Fog

My first thoughts of consciousness today were hearing the irregular drops of water hitting the deck.  Then came the soft, subdued light that greeted me as I looked out the overhead hatch partially covered by the dinghy on the deck.  As always, I wonder if we have moved in the night at anchor.  To check that, I decide to go topside and turn on the chart plotter.  It was then that I knew the reason we were not hearing sounds of marine traffic or shore vehicles; fog.  Not just any fog but true, thick sea fog.  There is no wind so the fog has settled around us like a translucent container lid.  The visibility is only twenty yards or so and we cannot see the mast head.  Wow, what a treat.  There are no other inhabitants of this place that we can see or hear.  We are alone in the universe right now.  The water is without ripples and there is no current thus we are not moving.  Just now, I heard the sound of some bone head ashore throttling his motorcycle up on the highway.  I am guessing he cannot see any better that we can.  That is a death wish in the making. 

This is our first time to experience such fog at anchor since the start of our adventure.  In such conditions, if possible one should find an anchorage well off the waterway and wait.  Underway, there are rules for sound signals that must be used while proceeding at “dead slow”.   I hear no such signals so all mariners are doing what we are doing; sitting tight.  At sea, one can imagine dragons stalking the boat.  I liken this to an old TV show: Twilight Zone where the host Rod Serling (I think) would say “Do not attempt to adjust your set”.  Pilots refer to this as zero, zero. With the chart plotter and radar, we can navigate in this but why?   Greater forces are at work and we can do nothing but wait.