Some days start off in a fog and end up with a clear horizon. That was literally the case Friday.

Temperatures in the 50s and even the 60s were totally out of place for the day after Thanksgiving. This was more like September weather, even though the calendar nearly has us in December.

As the morning brightened, the fog seeped in from the bay. The distant shore of East Providence and Barrington faded. Next, the channel markers disappeared. A wall of white closed in, but otherwise conditions were ideal to be out on the bay. There was no wind; the water was flat and it wasn’t freezing.

I brought the oars down to the seawall and returned to the house to get the boat. It’s barely 100 feet, but by the time I had the boat and was on my way back, the seawall was nothing more than a gray illusion.

I launched the boat anyway. I’ve rowed off the Conimicut shoreline so often that I felt confident I’d know where I was even if it was pea soup fog. I was put to the test immediately.

Within the first four strokes, the shoreline disappeared yet, remarkably, the tree canopy and the upper stories of homes were dark shadows in an otherwise all-white canvas. No problem, I thought this is going to be like countless morning excursions I’ve taken. I concentrated on rowing, and then even that visual clue of the shoreline melted away. Poof, it was gone.

Fog can give an eerie, unsettling feeling, like walking on a raised curbing and wondering if you’re going to be able to maintain your balance. Just when you think you’ve mastered it is usually the moment when you lose it. When driving in the fog, road stripes are an invaluable guide. Lose them and there’s a chance of drifting into the oncoming lane of the road entirely.

At sea, fog can be unnerving, if not frightening. In the days before Loran and later GPS, I recall those occasions sailing into the oncoming waves in Buzzard’s Bay, straining to see the form of a buoy that according to my dead reckoning should show up at any moment off the starboard bow. The appointed time would come and go with nothing. I would question whether we’d steered the proper course and wonder if we’d properly compensated for the tide. We’d go back over the projections. It was 45 minutes since the last buoy, we should be off Sakonnet Point. And then came the muffled sound of a bell, and we knew where we were and we felt safe until the next leg of our trip. Then it would start all over again.

One of those foggy voyages had us off Castle Hill at 2 a.m. The wind had died and we were motoring. Even at that time we could hear traffic on shore and breaking waves. We knew we were close.

I went to the bow in hopes of gaining a bearing and looked up. To my astonishment there appeared to be a lone star. Was the fog hugging the sea?

Looking forward, I saw another “star” and suddenly I realized we were 15 feet off the stern of a much larger boat. The overhead star was a mast light. We followed the larger boat into Newport Harbor. It was a piece of cake.

Those experiences came to mind as I was enveloped in fog Friday morning. This was different. There was never the prospect of being lost. I could see the bottom clearly, so I knew I was close to shore. Green Airport was buzzing, and that served as an audio guide. The Thanksgiving holiday traffic wasn’t going to be slowed by fog. And, besides, I had lots of talkative company.

The chatter of Brant geese surrounded me, and while I never saw them, there were times when I’d gotten too close for comfort and there would be the beating of wings. Seagulls were less wary, or maybe smarter, because flying in the fog must be treacherous even for Brants. The gulls paddled out of the way bobbing beyond my extended oars.

Believing where one is, but lacking the reassurance of a marker to confirm a position is disconcerting, even worrisome. The future is filled with uncertainty, and worse yet the prospect of failure in spite of careful planning and navigation.

A star, even if it’s someone to follow who could be off course, can be welcome company. It was that night we motored into Newport. I figured the bigger boat had the electronics and the radar I lacked and besides, being bigger, it would hit the bottom or the rocks before I did. That was comforting. They didn’t hit anything nor did we.

There was no apprehension of being lost or hitting something Friday. The fog was a cloak pulled tight over a familiar seascape and for a time it sharpened all other senses, making me realize that beyond sight, sound and smell, there’s an inner compass that on occasions you just know you can trust. It makes for clarity even when there’s fog.