PBGFC Jr. Anglers Tournament 2006
Vessel...Bodacious
I remember sitting in the bar in the Oyster Bar with Kevin watching the Weather Channel before the Captains meeting. Saw a little line of showers moving to the SW from around Montgomery to Jacksonville. Didn't look too intimidating. I remember me and Kevin talking about how it shouldn't be too bad. Should move on through and be nice. Figured an hour or so of bumping around. Nothing serious. After the meeting we headed out to the Spur, gonna see if we could nail a sword first night out. All the way out lightning was popping off to the NE. We didn't think about putting the Weather Channel on....should have. Arrived on station at the Spur at 2300.Radarwas showing a narrow line to the NNE. Lightning was really starting to pick up about 10-12 miles north.After we stopped, Creech went down to get a shower. I stayed on the helm while Hal, Doug and Trip put 2 lines out. By the time Jeremy got back up on the bridge, the radar was marking the line at about 4-5 miles. After a quick discussion, we decided to get the lines in and move SE. The stern was facing the north. Seas were just short of glassy calm. Still clear overhead. While clearing lines, there was a fresh breeze form the north picked up to about 10 knots pretty fast. At that point the temperature dropped about 30 degrees in about 3 seconds."Oh shit!.....Ya'll get everything latched down!!" At that point the wind went to about 30-40 knots. We were running 20-25 knots south and the wind was blowing so hard it took 2 of us to zip the enclosures up, one to hold and one to zip! It was gettingreal ugly, real fast.The radar was still showing the line being only 2 miles thick or so. After trying to go SE around the end of it, it started wrapping us. At that point, we decided to turn around and go into it. We were listening to a couple of the other boats on the radio and they were reporting it wasn't too awfully bad just going into it. Seas went from flat toaround 8 foot best we could tell. That's conservative. Wehad waves blowing over the hardtop of the boat. But, what really was frightning was the lightning. I haveNEVER seen itthat bad, never! I'm talking about the flash/boom beingsimoutaneous.Me and Jeremy were taking turns on the wheel.You couldn't see 50 foot any direction. Water would fill the cockpit with about8-10 inches of water when we went down a wave face andblow out the scuppers on the way up the next. Doug was sitting on the bridge with me and puked a fine cloud of brown down the side. It was washed away instantly. Hal was down below asleep. That amazed me. Slept right through it. One thing we found out, the radar was not burning through the rain it was so heavy. Along about nowthere was a short exchange..."Jeremy? You been doing this longer than me...you been in this kinda stuff before...right?"..."No, this is about as bad as I been in Wade".. (ME).."We gonna F'n die".. This went on for 3-4 hours. About 0330 the waves felt like they were starting to ease up a bit. The rain slacked up enough to see a mile or so in the flashes. There were 2 boats, one to port and one to starboard less than a mile away. First time we had a clue they were there!! We decided to kick the boat over on a 120 heading. Still raining pretty good at this time, but ahell of alot better than it was. About 0430 I could see a little tiny light spot on the horizon. I headed towards it. It was down to 3-5 seas now and the rainhad slacked off to regular portions. The worse was over. We put lines in and started fishing as soon as we could see what we were doing.We punched out the backside around 0545. Seas calmed down to glass in a couple hours. Amazing. When the line had reached the gulf, it blew up.When the boatgot stable enoughfor thesat tv to work, we put it on theWeather Channel. They were talking about naming the damn storm!!! Late that evening when we got back in close enough to recieve cell calls, all ofus had messages. The Coast Gaurd was looking for us and 2 other vessels. Found out they called the tournament off at 2300. Wound up weighing in and still winning a categeory. Made it in safe and sound though.