects like those at a high school play where the stagehand missed the cue to stop. So THAT is what thunder sounds like on the Great Lakes.
Could have been minutes or hours, but finally, the radar showed patches of land as the storm moved away toward the Canadian side of Lake Huron. We are going to make it. When a stream of sunlight and blue sky poked through behind us, I was sure. Half an hour later the waves laid down and the sun came out, looked around and like us, must have wondered what just happened.
Shaken, we pulled into the marina under sunny skies, black clouds and lightning traveling away fast in the distance. Great Lakes sailors on the dock smiled at my soaked foul weather jacket and the stunned look on my face. “That was just a ‘Summer Surprise. We get larger Surprises than that. Waves over 20 feet high have been recorded on this lake. You were lucky.” one sailor assured me.
“I think they call it luck when you totally avoid the storm,” I said. “Do you ever get used to such fast changing weather?”
“Any Michiganders worried about the weather would have moved off a long time ago. Winter storms are way worse, sometimes with lightning we call thundersnow.”
That storm was a reminder of what I learned over and over again during our eight years of crossing oceans. The oceans, the skies, the winds… they do whatever they want, whenever they want. There are only two choices when it comes to being out there. Stay off it. Or be ready for anything.