A few years (quite a few) coming back from the Bains to Timber Ck. In those days 12ft tinnie was the norm, unlike today. Build up time, fine day, mate and I had a good day. Storm hit early arvo. Lightning strikes seemed very close. When the air smells burn,t I figure it is close. Very strong winds and raining big mob, ice cold rain too, white caps with waves over a metre. This is not much fun on the Vic in a 12ft tinnie. We put the rods down so as not to act as lightning conductors. Pulled up at Palm Island as too scary to continue. We sheltered under a mimossa bush in an attempt to break the impact of the icicles hittng us. Each rain drop felt like a cold knife stab. We cut the hinges off the esky to use the lid in an attempt to reduce the impact of the rain. By the time the wind had abated, it is dark with no moon. Still raining but the sting had gone out of it. A long slow trip back to Big Horse ramp. Rather difficult to locate as that was before the light was installed. Home safe, warm shower, small rum and reminesed how lucky we were to have escaped without serious consequences.

Had a huge storm come through at Sth Gutter with the sea going from relativly calm to large waves with high winds ,lightning & stinging rain ,if I hadnt had a gps we wouldnt have known which way we were pointing but was just a matter of pointing the nose into the storm with the motor idling along till it cleared.

One word,LIGHTNING.

high and dry in Shoal Bay is no fun in an electrical storm

_________________

Sitting out the front of Shady camp mouth on the reefs one night, got smashed by a big storm. We just had to isolate the electrics and sit the storm out watching lightning hit the water around the boat (with a beer in hand). Would have been an impressive storm, if we weren't stuck in the middle of it!

_________________

Bonapart gulf in a 75 foot boat. Was the formation of a cyclone. Had waves breaking on the fly bridge. Squal lines hitting every 10 minutes. Broke some straps on fuel cells on the deck and they started to slide around causing some unstability and free surface affect. Had to run around the deck trying to lash the cells into place on the centre of the deck while they were still being thrown around. scared of getting crushed and also the boat capsizing as all the fuel cells slid to one side.

Boat got hit by lightning and fried all electrics onboard in another situation. Loadest noise ever and felt plenty of tingling through the floor and helm.

While errecting a antenna on a building in the city the antenna got struck. A mate was standing nearby and got a zap from a finger of lightning that jump from the tower to his arm. He lost feeling in his elbow and shoulder for ages but eventually came good. Fortunatly I was hidden under a concrete lip on the roof of the building drilling holes for fixings so avoided it.

melvill islands on a 7m tide and a cyclone formed of the coast while we were up there on a trip and wernt aware of it. Had to cross the clarence channel in 40knott winds and tide rips. Scared to the point of putting on life jacketts. Never done that before. The tinny hit one wave and nearly rolled as another broke at the same time on that peaky stuff that you get in tide rips on the front edge of the reefs up there.

Fish reef on charter In a 37 foot steber craft. squal hit and blew the whole wind screen wiper arms off. Had a japanese fellow onboard who walked up to me and said "Is this the start of the cyclone" I replied by saying "yer mate shes gonna hit" in a tone of joking around. He obviously didnt pick up on the tone and dropped to hes knees and started to prey. Was the funniest thing ever once it passed but it was pretty bad while the boat was heeled over constantly by the wind with waves braking over the fly bridge. Had self draining decks and there were times you had to swim across the deck to get from one side to the other.

My old man many years ago while pro barra fishing was in a 14 foot tinny in the mouth of the south alligator when cyclone max went through. He is a hard bastard when it comes to weather and fear but he will have no problems telling you that he said hes prays for the first and last time in his life. He doesnt even blink going into shoal bay during the peak of the monsoon weather here so I can only imagine how bad the cyclone weather was in the tinny.

I did a trip to the mouth of the Adelade river in the build up last year, I was on my own and there were a few lightning storms in the distance but I reckoned that they were to far away to worry about. Set up over the jewie hole and settled in for the night while having a couple of quite beers when I noticed the storms all seemed to be traveling roughly towards my area, and I couldn't believe it, they all seemed to converge directly above and I got caught in a massive lightning storm. Lightning was striking the water no more than a kay from the boat I reckon and it was hitting often, scared the cr.p outta me, I couldn't believe how quick those storms moved, couldn't do much so dropped everything as low as I could and sat as low in the boat as I could get and opened a bottle of red (hoped it would numb the pain a bit I suppose). It's made me think a bit about fishing overnight in the build up.

