If you haven’t taken an ocean cruise you have not really experienced emptiness, endlessness. It is that feeling of the enormous, uninterrupted expanse of sky, unbroken horizon, with no verticals – no trees, road signs, electric power and cell towers, mountains or skyscrapers to halt the vision. Life is so often defined by what is lacking rather than what is being offered.
Remembering departing Thunder Bay, Ontario, the shadow of Sleeping Giant Mountain, headed for “Crown Land” off Sibley Peninsula and one the most beautiful anchorages – Loon Harbor. Surrounded by three islands, Lasher, Spain and Borden and a very narrow channel to the east Loon Harbor has remained at the top of my memory. Imagine being surrounded by high rock bluffs and rich forest on all sides. It’s extremely secluded. In 25 years of cruising Loon Harbor was the most alone our family ever experienced sailing. It was not about being alone in an anchorage. It was the intimacy of the nature. As dinner was being served topside and twilight overtaking the day, suddenly – a single call of a Loon hung there unwavering, till another Loon and then another and another joined and sweetened the calls into a musical phrase of extraordinary delight! Growing up and living in cities, this was a music I’d never heard before or since. It was filled with such longing, unfulfillable longing, it had me trembling. It seemed to me that I was hearing the very voice of God. Before we headed off to bed our daughter wondered aloud in the darkened cabin if she would see a bear or a moose come down to the water’s edge. The next morning we woke to three moose thrashing about in the water no more than 150 feet from our stern.
