I'm almost two years late writing about this trip. I don't know how that happens - it just sometimes does.
It was late Autumn of 2009 and I thought I was finished with sailing for the year but November rolled around with unexpectedly warm weather so I decided to sneak away for a weekend solo cruise on the Great Salt Lake.
Ten years before I had visited tiny Hat Island, about 2o miles across open water nearer the far, uninhabited western side of the lake. It was one of the strangest experiences of my life. I did not camp there, but anchored out somewhere off the northern tip of Stansbury Island. I have longed to return to Hat Island ever since. When I learned that the island is a bird sanctuary I assumed that it may not be wise to try to camp there, but I assumed the quarter-mile long sandbar that extends south of the island should be an acceptable place to pitch a tent for the night.
The loneliest marina on earth
When I arrived at the Antelope Island marina I was amazed to see that the water level had dropped to so low that all of the boats had been taken out. It was a hauntingly lonely site as I launched and set out. Eerie quiet. No wind to speak of, so I cranked up the Honda. I wasn't a half mile out before there was a loud thunk and my temporary motor mount (oops, never got around to the permanent one) split in half. The motor had hopped violently when it hit some unseen underwater obstacle - almost certainly one of the dreaded tufa reefs that wouldn't normally be this near the surface when the water level was higher. The motor was saved by a safety line but I was left with the dilemma of no motor with half a mile behind me and another 19 or so to go. I decided to lash the motor in place and forge ahead.
Kludged motor mount - a wing and a prayer
After an hour or so of jury rigged motoring, tiny Hat Island peeked above the horizon. I remember that place as a bizarre jumble of black basalt, covered with bird skeletons and surmounted at its highest point by a small weather station that looked more than anything like a space probe crashed on some forbidding alien world.
Hat Island looms off the starboard ama
Having never been to Carrington Island, which is just a couple of miles south of Hat, I decided to go there first, take a look around and then head back to the Hat Island sandbar to spend the night.
The XCR beached on lonely Carrington Island
Carrington Island was once an airforce bombing range and its already jagged and foreboding terrain is pockmarked by craters and chunks of shrapnel. I set out to climb to the highest point but after an hour or so I realized I was burning precious daylight and turned around at the second highest peak. From here I had a startling and disappointing view of Hat Island. It was no longer an island. There was a stretch of dry lake bed connecting it to the northern extremity of Carrington Island. So much for my fantasy of sleeping in total isolation surrounded by water.
Bomb shrapnel on Carrington Island
Hat "Island" is the small dark peak at the far side of the flat
Coming into Carrington Island I had been forced to feel my way through unseen tufa reefs which presented nerve jarring obstacles to my poor dangling motor, forcing me to make a wide arc into deeper water. I now followed the same arc back toward Hat Island but as I got closer to the island the tufa became harder and harder to avoid. The last half mile became a maze of reefs that poked up out of the water in turtle back humps and walls. It eventually became shallow enough that I stepped out of the boat and began leading it by the bow line, weaving in and out of pockets of open-ish water.
You can't get there from here
Eventually I found myself standing there, looking at the island only a quarter of a mile or so away and finally accepting that there was just no way I would be able to reach shore. I might be able to carry my camping gear the rest of the way but I could imagine what would happen to the boat if I left it here on these reefs and surf started rolling in.
Stranded amid the tufa
When you're alone in a strange place there is a certain gravity that comes with the lowering of the sun. Things get strange and foreboding. Standing there in the tufa maze I remembered a story that my surveyor brother-in-law Jim had told me. He had been doing survey work on the causeway that bisects the Great Salt Lake. His team had been using a row of railroad boxcars as a landmark. One night a storm had rolled through. The next morning was clear but when they returned and looked for the boxcars they were nowhere in sight. The waves had taken them. These were full sized steel railroad boxcars filled with rock and the dense salt-laden waves of the Great Salt Lake had just swept them away overnight. Imagine what those waves would do to my little dragonfly of a boat. These thoughts and the vanishing sun made my neck hairs stand on end a bit. It is easy to see how trepidation could turn to terror if something did go seriously wrong out here in the weirdness. After some further head scratching and watching the sun creep ever closer to the horizon I finally realized I was out of options to reach the island and decided to pack it in and head back to Carrington for the night. No wind and not enough water for the motor. I was able walk the boat back out through the maze to open water, gave a shove and hopped aboard. I reached for the paddle but couldn't find it. Now what? I finally spotted the paddle floating about a hundred feet away. I'm trying to remember how I recovered it but to be honest I don't have the slightest idea. One way or another I did recover it and began the trek back to Carrington Island. The light was quickly growing magical and the western slope of Antelope Island off to the east seemed mystical and unreal. The sun set with a deeper crimson than I remember ever seeing. Red sky at night.
Antelope Island in the last gleam of the gloaming
Hellfire and primordial soup
I spent a surprisingly warm night on Carrington Island. This was November in Utah, after all. I started packing up just before dawn. A fresh wind began to blow. Soon the wind was strong and the sails were whipping on the beached XCR. Strange how it came up so fast out of nowhere. I thought about the boxcars again. The water was still flat but covered with a fury of tiny ripples. I tied in a deep reef before I cast off. Once on the water the waves began to build. I was double reefed and doing 8.5 mph by the GPS, but very comfortable. The sun rose on another beautiful day, even more so than yesterday because this sunrise brought the wind with it.
Wind begins to whip the sails
The sudden wind manifests itself in fierce ripples
The ride home was the best sailing ever and the breeze carried me almost to the marina before it faded and died. Most of the way I was double-reefed and doing 8 plus MPH. Back home I was amazed at how pruned my hands still were after two days in the uber-salty water.
Islands, mountains and dawn chop
The lake is rising again now. I don't know when, but I still plan to spend that magical night on the lone sandy beach of Hat Island.
Osmosis in action
