Crazy Evacuation Stories

[LunaBuna]

Being from the FL east coast and having a toddler, we decided to evacuate for Dorian as it approached us as a Cat 4 (and later a Cat5) storm. We went over to St. Petersburg on the FL west coast and figured we could do some boating over there since it was supposed to be nice weather on that coast and that's where our dive boat lives anyway. Well, ironicall, we ended up getting caught in a nasty squall, complete with hail (thankfully our son wasn't with us!). Check out this video of the waves after it had calmed down enough to take a video: https://photos.app.goo.gl/an1xKykp6mBausRs8
We were really grateful for the Navionics app since we couldn't even see the Skyway Bridge much less the channel markers.
Anybody else have any crazy (or ironic) evacuation stories?

 

[maudiver216]

Not an evacuation story, but a diving during tropical weather conditions. Just the weekend before the hurricane, my brother and I decided to go diving on his wife's cousin's boat during a tropical wave in Miami. The morning had started out surprisingly sunny, until the day started warming up and the storm clouds came rolling in. Off we went on the boat, using its radar to avoid the squalls of thunderstorms coming through.

We had planned to dive the Neptune Memorial reef site but determined from the radar that it was too stormy to dive at, so we settled for a very shallow dive at the Fowey Rocks Lighthouse. As we were setting up, we could see lightning in the distance and we picked up the pace and finally jumped in. Not even ten minutes under, my brother and I could see the shallow reef illuminate with the flash of lightning and we looked at each other in fear and signaled that we better get back to the boat. I never swam so fast in my life!

We got back on the boat, and the cousin looked at the radar and picked a spot to ride out the storm. Surprisingly, another boat had arrived at the Fowey Rocks site to fish. We headed south trying to avoid the storm, but got caught in a moderate downpour. Much to our surprise, there was little wind and the ocean was fairly calm considering that we were in the middle of a tropical wave.

Eventually, a path to Neptune Memorial reef opened up and made our way there for a dive, passing Fowey Rocks and finding that the small fishing boat was still there; I guess the conditions didn't scare them away.

Lesson learned: don't try to be brave and dive during a tropical wave!

The tropical wave went on to become Tropical Storm Erin over the Atlantic.