_________________

Out at sail city on an overnighter in my mates boat and at about 3 in the morning it started to blow its arse out at about 30knots and 2m waves we were in a 5m boat and not a great wake up call got to a point i asked my mate where the life jackets were just in case.

_________________

This is a strategy I tend to employ regardless of incoming storm activity.

Hi Cuddlescooper, so I gather you generally have to fish by yourself these days, 'cause I reckon you'd have trouble getting any mates come out with you in case they get fried or drown......

I reckon you must have a few 'hard man' genes inherited from the old man yourself!

_________________

I'll second Trier's comments

Mate, i have plenty of people that want to fish with me. I do the extra yards to catch fish and go to places most only dream about and rarely have bad trips. I take safty pretty seriously at the same time but there will always be that rare occasion that you get caught out. Those experiances would be over 15 odd years of being on the or climbing telecomunication towers every day.

Anyone that has spent a life time on the water working on boats and fishing will have lots of interesting and scary storys. The ocean and boats in general will always throw there fair share of bad luck and bad weather at you. Remember that even captain Cook ran aground. I think it is only the good ones that survive to tell all the storys. Its a bit like a truck driver who has done it there whole life. I can tell you that most of them have all been involved in accidents and most of them wernt caused by the truck driver them selves.

I was advised by the BOM that 'if you can HEAR thunder, you can potentially be struck no matter how far away it is'

I was also told that if you get caught, drop the antennas but erect the canopy. It may act as a faraday cage and send the lightening bolt over the boat and not thru it.
keep your body bits out of the water

I cant wait to try that

Had a ripper of a trip to Port Herd one November after the Barra cages broke a few years back. 5 boats on the trip, mine was the smallest at 5m. big storm comes rolling down the harbour 4 boats tie up in the middle and anchor, I think stuff that so I head to Second creek near the old Barra base. Thinking I was pretty safe up in the mangroves out of the wind and waves. The rain buckets down - 100% white out, the canopy is hardly keeping any water out, then the lighting starts to hit trees around us, You could actually feel the static in the air before each strike, me and my mate were sitting on the floor of the boat crapping ourselves. Storm passes about 20 min later and all we hear over the radio is are you guys over there dead? the four boats anchored up in the middle missed most of the storm and we ran for cover to the middle of it. A few quiet beers were had afterwards.

Yes seen a few nasty weather events here..........Coming through the Bromby's at Cape Wilberforce we nearly or pretty much did put a 75ft mothership on her side.......thats a well known nasty piece of water and so is up at Cape Wessel.........went around there one night with greenies going over the wheel house and two tinnys in tow......that was crappy.

anchored up out front of the Little Moyle and we got a late season whiteout storm hit us........67kts on the windspeed...........it blew the carpet off of the mothership from the breeze just coming through the scuppers.

Done a few Bonaparte crossings in my trawler times.........90ft boat on watch..........two solid tubes of water getting punched through the hawsers and smashing strait into the wheelhouse windows.......thats a solid 7-8 mtrs up to the wheel house!.....yep just waiting to get em punched out..........that lasted a good few days that one.

i think i know the storm that Mud speaks of in the first post..........i reckon around 01 we coming back into the harbour and were hit with a really nasty one mid to late arvo..........it blew some 40ft containers over at perkins and there was a Yacht in distress calling may days on the radio ........he was that confused he was giving his position as over land at Adelaide river township..............he ended up being just off of east point and was ok in the end once he got his head around it all and the storm passed.

Had a doozy hit us at shoal bay..........went over with ol'matey for a low tide lock in at the rock and later that arvo after no fish went for a wander across the flats...........big hell storm came as black as a witches a.......hole.Lightening everywhere crapping ourselves.........we were the highest things for about 3k i reckon with bolts coming down bl..dy everywhere........that was hairy.

Yeah......seen a few skidmarks moments.........nearly sunk my old Explorer down at Aligator head creek one time in a big whiteout storm.......the little bildge pump could not even keep halfway up to that downpour.......had to rip the floor up screws and all just to bail her out or we would have sunk.........1200's per hr in my boats nowadays i can tell ya.