RE/ >Has anyone had any experience with encountering water spouts. I almost ran >in to one last week. It was beautiful, perfectly formed funnel of the >Southwest coast of Florida. I was close to shore, so when I saw it, I did an >abrupt about face and sped to shore. I was in one once....Down in Duck, North Carolina on the Outer Banks. Beautiful day, windsurfing on the sound.... Some guy on the shore was honking his horn and flashing his headlights. Since I was the closest one to him, I figured he was trying to tell me something. Started in towards shore. When I got into earshot, he yelled "Get in here fast, and take down your sail!". His eyes were sticking out like golfballs, so I just did it. When I got everything stowed, I said "OK, now I've done it, howcome?". Turns out the guy was a meteorologist. He pointed to a cloud coming across the cound that looked like the prow of a big ship. Said "that's called an anvil cloud and it often preceeds a tornado."... then he continued by saying that pretty soon the air temp would drop about fifteen degrees very suddenly and we'd likely get a waterspout. Sure 'nuff, temp dropped and here comes the waterspout. We ran for our cars and started to peel out of the parking area for the road. Too late! Everything turned beige from the flying sand and visibility was zero. Car rocked and rolled for awhile and then it was a beautiful day again. If I were out on the water in a kayak, I think I'd be inclined to swamp the boat and take to the water...hoping that the wind wouldn't be enough to make the swamped boat a danger to my melon. But I paddle a surf ski now....so I think I'd be SOL. ----------------------- Pete Cresswell *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Mon Jun 12 2000 - 18:51:02 PDT
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