On Fri, 7 May 2004 10:32:40 -0400, "Gary Warner"
wrote:


WEATHER:. But
on the water things a TOTALLY different. What seems like
just a little fog that will burn off can be very dangerous. Or
what feels like a little wind on land can be something you
don't want to be out in. ~ore to add, but I'll do 'em later.

Gary


That's a valuable lesson I learned this spring. Seemed a little cold
and windy, but not too bad. I went to the lake anyway. It is a 40 mile
drive to the lake, so I was not going to go all that way and not
launch. I should have known better. My boat is a 14ft semi-v
fiberglass jon boat type thing. Extremely light. There were people out
on their nice bass boats. They were going 30+knots. I didn't think it
would be that bad.

So I get on the lake and the waves are 2ft high. Whitecaps everwhere.
The trip up to the dam was into the wind. I had to make way very
slowly or the wind would catch the front of my boat and blow it over.
I was not dressed for the weather either and felt I was freezing. I
got soaking wet from the water breaking over the bow. Water temp was
50 degrees F. I perservered for 6 hours on that lake hoping the whole
time the wind would die down. . It only got worse. Instead of 2ft
waves I had 3ft+ wave trains all the way back. I had to keep up my
speed or the waves would have washed over my transom and swamped me in
about 5 minutes. It was surreal going through those rough waters at
the exact same speed as the wind. There I was in the middle of this
lake, a half mile from land in any direction, waves 3ft high and it
seemed perfectly still. I smoked a cigarette and the smoke stayed with
me like I was in an enclosed room. It took every bit of my skill and
attention to make it back to the dock safely that day.

Sadly, another man in a jon boat of the same size did not make it home
that day. His boat was swamped and he died of hypothermia before help
could arrive. I feel lucky that it was not me. I was scared. It is
hard to scare me on the water, but this time I was wondering if I was
going to make it home.

I will never, ever go out on a "Lake Wind Advisory" day again. I won't
even go if it is breezy. I know better.