As I sit here reliving this whole experience, I figured I would write about it. Before anyone says we were stupid for being out there, I want to point out a few things. We are experienced boaters. Yes, we've been in storms before. Yes, we checked the weather all day and before departing. Yes, we made mistakes. Yes, we were very fortunate. Confirmed Macroburst and EF 1 Tornado
...NWS Damage Survey for 07/13/2022 Ulster County Macroburst and Tornado...
A full super moon was going to rise over the Hudson River. Of course, we would take the boat out to see it rise in all its glory. We checked the weather all day. We saw a 40% chance of inclement weather as we left the marina and thought it would be best to stay close to the Rondout Creek; if it started to storm, we would head back to the slip.
Heading out, the sky was beautiful.
6:34 PM

The sky was getting dark as we watched the sunset and the clouds. A quick radar check showed that we were just at the edge of the storm. All was as it was supposed to be the storm would just miss us. We could see the crazy storm, but we were in no way in its path. Here is a timeline of how the storm progressed:
7:07 PM

7:17 PM

7:25 PM

It started to rain at 7:41 PM.

7:42 PM

7:54 PM

8:10 PM

8:31 PM

8:34 PM The lightening starts over Kingston and Port Ewen
And here is when we made our first mistake. When we saw this cloud formation, we should have left immediately. The radar showed that we were still at the edge of the storm, though. We have been on the edge of storms many times before. We were fine. That's what we told ourselves anyway. I think the storm hypnotized us.
8:41 PM
8:46 PM

At this point, I went live on Facebook. A friend in Saugerties said the storm was sitting over her house. That was the moment I got scared. How could the storm be over her place in the Village of Saugerties, and I'm watching it over Port Ewen?! We scrambled and looked at the radar again. Now that I'm sitting on land, I see our 2nd mistake. We didn't turn to the weather channel on the marine radio immediately.
I was live on Facebook for about 6 minutes at 9 PM. That's when we checked the radar. It was showing the SECOND cell. And it was going to go right over us. As we were talking, Steve looked down the creek. There was something wrong with the light. It looked like lighted fog moving very fast toward us. It was rain and hail coming straight at us. Steve started the engines. The rain, wind, and hail were upon us in what felt like seconds. We closed the boat up and decided to wait for it to pass over as we've done in the same exact spot we were in many times before. We started spinning like Dorthy's house in The Wizard of Oz! We couldn't see anything around us! Steve looked at the waypoint he had set when we initially dropped anchor on the GPS. We had moved 500 FEET! We had only had 45 FEET of line out! The anchor line snapped, and we were being blown away from the coast and into the channel! It took a minute or two ( it felt like forever) to get our bearings straight! We couldn't see ANYTHING! At first, I couldn't find the lighthouse or the green buoy at the end of the jetty. Another boat had been anchored a little closer to the lighthouse and jetty! I was terrified we were going to hit it. Who knew if there was anyone aboard that boat?! They had no lights on when the storm started; I couldn't be sure where they were in proximity to us. Even with the high-power flood light, we couldn't see. The beam was bouncing back at us. Finally, I could see the markers we were looking for! The rain had let up a little, and so had the wind. It was still raging, though! We got into the creek. Our next big worry, are there fallen trees floating in the creek??! Again we were lucky. There wasn't anything until we reached our slip. Our boat neighbor had been torn loose from their dock. We had just enough room to squeeze into our slip.
10:03 PM Home

If Steve had started to freak out, I would have lost my mind. If I had started to freak out, Steve would have freaked out. It's amazing how calm we were. We both knew what had to be done to get us back safely, and we did it. The severity of the situation didn't hit us until we were back at the house decompressing. Now and again, I'll feel myself rocking or spinning as if we were still out there. This one will take a minute to get over. I think I'll be rocking for the next day or so. Now to find a new anchor! There's more boating to be done!
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