| Sailing Lake Superior Sailing to Marquette Michigan By Anne |
| "August 15—Following yesterday’s beautiful, clear day of sailing, we awoke to a heavy, gray-white fog. We could see none of the shorelines from the little bay we had anchored in for the night. Standing on the boat was like being on a ghost ship at sea. Through out the length of the yacht, draped between stanchions, lifelines, shrouds, running up the mast, on the sail cover, and between the spokes of the wheel were hundreds of spider webs, outlined by the small beads of water that decorated them. It was peaceful in a strange, eerie sort of way." |
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| We got underway on instruments around 8:30. We watched the radar and chart plotter carefully, and I rang the fog bell periodically. We saw what might be a target about a mile away on the radar and placed a “security” call, which is a radio announcement telling your position so that other boats within radio range know of your presence. There was no wind, so we were under engine power. Around 12:15, a small passenger arrived in the form of a female goldfinch, lost in the fog, who found refuge on our boat. |
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This goldfinch settled right in to feasting on insects and spiders as though this were her daily routine. Landing upon our lifelines, she surveyed the boat, and then began the hunt, hopping and flying from end to end. Pecking in piles of ropes, crevices, and winches. She did not perceive us as a threat, and this normally wary bird on land would hop around us as though we were old friends, sometimes coming within inches of our hands and feet. After about an hour she ventured off into the fog again. |
| I couldn’t believe it, but around 2:00 our friend, the goldfinch was
back! She then worked over the dinghy, which hangs in davits off the stern
of the boat, then returned to the main deck of the boat continuing her hunt
for insects from every nook and cranny that she could find. Upon finding a
particularly large spider from our steering system, she carried it to the
cockpit seat where she systematically bashed it against the wood over and
over until she killed it. Only then did she swallow her prey. Around 2:20 our fog finally began to lift. As we began to see the shore through a blue haze that still shrouded it, our little friend took flight off our stern. As I stood on our cockpit seat watching her she gave me three chirps as she left. Was she bidding me farewell? |
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