The purpling storm

With Summer winding down last night offered what may turn out to be a last chance storm chasing session for the season—not that I’ve had any storm chasing sessions this season, but I digress…

As the clock passed 10 with a line of thunderstorms approaching, I had the opportunity to head out to Dock Road to take some photographs. I went out with a buddy (storm chasing is much better with a friend) and set up ye olde trusty tripod facing toward the south. With lightning firing 360 degrees around us it didn’t take long for the spookiness to set in. Maybe it’s just me, but it’s a bit scary holding a metal object in the middle of a marsh plain surrounded by storms.

As we were out of the car shooting from the road’s shoulder, nervous about all the electricity, we began negotiating how minutes we had before we absolutely had to bail and get back in the car. As we were down to about two minutes left, with cloud to cloud lightning crackling all around, we heard the loud drone of what sounded like a boat. Get the hell out of here, we thought. But sure enough, there it was, a small outboard motoring down the marsh, racing to get back to dock. As bugged out as we were, I can’t imagine what those steaming in on the water were thinking. Oh, and the boat had no light’s either, so there’s that.