The first November Gale of the season is blowing today. According to the weather app on my phone, winds on Lake Superior are 20-30 MPH with gusts higher than that. Waves are 3-6 feet from the surface, which means 12-18 feet from trough to crest. The sun is shining but the temperature is only in the 40s. Not good weather for small craft.

I’m reminded by local advertisements that the 50^th anniversary of the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald will be acknowledged soon. “Celebrated” is not the right word for the loss of 129 men and a mighty “Laker” loaded with Taconite pellets. For those readers who don’t know, a “Laker” is a humongous freighter, and Taconite pellets are marble size balls of iron ore, partly processed and ready to be further processed into steel. The ship went down only sixteen miles from the safety of Whitefish Bay not far from Sault Ste. Marie. Gordon Lightfoot wrote a song about it—readers can google that and probably hear it on YouTube.

I am also reminded of a summer gale on Lake Superior when I was about twelve years old. My family had a thirty-three-foot sloop (sailboat with one mast). We were sailing from Munising to Marquette and ran into heavy weather. We made it safely to Marquette’s small craft harbor and stayed there two days waiting for the wind and waves to drop to safe levels. On the third day, we headed out. We had barely gotten past the breakwater when we found ourselves facing ten-foot waves (twenty from trough to crest).

I was at that age when you think you are invincible, so I said I would go to the bow and take the jib down. (A jib sail is one which runs up the front shroud.) My father insisted I have a rope around my waist AND a life jacket, both of which I poopooed. My father struggled to keep the bow of the boat straight into the waves, so we didn’t get swamped. Once at the bow, I struggled to get the jib down, the darn thing flapping in my face. I finally got it balled up to see a twenty-foot wall of frigid water rising above me—we were in the trough of a wave. I was so scared I nearly wet my pants!

We turned around and motored behind the breakwater into the safety harbor for another day. Years later in my 50s, I was visiting my father and memories of sailing entered the conversation. I finally admitted to him how scared-stiff I was that day. We had a good laugh.

While I have NO desire to be out on Lake Superior today, I may drive to Calumet Waterworks Park wearing my winter coat and watch the waves crash on the beach there.