Thinking back a few years…
It was a beautiful day on the North Shore of Lake Superior. A friend and I decided to do a bit of fishing. We had his dad’s 18 foot wooden skiff available. The only equipment on board was our fishing gear and an 18hp Evinrude outboard motor. Seas were calm with a slight breeze in the air. We were teenagers at the time and the last thing we pondered on was any safety equipment (other than life jackets, that is).
As if it wasn’t bad enough that we hadn’t even had any bites, a frontal system came through and within about a half hour, we found ourselves in a real mess. We were about a half mile out and waves were splashing over the bow. It took us about 25 minutes at full throttle to make it back to shore which looked really, really good to us when we got there.
That outcome may not have been so good under other circumstances. The motor could have quit, or we could have capsized, etc. The point I’m trying to make is that you would be wise to outfit your boat with a marine radio to get updated weather alerts, or a VHF radio to signal help, or possibly even a CB Radio to alert someone on shore of your dilemma.