sySpringDawn

During the early hours of Sunday morning we were aware of an electrical storm nearby and coming in our direction - this had been forecast so it wasn't a surprise. However, the surprise came about breakfast time when a bolt of lightning grounded very close by. I've never been that close to lighning! The boat shuddered, we both leaped out of our skins - the hair on which was standing on end. The storm banged and crashed for another hour or so accompanied by torrents of rain - we'd left a bucket out on deck which was empty before the rain started and by the time it finished, contained a good 6 inches of water.

The sun came out and we emerged from the boat, along with others in the marina. We then heard that a yacht about 100 yards away had taken a direct hit and their mast had caught fire. We started checking our instruments and found some failures including the radar, tv aerial, wind direction instrument, the vhf radio no longer shows time or position and one of the water tank gauges no longer worked.

Thank goodness that was over....but no, it hadn't finished with us as another storm walloped through Licata in the early evening with just as much ferocity. This time the storm lasted about an hour but in that hour, another 5 or 6 inches of rain fell. I remember watching those old Hammer House Frankenstein films, where the lightning constantly flashes and the thunder continually booms and I'd always thought that that was artistic licence - now I know that those type of storms really do happen! Towards the end of the storm there was a huge blast of wind to carry it away, the wind picking up to 33 knots at one point.

There was a lot of damage in the town due to flash flooding and we heard reports of cars being stranded, flood water and mud rushing through the streets and into homes and businesses. Some of our friends had gone into a restaurant in the town for dinner and half way through their meal, the restaurant began to flood. They ended up sitting on top of their table for 3 hours and being instructed not to step down into the water for fear of electrocution! A dramatic day!