“Wow!” was all I could say about the large silver salmon my husband had just caught. The fishing trip was going great–so why was Darryl packing up his equipment? “Don’t you want to keep fishing?” I asked.
We were out on The Queen Charlotte Strait, off the coast of Vancouver Island, in an aluminum boat just big enough for two. My company had rented a lodge and sponsored a fishing trip for employees, and my husband and I were thrilled to get a weekend away from the house and the kids.
A group of us had spent the morning fishing together. Then Darryl and I broke away to get some time alone. It would be a shame to end it so soon.
“Didn’t you notice?” Darryl said. “Look.” He pointed to something behind me. A thick blanket of fog floated across the top of the water quickly and silently toward us. Everything it touched disappeared.
I looked in the direction of the shore. We’d been only 500 feet from land minutes ago, but now I couldn’t make out anything in the relentless haze.
“I hope I can get us back,” Darryl said. The fog had already swallowed our boat. I could hear Darryl’s voice though I could barely see his face.
Somewhere a ship’s foghorn sounded. I jumped, and the boat rocked back and forth beneath me. A thin sheet of metal was all that separated us from the strong currents.
“Sit still and stay calm,” Darryl said. How could I be calm? Canadian cruise ships traveled through this strait on their way to Alaska. What if we drifted into their path? They’d never be able to see us. No one could.
“Darryl, I’m getting scared,” I said.
“This fog won’t last forever,” he said. But I could hear the frustration in his voice. The waves seemed to be getting choppier, tossing us about. I gripped the sides of the boat. My stomach churned. Darryl cut the engine.
I was almost too afraid to ask why.
“I just checked the gas can,” Darryl said. “The boat’s low on fuel. We’d better conserve what we have left in case we need to get out of the way of a larger boat, or away from rocks.”
I’d forgotten about the jagged rock formations along the shore. If one of the big cruise ships didn’t get us, the rocks might. And did we even have enough fuel to make it back to land? I stared into the fog. I saw the faces of my three sons, so real I could almost reach out and touch them.
Darryl and I had been anxious to have a weekend away. Now I feared I might never see my children again. The fog wrapped its misty tendrils around my arms and legs. Its thick wet mass ran down my nose and throat.
It seemed like the fog was enveloping everything: the boat, our fishing equipment, my husband, me. I closed my eyes: Lord, no one can see us. And I can’t see a way out. I wanted to believe the Lord heard me. Surely he could see us, and knew the desperate situation we were in.
Stay calm, I told myself. The Lord knows where we are.
When I opened my eyes I was startled. There, in front of the boat, was a large arch, almost like a rainbow, but with only the slightest hint of misty color. I’d never seen anything like it. “Darryl, do you see that?”
“I’ve heard of fogbows,” he said, “but I’d never seen one myself.”
It hung in the air like a promise. “We’re going to be fine,” I told my husband. I knew it was true.
The loud, low rumble of a motor sounded in the distance. Darryl started the engine and we moved toward it. We followed the other boat’s wake in the water and pulled alongside a decent-sized fishing boat. “Can you spare any fuel?” Darryl asked a man on deck.
“Sure,” he called. Several fishermen appeared from below deck to help us. We followed the boat back to their camp and waited there for the fog to lift before heading back to the lodge.
No matter how lost we are to the rest of the world, God sees us every moment of our lives. He sent me my first fogbow to prove it.
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