In the Early Morning Rain

The miracle of water falling from the sky

Dove gray. The morning sky is dove gray, the streets of Bayfield glistening with early rain reflecting storefront lights as I make the five-block drive to the dock debating: should I untie the Little Dipper and head out despite the rain? Or, crawl back in bed.

There is a glimmer of pink on the calm water rising in the east like an invitation. The droplets on the windshield seem to spell out words, the “syllables of water” as poet Conrad Aiken has call them, a poem written in rain. I slip the lines, clear the break wall, and head into the islands in the rain.

Although you don’t see many photos of rainy days in the postcard rack at the Bayfield shops or in the Chamber of Commerce brochures, some of us love the rain. I, for one, am a not-so-secret admirer of rainy days in the Apostle Islands. There is a rightness to the rain, a freshness to such days. I like the reflections in the puddles on the wooden slates of the dock, the way the knots slip easily as you untie the boat from the cleats. There is a coolness on the skin, an added sense of alertness knowingly pointing the bow out towards the big lake in the “bad weather” that drives so many other boaters to shore.

I rarely go far on days like this, content to just boat out to some quiet bay, turn off the engine, and drift. It is a time to listen to the the music of the rain on the roof of the cuddy, see the squiggle of the droplets on the wind shield, the world outside gone abstract as if Salvador Dali himself had painted the islands.

Sometimes, when I remember, I bring my copy of Rain: A Natural & Cultural History by Cynthia Barnett. What better place to read about the weather obsession of Thomas Jefferson, our “founding forecaster” who measured every rain for more than 50 years at Monticello and often ended correspondence with a reference to local rainfall totals? The author tells of cultures which resorted to burning “witches” at the stake as an offering to stop the rain when there had been too much of it and of shooting cannons at the sky as if to punch holes in the clouds when there hadn’t been enough.

Barnett even sets the reader straight on the shape of raindrops - apparently we’ve had it wrong all these centuries. They are not the pointy-headed waterbags children draw on school water cycle posters. Because of the sculpting of air pressure, they fall more in the shape of a parachute, rounded at the top and pointed below as they hurtle towards the ground.

It seems the perfect book to read tucked into a quiet bay, the staccato tap dance of rain on the boat’s roof, hot coffee in hand.

We are a culture that glorifies blue sky days as if the lack of clouds is the measure of perfection. Depictions of paradise most often have clear skies. But without the 34 inches of rain the islands get each year on average, paradise would be bleak and lifeless — no wildflowers, no soft carpet of pine needles beneath the cliffside pines, no knee-high canopy of ferns in the forest, no carpets of moss wearing that shade of green that fairly shouts of summer.

Days like this, it is good to soak in the simple wonder of the rain. I want to feel the air being scrubbed clean with each raindrop, smell the wet rock scent of the cliff faces now streaked with water. With my eyes closed, I recall a poem performed in the historical musical “Take It To The Lake” up at the Lake Superior Big Top Chautauqua:

ANOTHER MIRACLE

“You can hear by the rumble of thunder

That wagon loads of rain are rolling again

in the heavens.

Humans bitch and gripe … ‘Oh no, rain, rotten weather. We had plans!’

Underneath, the earth has a plan,

Accepts

Soaks it in, or rolls it in rivulets to the lake.

Another miracle just passed by

This is water falling from the sky!”

Every drop of rain is a reminder that not all miracles come wrapped in clear blue skies. Paradise wears many colors, and that on some mornings the beauty of these islands is written in rain.

With the slight breeze that ushered in the rainclouds, a chop is beginning to build on the slate-gray back of the West Channel so I don’t stay for long. I turn the Little Dipper back towards Bayfield, and into the building swells. At first, I try to adjust the speed, the angle of the bow to smooth the ride but I soon give up and let her bounce in every wave like a high-stepping child exploring every rain puddle in her new rubber boots, bouncing and splashing all the way home in the rain.

—Jeff Rennicke (all photographs by the author unless otherwise noted).

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