Today me and my two step-sons went fishing. We were on a 21 foot boat just off the coast of Southport NC, right outside of Bald Head Island. The weather was a little rough from the beginning but nothing I have never seen before. The boat was owned by a guy named Patrick and his mate was a young guy named Ricky.
While we were fishing the skies started getting darker and the wind picked up. We could see lightening around the Oak Island area and it was moving towards us. Finally Patrick decided we should head back in because it was getting rough, but the bad news was to get back to the landing we had to go into the storm.
Before we knew what happened it was lightening all around us, raining, the winds were gusting at least 60-70 mph, and we got pelted by hail, some of it was almost the size of golf balls.
The boat had no cabin and was an open hull. A few times it almost capsized, the wind, rain and hail was so bad we could not see 20 feet. Ricky could not even see his compass which sat on the console right in front of him. I had a jacket I put on but everyone else had shorts and tee-shirts. We put a seat cushion over our head to try to protect ourselves but the hail just hammered us. we were all trying to keep a a death grip on the cushion and were screaming in pain as we got pelted. Each time we thought it was over, it started again, and each time it got worse.
Finally after what seemed to be an eternity, the skies cleared a little and we could see where we we at, so Ricky opened up the motor and we made it back to the landing. This was the worse storm I have ever been in, and I have been in a lot. Patrick told me the only other time he was this scared was when he crashed his plane in a lake many years ago.
When I got home my wife seen my back and freaked. I am covered with whelps and my hands were bleeding. I feel like I have had the crap beat out of me. Even the drink cans that were sitting on the boat looked like someone squeezed them.
I have a few pics of my back and some pics of what the hail did to our drink cans. Just click on the cat.
