Brisbane tornado

[haiqu]

Here's what the weather looked like at Mooloolaba yesterday. That's less than 40km from where Shenoa is anchored.

My brother is going to check the anchorage as soon as the flood waters recede enough to leave home.

[JeanneP]

Ohhh, no! I hate those things. We got caught in one in Nassau Harbor anchorage years ago, six months after we got on board SV Watermelon and started cruising. In all my inexperience and -dumbness- then, I still marvel at how most of us at anchor survived with little damage, but a lot of terror.

And then, almost 30 years later, another one in Kota Kinabalu, Borneo!

Both descended upon us in the dark, no warning. An argument for being ever prepared, ever shipshape and everything stowed.

Let us know how things turned out.

[haiqu]

Will do. And speaking of weather, there's been plenty of it about here in Sydney too. With 40kt winds and horizontal rain I was having a bit of trouble sleeping tonight, so I got up to have a wander. Then the adventures started.

Looking out the back door I noticed the dinghy was very close to full and starting to take water over the side from the waves. Got the bucket and baled it out then, like a drowned rat, retreated back into the cabin. Then I wiped up a few puddles, did a little painting to kill time and decided I was hungry enough to reheat the remains of tonight's dinner. Figured that HF radio might be interesting in such weather so I switched that on in the background.

An almighty crash sent me back on deck where simultaneously a 6mm plexiglass window had blown out and a bucket and cardboard box had been blown down to the rails. Retrieved all that stuff and once again shrank back to the relative safety of indoors.

Faintly I heard the unmistakeable ditditdit dahdahdah ditditdit of a morse SOS call on the radio. Since I don't know morse code I couldn't make out the rest, but within 5 minutes a fairly loud voice message followed, doing a Mayday Relay of the information. I had just heard my first real distress call, and suddenly my minor problems at the swing mooring didn't seem so bad after all.

[Janet H]

Originally Posted by haiqu

Here's what the weather looked like at Mooloolaba yesterday. .

Weather is best when you can't see it

[haiqu]

Unless you live in LA. I hear they don't trust air they can't see there. :-)

[haiqu]

Shenoa survived intact, although she'll need pumping out. Stayed put through the whole thing.