Thunderstorms

I have ducked under a bridge when available. However I was caught in one storm where it rained so hard that the water was pouring over the side of the bridge like a waterfall then the wind picked up and I could not keep the boat under the bridge. Had to make a run for it for home, approx 3 miles. After everything settled down, I was drying off the boat and noticed that it was full of little tiny pieces of stone from the bridge road surface I would try to seek shelter if available, on a river your are probably going to have tall tree at the rivers edge, this is where I would not want to be. I guess you could try to ride it out staying below the windshield keep the boat under control until the storm passes.

In the early 80's we were on grand lake in Oklahoma,decided to go find my buddy at Drippin springs(big party spot)we see his Dad in 42' Trojan pull up to talk with him.He says big storm coming so we head back about 8 miles back to camp.Well we pass a ranger running his lights telling everyone to go the other way,I
cut over behind this big Chris cruiser and keep going its rough we're only going maybe 20
mph inside this cruiser wake when air temp drops and immediate fog can't see shore in any direction but wind is gone and so is cruiser.
So I bend her to starboard a bit and start looking for the bank when it shows there is a creek mouth and we slide in around a couple of bends and I see a nice stump nose in towards it.My bud Wally bails in with a nice tie rope and straps the nose down to it while I rig the anchor out the back its looking real bad out and starting to rain big ole cold drops,I hurl the anchor as far as I can and cleat it off.
Wally jumps in grabs a couple of towels we duck under the bow of my old Arena Craft,we're shoving stuff around and out of the bow storage when crack crack its hailling about quarter size stones and here it comes.I reach out and pull on bilge pump cause its raining buckets full of hail.I look at Wally tell him by the body odor in here at least one of us is scared,we probably lay in there 25 minutes and it slacks off floor it covered in hail stones
we start clearing it out,pumps still going full blast as we straighten out the gear,we get untied and anchor hauled and stowed pull out in to main body now its smooth and we start building speed headed to camp,but the more throttlle I give her the worse it runs.Wally goes back and opens hood(v drive)the bilge is still so deep its throwing water off the belts into rear intake on the old yh,he blocks the water with one hand motor clears up,he removes rear drain plug to aid bilge pump.We get her dried out closed back up
and make a nice drive across lake.We come pulling up to camp.I tell ya the storm wasn't bad compared to our wifes when we anchored I'm not sure but I think they we're worried and to tell the truth I was a bit concerned to when that fog dropped.Now a days if I hear thunder I start makin plans to get off the water.


But it does make for a good story

Good luck Munday

Last year, 4th of July on the Minocqua chain- the fireworks just ended over lake Minocqua so we started motoring in a HUGE line of boats to go under several trestle bridges to get to our lake on the chain. All of a sudden, CRACK, CRACK, massive thunderstorm. Here we are, miles from our house. Can't see anything with the pitch black. Lightning cracking all around us and rain pouring down in buckets. What a nightmare. Can't speed up, because we can't see anything. Can't stop because all hell has broken loose with the weather. I was really thankful that it "waited" until we were through the trestles though... would have been really bad if it hit during the fireworks with all those boats crowded on the water!