The day had been overcast going to partly cloudy. Our course took us west under the Mackinac Bridge to the green can buoys “1” and “3” north of Waugoshance Point that would serve as our entrance to Gray’s Reef Passage. Approaching green buoy “1” we noticed a pretty white tendril reaching down from the dark underside of the cloud off to port of our track line. This cloud was large, tens of miles long, and rose from a low ceiling well up into the atmosphere. We were almost out of it with blue sky to the starboard.
Dave Moffett, our guest crew, noticed a dark swirl on the surface of the water. It was like a cylinder of smoke on the surface, a dozen yards wide and almost as high. Our imaginations easily drew in the graceful curve that would join the tendril to the dark swirl. Then Dave looked aft and saw the fully formed water spout off our stern. We decided Marsha wanted to be awake for this and started yelling into the cabin.
Marsha had already woken up when she heard the word “waterspout” come
over the usually mundane Marine Radio traffic. Marsha hit the deck with
camera in hand and captured the fully formed spout aft.
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Now our little tendril had reached down to the dark swirl completing the spout we had seen born. This pretty little spout was near, about a half mile away. We were now upon green buoy “1”. More of these formed off the port bow, beam and stern at a safer distance. They lived for a dozen minutes each before vanishing quickly. The entire system seemed to be off of our course and moving slowly east, away from us. We felt some concern but mostly awe.
The wind had died but the seas had built. For stability I left the sails up but fired up the engine. We rounded green buoy “3” and headed into Gray’s Reef Passage. The southbound course was more of the same: watching the waterspout show off to our port while motor sailing through lumpy seas. The VHF was alive with talk. All the boats in the area could clearly see the spouts and were discussing options. Some considered running west over Grays Reef. My assessment of the weather was that we might pass under the shallow (not much vertical height) tail of the cloud on our way south. I did not expect spouts under that weak tail and held my course.
Approaching the Grays Reef Light we witnessed the birth of the monster spout. The funnel coming down from the dark underside of the cloud was eight or ten times bigger than the others. This one was not white, had no graceful curve, and it was not pretty. This big spout had formed just to the east of the ‘tail’ I expected to cross. It had formed in the part of the cloud that reached up high into the heavens. It was uncomfortably close; we think less than two miles from us. The big spout was very slow to mature foretelling it’s lifetime.
This one got my attention. The wind was still weak where we were
and the seas still moderately high. The radio crackled with reports:
“Is it moving?” “I think I see it moving west.” That was what
I did not want to hear. I watched the funnel, waiting. This
monster was slow. Slow to move on and showed no sign of dissipating.
It had already been in place for some time. That is rare for a waterspout.
Only the big ones last any time at all. It seemed to get bigger.
Did that mean it is moving towards me, or was it just a symptom of my heart
rate?
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After twenty tense minutes we cleared Grey’s Reef and the big spout began to pull back into the cloud. This time he showed the tapered shape the others had shown. The cloud then produced an opaque rain wall in it’s place. We could see shore under and beyond the low dark cloud, but not where that heavy rain was, only a wall of dark from ceiling to sea. The day finished with a mix of cloud and sun broad reaching to Charlevoix. Bob Walton
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