September 21, 2021. Western Head, Nova Scotia. Sailing In the Fog.

My friend Mary went sailing on Saturday. Accompanying her were Fran and Kevin a young man who is intellectually chalenged. He loves to sail with Mary. He is also in the band with Mary and Fran. Mary has a 16 foot boat that she enjoys. The day seemed overcast and cloudy but not particularly foggy at the marina. At our house in Gull Bay it was the same. They sailed out of the harbor and were well out to the mouth of the river when all of a sudden the fog descended. Immediately Mary said they could see nothing except fog. She turned around the boat and started sailing back to the marina but she really did not know where she was or where she was going. She could see nothing but fog. The first thing she did was check her phone which was out of battery. Fortunately, Kevin had a phone and had a GPS which Mary was able to find the marina. So all the way back to the marina she followed the red dot on the phone. When she first was able to see the GPS, she realized that she had been sailing right out to sea, even though she thought she had turned the boat around and was heading to shore. Had she kept on going, she could have been half way to Bermuda. On the journey back to shore following the red dot, a large engine could be heard which Mary felt was a big boat. The fog was still dense so even though Mary could hear the engine of a large boat she could not see it. Mary was fearful of the big boat running down her little sailboat so she quickly started her little motor so she could get away from the engine. And she was able to get away and not get run over. The three did return to the dock unharmed but for awhile, they were in dire straights. But everyone kept calm and all was well in the little boat. When Mary told us the story it seemed funny but it was not funny at th time. Trying to sail in fog is impossible. But they got lucky thanks to Kevin's phone.