Descending Fog by Arnold Amoroso

     Some stories hang in the memory because of what happened, others, more vague, for what didn’t.
  In 1970 we were both young enough to allow adventure to challenge good sense.   The late afternoon must have been clear when we paddled out to Cape Island in the old Grummond canoe for an evening picnic.  We unloaded at mid-tide, above the slippery sea weeds and started a fire out on the rocks.  We probably ate a leisurely meal, commented on the intensity of the intermittent light from Goat Island, and ignored the onset of a descending fog.   We were young: all threats were distant.

By ten or so we had lost the tide and decided to take the outside route
between Cape and Trott’s over open ocean in front of Goat to the mouth of the harbor.  The light, earlier intense and confined was now a smudge over half the sky, a dim spotlight behind a sheet of muslin.  Beyond the protection of Stage Harbor swells lifted and dropped us toward the sound of water crashing on rocks to the right.   That intermittent brightening of the sky now seemed excruciatingly infrequent as we rose and slid, rose and slid, waiting for the light.
      “Make sure it stays to the right, and we’ll be o.k,” I shouted from the rear.
      “Just keep us off the rocks.” Grace sounded determined but not
entirely confident.
     The fifteen minute crossing was relieved at length by buoys tapping against the aluminum and the rusty post of the harbor marker materializing beside us. The mainland came into focus, not clear but
free of the obscurity of the islands, and even in our youth I know we  felt thankful.