Memoirs

Mispillion Fog

“Did you happen to notice the compass setting when we came out the inlet?” Jim asked. He was sitting on the bench in the stern with his line dangling over the side.

“No, I was too busy watching that lady driver bouncing over the waves with her bow stuck up in the air, same as you were.” Where an inlet meets a larger body of water, it usually means a churning of the waves. Think of it as trying to pour water from a soup pot into a Coke bottle and you’ll have the picture. I had been standing in back of Jim as he piloted us into the Delaware Bay from Mispillion Inlet when we saw Miss Speedy in her sleek-looking powerboat slow down just in time, but after righting herself, she took off again and was soon out of sight. I thought of her later.

Mispillion Light was a new launch site for us. We were boating novices. It was renowned for sudden storms, but the fishing was said to be excellent. Hot, clear, and sunny was the forecast when we pulled out of our driveway in the morning mist at 6 a.m. towing our new, used motorboat behind us. I had been campaigning for a boat forever, and two months before we finally found and agreed on a used 18-foot MFG. I fell in love with the open bow where I could sit in the salt spray on padded cushions and envision heading to distant places. Jim liked the almost new Evinrude outboard. Maps and a 2-way radio were purchases planned for the future, but we did have a compass and life preservers, required by law. Sadly, we had not bothered to look at the compass as we made our way through the winding inlet and out its mouth being distracted by Miss Speedy.

I turned around and looked back, shocked to see a rolling fog coming toward us. The sun had disappeared behind a mass of gray sky.

“Do you have any idea which way is back?” I asked.

“Well, I’m sure it has to be west, but I’m not sure we’ll find Mispillion. I don’t think we’ve been going in a straight line.”

These were my thoughts, too. Once we were in the Bay, I estimated we rode along at a steady pace about 25 minutes. Then we cut the engine and dropped anchor, slathered on some sunscreen and baited up with squid. We were after speckled trout for a fish-fry supper with the family next door. Right now, that did not look too likely although Jim had caught one small one.

“Well, what do you think we should do? Sit here and wait for it to lift or try to find our way back?” Jim didn’t answer.

The fog rolled in quickly until we could barely see the ends of our fishing poles. It was so quiet not even a hungry gull could be heard squawking overhead. Then we heard this clicking noise. Click, click, …continuously. It was coming from the stern. Jim stood and looked over the motor at the water, and I cautiously walked down the center aisle toward the back to see.

The water was circling around the motor as though it was going down a drain.

“We must be in a little whirlpool, and it must be turning the prop and making the clicking noise.” Jim voiced his logical explanation.

I leaned over slightly for a closer look. The bottom could be a hundred feet or more this far out. Oil tankers travel up and down the Delaware Bay with their heavy loads on their way to refineries near Philly. We were probably in their channel, which made my heart pound since we couldn’t see five feet ahead of us.

We had set the anchor, we thought, but it looked like we might be drifting. We had the required flares, but who would see a flare in this stuff? Those oil tankers could plow right over us and not even feel it.

“Hey, we’d better turn on our running lights,” I said to Jim, as I heard the sound of a massive hull moving through the water and felt our boat rise a little from the waves. I held my breath until I heard it moving off in the opposite direction. We had seen nothing through the thick murk. We rocked back and forth from the tanker’s wake, and I clenched the side of the boat until my knuckles turned white.

We were hopelessly disoriented, and there was nothing to do but wait for the fog to lift. If we moved, we could run into something, and we had no idea which direction to go anyway.

After a couple hours the fog began to clear and we were able to see the beacon at Mispillion flashing our direction home. It remained overcast so we opted to hightail it in while we had the chance. No more fishing this day.

We learned a valuable lesson about boating. Always take a compass bearing just before you get out into open water, but after telling our story to everyone we met when we got in, they said we did the right thing by staying put. They strongly suggested we buy a marine radio if we planned any more early morning fishing forays. And a boating course couldn’t hurt either.

When we got home, our neighbor said it had been hot, bright and sunny all day. No fish-fry, but seafood restaurants are for unlucky fisherman, or in our case, lucky.