The rhythm of waves is more real than tick-rock. Yesterday I had to ask the couple sitting outside their RV the date to write on the envelope with my check for this campsite. But I know that today is Monday and it has been a week since I packed the car, loaded the boat, hugged my kids goodbye.
Three long days on the road, three on the water, and an easy day of rest with a 3.2 mile walk and tour of the Au Sable lighthouse. Now with a road to its front door, when the lighthouse was built it was accessible only by boat and provisioned by a lighthouse tender, a ship named the Margarete. I
n addition to flour, sugar and kerosene, supplies included a wooden cabinet with 36 inches of shelf space, books that would be their only new entertainment for 6 months when the Margarete would arrive again with supplies and a cabinet library picked up from the last lighthouse to trade for theirs. More than the other consumables, I wonder if those books were carefully rationed to last the whole half year.
Until yesterday my paddling has been under the watchful eyes of my beloved coaches or their vouched-for cohorts. At the end of a 21-mile day to Grand Island's north beach, and in the face of a 20-knot headwind, I gave everything I had to the pace rather than have it reported to Scott Fairty that one of his students went on tow.
I lay in the chilly 48-degree water simulating unconsciousness in the "Situations" class. My buddy Ralph, with help from Bob, lovingly dragged my limp body across his cockpit while other students figured out how to recover my boat with a flooded cockpit and front hatch. Even in my thickest long underwear beneath a drysuit, I was happy when all of my body was draped across two boats and out of the water.
Yesterday was my 1st solo paddle. I'd packed my camp, made the rounds of teary goodbyes, much to the horror of these stalwart Midwest men. Having each other, there is no way they understand how lonely a person could get for a world of long skinny boats. For days that end with car racks festooned with tow belts, spray skirts, and PFDs drying in the last long rays of the northern summer sun.
