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A Sailor’s Winter Lament Our boat, Meta Fog, lies on the hard in Newfoundland, nearly three thousand water-miles to the east of us now. How odd! Before our wanderlust got the better of us, we could drive to see her in winter, touch her, check her out, and be sure she was managing okay. Some years, after making sure all was good, we would drive across the frozen lake following the line of tree branches drilled into the ice by the locals, sentinels marking the best path. We’d haul out the skis and tour the Island for a couple of hours at last arriving at Bobbie’s little bar, the only place actually open, for a Spanish coffee and winter gossip, a rare sailing ritual the likes of which are known only to northern sailors. |
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Once as we started the drive back across the lake to the mainland, we were caught in a white-out. So we drove slowly from tree branch to tree branch. If a lead had opened up in the ice, I doubt we could have seen it in time. So we drove with the windows open, rehearsing out loud what we would do if the car fell into the water. One early spring, we learned that a very wet and heavy snow had caved in many of the winter covers on boats in the yard. Maybe ours was one of them. Worried, we set out to see what the story was. Not only had the tarp caved in, but the accumulated snow had melted just enough to compact into ice on the deck. It appeared that a freeze/thaw cycle had repeated itself several times as there were thousands of pounds of unwieldy giant misshapen ice boulders clogging the deck. Hours of chopping, lifting, pushing and sliding finally cleared them away and let her rest naturally again. We still call Bayfield, Wisconsin, our home-port, despite the fact that Meta Fog has not been there for years as we sailed east over several summers. The first year, she was only a few hundred miles away. We had friends near her who looked in on her once in a while and would send us reassuring messages. Then, in early spring, we drove the 800 miles to check and found her no worse for wear. For a couple of years as we moved ever eastward, we relied on the boat yards where she was hauled to look after her. The occasional email during the winter was enough to reassure us. But now she is in Newfoundland, a land devoid of pleasure boatyards. There are a few yacht clubs and she is at one of the best. But, we are strangers and know no one at all so we are bereft of news of any sort about how she is faring. She is on her own, alone for the winter, waiting in harsher gales than she has ever seen before. She is suffering the long separation of winter without us or anyone, really, to look in on her. We comfort ourselves knowing that she is a tough old gal able to handle all that the sea can throw at her and, we hope, the vicious blasts of a North Atlantic winter. Editor's Note: Newfoundland is considered by many to be one of the greatest and most beautiful cruising grounds in the world. Check out Alexander Weld's Cruising Guide to Newfoundland for more!
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