“What IS that?” I exclaimed.
It had been a boring day. We were about 2 miles offshore north of Kewaunee and had been motoring for hours in glass flat water from Manitowoc northbound to Sturgeon Bay. While I sometimes say this is “Ideal motoring conditions,” I’d rather be sailing.
At first I figured it was just another of the many small fishing boats we encounter along the way.
As we got closer, it seemed this boat had been extensively camouflaged with tall grass, which I assumed was for hunting. I didn’t want to “scare” away whatever it was they were camouflaging themselves from, but I’d also never seen something like this before. Closer still, I wasn’t so sure it actually was a boat, though it did show up as a small target on our radar.
I clicked off the autopilot and steered a little closer. Kristin grabbed her camera.
Apparently, it was a large clump of grass! I checked the chart again… no, there were no islands out here. I checked the depth sounder… as charted at 120 feet.
Carefully looking for anything that might foul our prop or kiss our keel, we crept up next to the floating “island.” It was about 12 feet long and 8 feet wide, and definitely floating. Kristin wanted to name it… “Birdlandia,” after ourselves of course!
The previous day had seen some serious weather. A derecho had swept across the Midwest, leaving millions without power in Iowa and northern Illinois. Parts of that same system dumped a bunch of rain on shore near where we were. I assume high winds combined with a flash flood somewhere ripped this patch of grass from its hold on land and swept it out to sea, near our path.
We circled around it, took some photos, and continued on our way north. More motoring. More boredom.
