11/29/12 TALES OF WINTER GALES, AND ALL HANDS LOST AT SEA

Thursday, 8:30 AM.  25 degrees, wind WSW, calm.  The sky is mostly overcast, we have about and inch of snow on the ground and the channel is enveloped in fog.  The barometer predicts more snow but the wind is picking up and a patch or two of blue appearing in the cloud cover.
    Neighbors Erick and Nancy and Sherman and Jane were over for dinner last night and the food (thanks Joan), wine, and company were all excellent.  Sherman is a ferry boat captain, and Erick and Sherman were both Great Lakes ore boat sailors in their youth, so the evening’s talk soon turned to tales of winter gales and ships lost with all hands on board.  Erick told of being on the last ore boat out of Ashland at the end of the mining era back in the early ‘70’s, and we discussed the possibility of that era returning.  Erick is now a Bayfield EMT in his retirement, and gets called by the Coast Guard to make emergency medical runs to the big ships, sometimes having to clamber up rope ladders to get on board.  Sometimes a helicopter can be called in to make a medical evacuation but often the patient has to be lowered to a coast guard boat to be brought to shore.

FINALLY, A LITTLE SNOW

BAD PHOTO, BUT GOOD COMPANY

    When the vacationland surface of Bayfield is scratched, what one usually finds is its maritime history.