Caught in a lightning storm offshore in a Kayak - Listen to your gut

I wanted to share a story from about a few weeks ago that lies in my mind as one of the most intense ordeals I've experienced, and one of the only times I've felt truly powerless and at the mercy of nature.

It was August 17, 5:00AM at the parking area for Bolinas Beach. I was the first car in the parking area. On the drive in, I could see bright flashes in the sky toward the ocean. They seemed almost periodic, like the blaring glow of a lighthouse beckoning weary sailors caught offshore in a storm. But when I rolled my window down to listen, I heard the overpowering roar of a thunder clap, and realized that it was an electrical storm. As I waited in the dark for my buddy to meet me, I watched the lightning offshore, hoping that it would pass when the sun came up. I mean, I *did* just drive an hour and a half on 3 hours of sleep to get here, and spent the whole evening prior loading gear and packing. My buddy arrived and we sat in our trucks waiting to see if things would clear up. Sure enough, they did. The storm seemed to be moving far offshore, and the time between the flashes of lightning and the sound of thunder increased. Blue skies emerged above us. We deliberated, and decided to go.

Coupled with that decision was a deeply-seeded feeling of  uncertainty. Water plus lighting equals danger. The decision went against my intuition, and everything I had learned about the dangers of exposure while growing up in Scouts. My buddy, a new friend, seemed much more nonchalant about the whole thing. And in the moment, I also didn't want to be the one to bail and cause us both to bail. I was playing it cool. And so, we went.

Salmon was the goal—and this happened to be my first time targeting salmon from the kayak. We kicked off about a mile and a half southwest and trolled around the fleet of boats after the same prize. Clearly they weren't bothered by the lightning this morning. We both picked up a couple of rockfish by accident, but no chrome.

We continued south, now about 2 miles from Bolinas beach. But off in the distance, we began hearing the return of faint claps of thunder. It was 9AM, and we made the call to head back in. The peddle would take us about an hour against the current.

“Check out that weird cloud on the horizon” my buddy called over the radio. There appeared to be a large front moving in—a thin layer of what looked like fog. But it wasn't normal Bay Area fog—it was a thin layer close to the water. Above it, open air, and above that another dense layer of cloud cover. Between the two layers of clouds we could see huge bursts of sheet lightning, roaring and crackling their way through the atmosphere. The storm we saw this morning was turning around and coming back to land.

My heart rate elevated and I was getting pretty nervous. I picked up the pace. Constantly turning my head back to the west, monitoring the progress of the incoming front. On the horizon, I saw a massive lightning bolt strike a fishing boat's tower. I was now acutely aware of how severe this situation could become. We were a quarter mile from shore and the wind picked up to about 15 MPH. The cloud had almost caught us. I radioed to my buddy “I think it's time to head in!”--my signal to him that it was time to f**cking punch it. He returned my call, but the only sound coming from the other end of the radio was wind noise. He was about 100 yards south-west of me. Within moments, the wind caught up with me too. That's when nature took over. 

I'm not exaggerating when I say the wind was blowing at 30-40 MPH. It was like someone turned on the blender to liquefy. Wind waves of 3-4 feet crashed over my head. I nearly capsized many times, and had to throw my body weight one way or the other to compensate. The wind and swell were hitting me broadside. Since Bolinas is south-facing, we had to traverse the wind and swell to make it in. The interference of the wind and the waves combined made it nearly impossible to control my direction of travel. Despite kicking towards shore at 100% power, I was getting blown out to sea the opposite direction. If I flipped my kayak, was going to be powerless, and would have little hope of righting myself with how big the chop was. If the wind was strong enough to blow me over, it would be strong enough to keep me in the water. Somehow I stayed upright. “I'm not good man! I almost flipped 4 times!” I frantically radioed. “Just keep kicking!” my buddy replied. As we fought our way through wind and swell, lightning cracked directly overhead and all around us.

We fought the elements for what felt like an hour. In reality, the storm front took about 5-10 minutes to pass us. Finally, the wind calmed to a low roar of 10-20 mph, and we made forward progress toward the beach, now hoping desperately not to get struck by lightning. I was fortunate enough to reach the surf during a smaller set, and stuck the landing.

I dropped to my knees in the sand, exhausted and panting. My buddy landed shortly after. It began dumping hail. Onlookers from the houses on the beach yelled down to us, saying how glad they were that we made it in, that they were about to call the coast guard.

There were other kayakers out that day too. About 5 minutes after we landed, we saw a kayak getting towed in by a fishing charter boat. About a half mile out, two more kayakers were paddling in as well. We all made it.

The forecast that day said nothing about that storm, or the wind. I always check before I go. But I should've listened to my gut. The forecast gets it wrong sometimes, and I should have used my autonomy to make the decision not to go. It was downright scary, and has made me reevaluate the concept of bailing. Bailing is ok. Live to fish another day. I had all the safety gear you could imagine. Radio, PLB, GPS, PFD, Pump. But there are times when maybe all of that isn't enough.

Make good choices, learn from your mistakes, and stay humble in the face of nature.

But on the plus side, I did read later on that neoprene is an excellent insulator. Stay safe out there! Thanks for reading.

Excellent report! One of the best of this year.

Thanks for the honest report. I was at HMB on the same morning and was the only one out of about 8 kayakers who decided not to go out. I just kept thinking about the time I was camping in the Scouts when I was about 14. We got hit by a lightning storm and it was about the most afraid I have ever been. Did not want a repeat.

