An outing on a Tuesday night

The municipality of the Northern Bruce Peninsula extends from Pike Bay to Tobermory. It has 3900 year around residents. Their ancestry is mostly Scottish. They work the fields, the forests, are shop keepers and wait persons at the local eatery. They band together around their faith, believing in the fundamental nature of all things of heaven and earth. They sing, grouped in unison to give concerts in small congregation churches up and down the Peninsula. The Spirit Singers are a 50 person group. The women are decked out in white blouses and a long Bruce Tartan scarf draped over their left shoulder while the men wear a Bruce Tartan vest. The Spirit Singers' director, accompanist, instrumentalist-music writer, as well as the Suzuki violinist are from one family; grandpa to 7 year old grandson.

We gathered, some 125 of us, in the Bethel Missionary Church which has been preaching the gospel for 105 years, recently in these new digs, but before, in a clapboard structure resurrected from a bygone era. The gray heads, the all-one-color-hair older people, plus a smattering of salt and pepper styles made up the majority of the crowd.

The song selections matched the environment: church music, Down East Nova Scotia sea and parting with loved ones music, medley of 1950's Broadway Musicals, and the most impressive piece to me, the choral rendition of two Elvis Presley's ballads. Fiddler On The Roof medley was opened by the 7 year old Suzuki violinist and closed with same. Several pieces were written for them, by them as they performed them. The choir sang with good diction and enthusiasm.

The middle set featured various soloists, instrumentalists, and the 7 year old "fiddler" doing early English tunes, some from Scotland, and some others straight out of Appalachia. His father had arranged the music for "Dueling Fiddles" which was a gas: father and son.

The last set was an extended Broadway Musical medley finishing with a "Restoration" piece written by the father of the fiddler.

The music was fun. What was interesting to me was the plaintive tunes from "Down East", Appalachia, mixed with Scottish Presbyterian church songs that contained some of the song phrases heard in Gospel music.

At the end of the concert, people began filing out slowly, chatting with one another. Choir women's purses were still out on the chairs, and the white heads bobbed towards the vestibule, bulletin boards announcing various doings including "Deconstructing Darwin" on Thursday night at the Sauble Beach Fellowship Hall.

Outside and to the West, layers of pastel colors remain as the sun fell. Night time approaches, and, if it is a clear sky, then the early phases of the Perceid meteor shower may be seen. I will look for it.

Clinging to thoughts of summer

Clinging to thoughts of summer, I sit inside, sliding-glass door half open; I see the lightning and hear the thunder while the rain pat pat pats the deck. It didn’t start out as an all day rain, but it ended up that way. I awakened at 5:02 AM. I didn’t want to be late to go fishing with Ian Davis on his boat. We were to meet at 7:15 AM so I knew I couldn’t sleep in as I usually do. But, I got back into bed and just lay there. I got up again at 5:58 AM, and went back to bed again, waiting for 6:15 AM. At 6:14 AM I got up for good, made coffee and got ready for my morning adventure. Bag packed with life preserver, raingear, hat, sunscreen and sunglasses I drove to Tyler’s dock. Ian was already motoring in Mare Nostrum. We hailed one another.

He was in a different boat than the one I remembered. This one, maybe 20 foot with an inboard engine. He has had it for 6 years he said; keeping it at the Lion’s Head Harbour because the water level on the Huron Lake side of the Bruce Peninsula has been so low he couldn’t get into his man made cove in front of his cottage.

As he came close to the dock, I handed him my bag and coffee cup and then I tumbled into the stern, there are no steps to transition from its high freeboard to the floor, let alone from the dock to the hull. Plop. I was in.

