Re: Bad Weather and Boating (Squalls)
At the risk of going on like I was re-writing "War & Peace", I will post my own close encounter<br />We were out on Lake Erie somewhere near Pelee Island myself, my father and my grandfather. It was Grampss boat, about a 25 foot steel hull home-made cabin cruiser with a stand up console. It was a hot and sticky but calm July day. The other boat we had left the marina with was somewhere past the horizon and radioed us to say there was a storm brewing and moving in fast. I dont know why we werent on shore when it hit but I do know that neither my father nor grandfather would ever be so brave as to risk weathering a storm perhaps we had engine trouble or simply received the news to late. <br />I do remember I was banished to the cabin below where I calmly colored in a Batman coloring book while eating double-fudge crème cookies.<br />I dont remember being scared.<br />After an unknown period of time I must have grown bored or curious and came up to see what was happening on deck. As I opened the cabin door, a torrent of water came crashing down from above and behind me. I could see my grampss knees at the point of buckling as he struggled to stay at the wheel. He looked at me and smiled as if there was nothing interesting to see up here and sent me back to my quarters.<br />I didnt see my father.<br />The next thing I remember after that was coming out as we approached a shore. The atmosphere was much different than it was when we started the trip. It was overcast, cold and humid with a stale dangerous odor in the air. We landed on the island stern first and I recall watching my father jump from the swim platform onto shore and landing on a beer bottle slicing open his foot. He didnt seem to think it was a big deal but it turned me into a panic.<br />My next memory of that day was when the door opened at my aunts house and my mother and grandmother came screaming to the door with tears of relief in their eyes. It wasnt until about ten years ago that I understood why. I listened with my jaw wide open as my father recalled the events of that day to a friend.<br />The storm came in fast and furious, with waves bigger than any my kin had ever seen before. We were fishing in shallow water, saturated with heavy underwater flora. As we tried to escape the approaching storm, our stern drive kept getting clogged with the vegetation to which it was my fathers duty to remain on the swim platform and remove it periodically as gramps struggled to keep the bow into the waves.<br />Miraculously, we managed to endure the breaking water for the what must have seemed like an eternal 20 minutes while the storm raged. But perhaps the biggest danger we faced despite the high winds, raging waters and lightning, was that my grandfather had filled the entire hull with empty bleach bottles, to ensure that his Titanic would never sink. After the first wave that broke from above us, the top-heavy boat was imminently in danger of capsizing. Somehow it never did.<br />Even though it was almost 35 years ago and I couldnt have been more than four years old, I remember the event like it was yesterday. Funny, my recallection of that day is a good one; I dont ever remember being afraid except when I saw blood coming from my fathers foot. The other boat we were with made it safely to shore before the storm. After not hearing from us for quite some time after the weather had cleared, they called the authorities and went home to tell the family. One can only imagine how my mother and grandmother took the news. Although short lived, this was no regular afternoon storm and opened the six oclock news.<br />Dad needed several stitches to replace the duct tape he used to stop the bleeding.<br />Gramps didnt talk to anyone for days and sold the boat he had spent almost 20 years building the following fall.<br />I am told it was ten years before I set foot in a boat again<br /><br />The moral?<br />Use bleach bottles to mark rocks.
<br /> <br />I hope my boat always floats. 
