The Very Last Moment

An Apostle Islands postcard

If I’m being honest, I should tell you I was running for shelter. It was one of those mornings when I was on the edge about going out. I sat in the Little Dipper, engine warming up but still cleated in the slip, debating. The weather forecast was intimidating even in the robotic, emotionless electronic voice of the weather radio. The winds were restless, swirling, dark.

I went anyway. The light I love best lives at the edges - storm-tinged and shot through with threads of silver and sun. It is light you feel in your chest as much as see with the eyes, the way a good song is more than just heard. I crave it and thought this might be the morning.

It wasn’t, at least not at first. By the time I got halfway up the North Channel, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I had made a mistake. The waves were as black as deep space. The sky was thick with the weight of the coming storm. Without even slowing down, I swung the bow, my wake carving a kind of question mark on the dark water, and ran for home racing the first lashes of lightning.

At the very last moment the Little Dipper half in and half out of the safety of the breakwall, I throttled back for one last look and there it was: that light. I saw it. I felt it. I breathed it in.

And then made the turn into the calm waters and safe arms of the boat slip just as the rain began to fall.

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