Your ears, which usually just process music and bad jokes, suddenly become your primary navigation tool. You hear a distant splash. Was that a fish? A loon? A spider falling out of a tree? In fog, every sound is a mystery you don’t want to solve.
Every few seconds, you’ll see a shape. A darker patch in the gray. Your heart leaps. “Land!” No, it’s just a seagull sitting on a piece of driftwood, judging your life choices. He stares at you like you’re the idiot who woke him from a perfectly good nap.
And then there are the other boats. You don’t see them. You feel them. The low grumble of an outboard motor, getting closer, louder, until you’re positive you’re about to be T-boned by a pontoon full of laughing tourists. Spoiler: they’re laughing because they’re just as lost as you are.
That Weird, Calm Feeling
But here’s the funny thing: after about twenty minutes, the panic fades. A weird, quiet calm settles in. The world shrinks down to a diameter of about thirty feet. It’s just you, your boat, and the quiet hum of the motor. It feels like being inside a snow globe, minus the snow and plus an existential crisis.
You start talking to yourself. Not the crazy kind of talking, but the kind where you say, “Okay, that rock looks like the rock near the old dock. Probably. Maybe.” You become a detective of the mundane, looking for clues that the real world still exists around you.
I once saw a moose emerge from the fog. Just a silhouette, like a forest god who forgot his password. He looked at me, I looked at him, and we both silently agreed to pretend we weren’t there. It was the most polite interaction I’ve had all year.
Premium Photo | Foggy lake in the morning The water is calm and still