I’ve been caught in a spring thunderstorm on Almanor. Scary in its own right, but not even close to what you described. I think I’d have to throw out my wetsuit if something like that happened to me on the ocean, some smells just never come out! 

Happy the story ends without anyone having been harmed.
I wonder what other stories we would hear about if a thread was started...”most terrifying 10 minutes on the water”. Oh wait, that’s the GWS thread

Wow. Thanks for sharing. It takes guts to share w others mishaps and other less than perfect outings but this is how we learn and progress. I really appreciate you sharing the story.

In the winter time, I am a backcountry splitboarder.  I have good partners with years of backcountry experience and one friend in particular who has been national Ski Patrol for 10+ years.

In the avalanche risk mitigation world, human factors are discussed a lot. People have skills, knowledge, the right equipment, yet are dying or getting caught in avalanches because of poor decisions. A lot of this comes down to the decision making process you experienced. Your gut said one thing, but you “didn't want to be the one to bail and cause us both to bail.” 

It’s critical that as partners on the ocean, we are not afraid to speak up and voice opinions or concerns, even if the fishing is WFO or your buddy is 100% gung ho. Choose good partners and make good decisions!

Thanks again for sharing and hope to see you otw soon.

That's intense Great report and glad to hear you all made it safe!
So this happened to you Monday then?
I got woken up in Santa Cruz at around 3 am on Sunday the 16th by some severe wind gusts and what I thought was hail hitting the roof of the house along with the thunder and lightning. I decided not to go out that morning and glad I didn't.
The fires started after that weekend.

It's really awesome for you to write this story.  It not only serves others by letting them learn from your mistakes, but it helps you process it in a clear, linear fashion.  I know how peer pressure and not wanting to let your buddy down or not wanting to be the guy that suggests the drive was a waste of time can really weigh on you.  When I was in the Coast Guard, we had two things that helped mitigate this:  Risk assessment in the form of a Green-Amber-Red (GAR) model and Team Coordination Training (TCT).

TCT taught us that anyone had as much say as all of us.  This is what helps you feel okay with saying, "hey man, today's not the day... I don't like this storm."  In other words, when the guy who's having his first day on the water says to the salty skipper, "hey, you see that buoy we're about to hit?" he doesn't hear "does this look like my first day, kid?" he hears "yup, taking that down my port side close."

More importantly, the Risk Assessment model would have helped talk yourself out of going out that morning.  We would score each of six categories a risk rating from 0 (no risk) to 10 (highest risk).  The sum of those scores would yield a result of Green (low risk, proceed as normal), Amber (high risk, attempt to mitigate risks to increase score) and Red (extreme risk, cancel evolution).  Those six categories were: Supervision -- how qualified is the person supervising the evolution?; Planning -- how well did we plan? how much information was available? how clear is the information?; Team Selection -- how experienced is the team? how many normally work together?; Team Fitness -- good night's sleep? well rested?  haven't put in a full workday yet?; Environment -- weather and water conditions; Event Complexity -- have we done this before?  will we be distracted by learning? 

So, let's draw an example of your situation.  Drop Supervision as this is hobbying, not workboat stuff.  For the rest, I figured you'd have docked points from Planning because you didn't plan for the weather to be this way and you didn't have a currently reliable forecast, Fitness because you were working on 3 hours of sleep, Environment because of the observed weather conditions, and Event Complexity because it was your first time going out for salmon in the 'yak.  That would definitely had yielded an amber risk assessment, and possibly a red.  Either way, you'd have been looking at a less than green risk assessment with your buddy and probably would have turned around.

Not trying to preach, but more along the lines of sharing what the pros do to make the decision to go out.  Thanks again for sharing your experience.

I was camped at about 6000ft when they hit us late morning/noonish. Spent the afternoon calling in fires from the lighting. Even put one out ourselves. They couldn’t locate the one we called in before it quit smoking. The winds came up 2 days later and a few spot fires took off. Had to pack up camp and head down. Almost every place I grew up hunting has now burned. Thunderstorms are no joke. Especially on the water. Glad you made it back unscathed.

Pretty harrowing tale! Glad everyone made it out alright.

You are a good writer. Glad you came out alright and didn’t flip the kayak. After all that work it’s hard to bail on a trip but I bet you won’t make the same mistake again.

I was out there on my boat the day prior and woke up to howling winds at 3am. Driving to the SF launch, lightening was seen and I knew the risks -- seems more isolated to SF and southbay at the time. Wife even texted about the thunderstorms since she was worried. The Party boats and other reports from that day showed pretty knarly conditions and even a sporty on the radio offered to tow any kayakers in.

Glad that you made it back safely, but the warning signs were there.

I had my truck loaded the day before and decided I wouldn't even try going out.

Man good read... that was the day all these fire started from the lightening. I remember that day very well, craziest weather I’ve ever seen in Northern California and none of it was forecasted. So can’t blame you there it wa an anomaly of a storm. The same 20 minute storm hit us in Petaluma exactly as you described it. It was so wild on land, can’t imagine that in the ocean in a kayak!! Glad everyone’s safe!

That's definitely too much excitement. The go/no go decision might have been easier if there were more than 2 of you, so if you decided not to go, the others would still have the option.

Like everyone, your writing dredged up the fright of being caught in storm.. mine was on mt sir donald. Came from the other side of the peak...hair standing on end, little bolt between our ice axes...rope moving on its own...buzzing of everything...flashback all at once over and over. Simul-climb8ng a thousand feet of rain slicked knife edge, and down climbing a waterfall with bowling balls exploding down it.... My palms still sweat and my stomach is tight just thinking about how close that wss