August 10, 2008 

  esterday afternoon I took a little time and I went fishing with my guy on a fairly large lake in a boat at his (mine too since I work there part time) company picnic. The skies were looking rather nasty to the West (?), but the storm had been hanging there most of the day. We grabbed our lifejackets, poles, went on a worm hunt and grabbed some juice and away we went. I didn't have my fishing license with me, so I got to drive the boat, while he relaxed and tossed a line in. We saw a couple sailboats and since he used to run them, he was telling me about them and how to run the sheets/sails. No nibbles on his line yet. We talked about life in general. You know... the sort of conversations you have while fishing. 

We had just gotten to the end of the lake when we saw the very close, very huge and very scary flashes of lightening... then the CRACK! We opted into turning around to head back to the dock... then he pulled in his line and we decided to get there a little faster than trolling speed. I saw it first. A huge squall coming in. The sky turned midnight black and all you could see was a wall of white coming at us. He asked to make sure I had my lifejacket on. I did. So did he. The radio called from shore asking us if we were OK.... we said we were on our way back. He took over driving the boat as he has had alot more experience at it. 

From calm to Mother Nature's Fury in mere seconds. When we saw the 'wall' off in the distance, we were expecting rain and wind. We were not expecting hail the size of ping pong balls to beat the beejeebies out of us. OH did they hurt. Millions of them. Instantaneously we were as soaked as if we had been immersed in the lake. The white wall made it impossible to see anything and the high winds were ripping the lids off the cupboards on the boat. 

Doubly glad we had our lifejackets on, as they were protecting our torsos from the beating of the hail. Our faces, arms and through our jeans were not so fortunate. We were being pummeled. The radio... if it was being used to check our status, we would not have been able to hear it. 

We tried to get close to shore, but we were afraid if the boat was any bit sideways that we would have capsized, so we kept it into the wind and I am not sure we were making much forward progress a time or two. The winds were that strong. It was difficult to even see where we were supposed to go. I don't know if he thought the same thing, but I was thinking, 'ride it out, it can't last much longer'. Finally we were at the dock we needed to go back to. We would have bailed at any other dock, but we were not able to see any of them anyway. Someone was waiting for us at the dock to help us get in.. with the winds we actually partly landed on the dock. 

We then ran up to his friend's home. Everyone had been laughing about us out there getting wet and then as they were witnessing how brutal the storm was.. had been very worried about us. We were given warm dry clothing off everyone's backs (and towels). 

The minute we had gotten changed in the house, more of the aftermath of the storm happened. The rains/melting hail was flooding their house and it was still pouring. After 20 towels was not taking care of it, the men shoveled a trench away from the door, I was asking if they had a steam cleaner or a wet/dry vac. Someone ran to the shop to get the vac, "A" was mopping like a madman, I was scooping up water with 2 glasses and a bucket... my guy was running the shop vac, the man of the house was on the shovel and the lady of the house was wrangling 3 month old puppies out of the way... all in all, I think there were 12-14 people on the shovel/bucket/towel-wringing brigade.

Everyone was talking about the freakish storm for the next couple of hours. No one had ever seen anything of the like before. Evidently the trees on the hill had been bending almost in half. Debris was everywhere. 

A couple things re-established in my brain... always wear your lifejacket.. always clean out the drain in front of your door if you live on a hillside, always take extra clothes and shoes and that weather in the mountains can change instantaneously. 

Please everyone.. wear your lifejackets if you are on water or in a boat. Don't become a statistic. With more than 400 fatalities annually, drowning remains the third leading cause of unintentional death among Canadians. About 7,000 people die by drowning every year in the USA, that's about 20 people every day.