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June 06, 2002 - Finding your way in the fogThe Suffolk Times • June 6, 2002 Finding your way in the fog You will remember'on Memorial Day, when you woke up, our whole world was engulfed in that milky vapor called "fog." It reminded me of the many instances in my life when fog played a big part and I'm sure the same is true in yours as well. I can remember once when I was over on the south side heading for Riverhead on the East Moriches Road and a fog bank lay across the road just like FOCUS a stone wall. I 01V saw the fog bank and slowed down NATURE to pull off to the by Paul side. Other cars Stoutenburgh sped right on by me and then all I could hear was the crashing and tinkling of glass as one car after another ran into the fog bank, lost vision and plowed into the car ahead of it. It wasn't long before a police car arrived and I turned around and drove to Westhampton and went into Riverhead that way. It was a scary thing I can remember well. Another not -so -scary, but more laughable time was when I was out sailing with my son. The southwest wind was blowing and we were head- ing home and a fog came up. Well, I thought I knew where we were and wt were going "wing on wing" with the wind. Then, with the momentum of that sailboat — a little comet — we missed the channel by a mere 25 feet and landed high and dry up on a beach. My son to this day reminds me of that miscalculation with a big grin in 17 Fog can mean many things to many people. Here it takes on an almost religious aspect as the sun tries to filter through the sleeping world. Times /Review photo by Paul Stoutenburgh I guess fog is part of a way of life with some people. Once when we were up in Maine there was a road near the water where signs read, "Headlights required at all times." They wanted lights on no matter what time of day it was because the fog - comes in so suddenly there along the coast and they didn't want a problem of cars crashing into each other because of poor visibility. -One of the scariest foggy tales that I can remember was a time when Barbara and I were anchored over in Fishers Island in our 32 -foot Cape Dory sailboat. It had been a beautiful day's sail and we had had a lovely meal on board and were securely anchored for the night. The next day we headed out, even though it was a bit overcast, to meet friends sailing ahead of us who wanted to catch up with them. We no sooner got out of West Harbor when a fog rolled in, and I mean a fog in which you couldn't see to the bow of the boat. Sails came down and the little two - cylinder diesel started up and we slow- ly, headed east hoping to run out of the fog. We knew we were close to Fishers Island's notorious rocky coast because we could hear voices nearby. Finally we got a little anxious and pulled up to where there was a lobster buoy swirling in the current. This was going to be our security and we kept the little diesel going into the current, always keeping that lobster buoy in sight. We knew nothing could happen if we stayed there and waited for the fog to lift. And sure enough, in about an hour — after listening to other boats around us caught in the same sit- uation blowing their fog horns — the fog lifted and we found ourselves a few hundred feet off shore. A little scary when you don't have radar or any of the other electronics that make navigation much easier. While we are on the subject of boat- ing, I'd like to take you to a lovely anchorage in Shelter Island called Major's Cove. It's a great place to stay overnight and continue your journey e next day. We once did lust that and the next morning we awoke to find ourselves engulfed in fog. Lining the railings and on the edge of the cockpit and anyplace they could get hold were migrating tree swallows. I remember looking up from down below as these dark -blue and white birds watched me as I watched them preening them- selves for their next day's journey south. They were quite tame and stayed right there as we prepared breakfast down below. By 9 o'clock he fog had lifted, the birds were on heir way and we pulled anchor and continued on our journey to the east. Probably the most scary of all fog adventures took place years ago, just after I got out of the service, when I had the grand idea of becoming a bush pilot up in Alaska. The first step was to learn how to fly, so I took lessons at Matti - tuck Air Base under the GI Bill on "How to Fly" and, believe it or not, the first plane I was in was a seaplane. I actually got my license on water before I did on land. Part of the instruction is the cross - country flight, and you had to do two or three of these. And that wasn't lit- erally across the country but a destina- tion of a hundred miles or so in which you used dead reckoning, more or less, to find your location to land. One was over in Connecticut, and the other one was down the west end of Long Island, somewhere around Jones Beach. And so I took off merrily in my pontoon plane and skirted the outer bank of Long Island's south shore. I was enjoy- ing the flight and everything seemed to be going right until wisps of mois- ture seemed to be building up. I was probably flying at about 1,000 feet, but all of a sudden these wisps turned into a fog and I found myself in this flimsy little plane with few instruments to guide me completely in this whiteout (this was 55 years ago). I didn't know if I was going up or, down or sideways. Of course, I had some instruments that told me if I'was going up or down or sideways and it was scary at first to have to rely on these as I flew along with nothing but whiteness all about. This was not for me, so I dropped down to about 500 feet and popped out of the whiteness into a sparkling world of sunshine. Man, that was some change in the weather. I soon found my rendezvous, landed without any trouble and had a cup of coffee at the little marine air- port. Then I took off on my journey back home, but I can remember that feeling of complete isolation from the world around me. It was an experience I'd never forget. (And as I type this: It was an experience I've never heard told before. — Barbara) By the way, I learned how to fly on 1 nd n sea and just about that time got married and other things seemed to be more important, so flying seemed to dwindle away. (The truth of the matter is, he wanted to take me up for a flight when I was about 8 1/2 months preg- nant but was told if two of us went up, maybe three of us would come down, and maybe I'd better not go just then. — Barbara) We'll leave the foggy days with one last memory. When we first came to this place, we had a horse called Dusty. It was a small horse just right for the kids to ride and Peter and Roger enjoyed it immensely. It was a time when there were no fences and you could ride from one field to another on the back roads in what we used to think was a carefree world that's now long since gone. But back to Dusty. We had a foggy morning such as we had on Memorial Day; the sun came up and burned through the fog and I was able to take a picture of Dusty looking ghostlike in the fog. It's one of the fond memories Barbara and I both cherish, one that will prob- ably never again be repeated. So fog has a part to play in all our lives. Each of us probably could go on and on telling about our "foggy days." It's a part of the world we live in that makes it very interesting, not only in the sense of excitement but in the sense of beauty, for fog changes the world around us, just as snow and rain and stormy days that otherwise would be a lot less memorable. ...a fog bank lay across the road just like a stone wall.