The day had been overcast, but inside Little Pike Bay there was little wave action. As we motored out past the South Point alongside the shoal, the wind struck us at the bow. The seas that had been building from yesterday were riding towards us, lots of whitecaps. In a boat that size, small weight variances have a big influence, impacting the center of gravity, and, in this case, how far astern the pivot point is. The boat looks a lot like a very short version of the 35 foot Cape Hatteras “Picnic Boat” made several generations ago with a high prow to take on the Atlantic Ocean when Island hopping. In this look alike but diminutive boat, the high prow and heavy inboard engine in the stern results in two nasty situations when the wind is strong off the quarter beam; the wind catches the forward portion of the boat and tries to drive you sideways and then around, forcing the boat to run before the seas; and two, with an already heavy stern, made worse when anybody goes into the stern, the bow rides high and does not cut through the waves. Predictably, the boat hobby-horses in seas. You are pounding and slapping the water constantly. Bang bang bang. “How are your teeth?” Ian asks me. “Still got your fillings?” He said he didn’t understand why the boat was pounding so, “it’s a deep V hull and shouldn’t do this.” I didn’t point out what was obvious to me as I hung onto two built-in handles, eschewing my coffee mug as his portable GPS went flying off of its built-in mount and onto the floor. To make progress in these conditions and this boat in particular, it had to have enough speed to overcome the force of the wind and waves, so out we went banging our way to open water.

After a couple of miles of staccato conversation, in between banging episodes, we slowed down and headed directly into the South by Southwest seas. “Head South” he said turning over the helm to me as he went aft to set out the lines and attach the downriggers so that we could troll for salmon close to the bottom, about 65 feet. He had cut the inboard engine and started the trolling outboard engine and left me facing 6 ½ foot waves at 1.5 miles per hour. The compass course was supposed to be 180 degrees. The outboard is offset on a port bracket and was underpowered to drive us into the wind and seas to maintain course. So, we were all over the map, East, West and at one point North. The bow would rise high and then slap onto the next wave, at times pitching the boat one way or the other. Water sprayed over and around us. Ian was making progress in getting the lines out and the downriggers down. The stern was not pitching as much as the bow and the helm where I was sitting. “One hand for the boat and one hand for yourself.” A sailor’s adage. So true. To increase speed, I gave more gas to the outboard, but no response. “There must be something wrong

with the cables” said Ian. So we started up the inboard engine again. The fishing line suddenly came off the starboard downrigger, but no run of the line to suggest a fish, just too much tension. Back to the stern Ian went, exaggerating the weight and pivot point issue again. He was being bounced around now. “I think these are all signs that we shouldn’t be fishing today.” And so he reeled in the lines, pulled up the downriggers, raised the outboard back onto its perch and we slowly headed back in; with the wind abaft, we were rock’n and rollin'. Our conversation was now steady and enjoyable.

Back at the dock, I clambered out and said my thank you's and good-byes, we will try to go fishing again some other day. It had started to drizzle, the beginning of our rainy day.

The promise of summer

Rain is coming straight down. There is not a breath of breeze. It is so quiet that you can hear the drops upon the wooden deck. It was not so this morning. Quiet, clear skies, not a breath of breeze, and a mirror of a lake. No lapping of waves, just the rivulets emptying and then filling the front cove. A perfect day for a sail, eh? Well, as it turned out, there came a breeze from the Southwest bringing warm humid air that swung around to the North and began to build. It was time to launch the SunFish, and so I did. Tacking furiously out of Mare Nostrum I achieved the rumpled water of Little Pike Bay, heeling hard to Port and hiking out to Starboard we flew, tension on the mainsheet, entertaining just a hint of luff in the sail. Lots of pressure on the sheet, I remembered I should have taken my sailing gloves. And then, dark ominous clouds in the South. Pillars of rain shown light against the darkening background. I came about and headed in, although there was still gentle puffs of white clouds overhead, and a sun beating down upon my skin, burning my skin; but the clouds were coming, the rain was coming, thunder and lightening were coming. No time for another exhilarating run into deeper waters. Time to run in, wind ahead of rain, moor and wrap the sail tightly so that it would not flap in the storm. Back at home, safe and sound. The wind has gone, and, as I write, the lake is once again a mirror, not even ripples. Mini rivulets resume their ebb and flow in our front cove.

Bounty was launched yesterday. The barometric pressure was high, the seas calm and a run out into the open water was inviting. The lure to the water was mitigated by my deliberate planning of each step, engine position, spark plugs, new

tubing for the gas cans, petcock closed, and then she was launched. She ran like a top. I headed out, past the shoaling waters into the deep blues, the engine now purring, achieving a new state of perfection, almost a quietude. In coming back from a Purgatory Cove visit, I sped through the South shoal finding the deep slot of water on my way home.

The first picture is sunset, oil on water, the oranges and purples of evening. Silence. You can hear yourself think