by Wayne23 » Thu Jan 26, 2017 3:05 am
June 2126: Lake Superior is about 400 miles long by 185 miles wide (longest and widest points). Cruising at a comfortable 25 mph (I know, but I can’t figure out nautical miles) I can cruise all day and never get close to land, especially if I don’t go in a completely straight line. But I don’t cruise all day, and I always dock at night. On the first few days I located and noted carefully twelve places to tie the boat at a marina, or dock or whatever, roughly at the hour placements on an old fashioned clock. And I go to the nearest one at the end of the day, assuming I’ve cruised at all. It’s safer. If a storm comes up I can make the boat extra secure that way.
Some days I just go out far enough so I can’t see land, and I just let the boat drift. I love the feel of being on the water- just love it. I may just sit on deck or even below deck reading, for a while, then cook a meal.
I spend way less time in the HC now that I’m on the water. I want the feel of the water under my feet, and being in the HC eliminates that.
There are all kinds of fish, including some very large ones, in Lake Superior, but I’m not a fisherman. Sometimes fish will come up to the boat, even swim along when I’m cruising. Live and let live.
I could swim on calm days but I don’t do that either. One mistake and some very bad things could happen.
Oh, earthquakes. Because of all the insane fracking that was done, this part of the country turned into a frequent earthquake area. That is somewhat less so now but earthquakes still happen, and they can be a problem. I have a warning system in place, and it will even alert me if I’m in the HC. If the alarm goes, and it’s something I couldn’t miss, I need to find out, if I can, which direction the earthquake struck in, and then cruise at max speed to the docking point furthest away. Why? If the quake actually hit in the Lake, it could result in some very high waves- not a tsunami, exactly, but high enough waves to cause problems.
Priority one would be to get the printer below and battened, if it happened to be on deck, and then cruise at max speed, keeping my eyes open. Worst case scenario I can actually secure myself at the helm. Living alone, I came to realize very early on that I needed to try to think of every eventuality and potential problem.
Oh, the boat has a shower but I shower in the HC. Why? I can take a 3-5 minute shower in the boat and why would I do that when I can take a full shower in the HC.
A word about the HC. What happens in the HC stays in the HC. Yes, I can eat in there, and the food actually reacts in my body the way food would in the “real world.” The same holds for anything else- if it happens in there it is real- in there. I can’t take anything out of the HC. There are times when I forget that. I’ll have, say, a bowl of chili. I’ve eaten half of it. I end the program without thinking, to go get a magazine, and the chili just disappears. Can’t tell you how many times of done that with food and drink. Oh, and yes, I can freeze a program rather than ending it, but when I open the door to leave, the stuff disappears anyway. But freezing a program works. I can come back to it a minute or a month later, and it will pick up right where I left off- without the chili or the vodka and lime, or whatever.
Next time: More of life on Lake Superior.