Sarley: How we survived microbursts on Lake Superior

Please let me finish my report on the memorable fishing trip I took with relatives on Lake Superior. Remember, please, that we caught a nice laker with the help of Vince Luoma’s deceased father, Ron.

We decided to head for home in our 19-foot boat powered by a 115-horsepower motor, definitely a little bit undersized for a Great Lakes adventure.

We watched the skies to the east of us as a storm seemed to be materializing quickly. Darned weather forecasters, lying to me again. This storm was a surprise, to be sure.

Heading east, we arrived at Shelter Bay where we saw a number of boats had pulled up and were waiting to see what the weather was going to do. The storm had moved closer to shore and appeared to be trying to block our path to the dock. We forged on.

Just a couple of miles from the launch, the storm headed south and decided to block our path. The winds were wicked and the waves quickly grew to 6 feet.

“Hmm. Now where did we put those life jackets?” I pondered. Immediately, the sky was lit up with the crackle of tremendous lightning strikes.

The rain fell hard all of a sudden. The high winds were blowing the water horizontally, right into our faces. It was difficult to see. Instantly, the rain became mixed with hail. The hail was of mixed sizes. The small ones did no damage, but the golf ball-sized frozen ice bombs sure do hurt when they hit you on the head. We kept moving forward at a slower rate of speed.

We were very unsure of what to do. We thought about just ditching the boat up on the beach, but I felt that the boat would be ruined. I guess I should have weighed the difference in the value of our boat against the value of the lives of four men.

We forged ahead but were pretty certain that we’d never make it to the launch. Stu came up with the brilliant idea to pull into the Au Train River, where our cabins were located. He figured we’d tie up to the break wall at the river and worry about the boat later. There was really no other choice.

Stu headed for the river mouth as quickly as the wind and waves would allow us to do. He spun the nose of the boat into the river mouth and let the wind push us into the wall. I looked up and saw my daughter, Michelle, running out of her cabin to the break wall. She screamed, “Throw me a rope.” We did and she tied us to the side. She held out her hand and said, “Give me your hand, Dad. You’ve got to get out of there.”

Michelle helped get us all on to solid ground and then we ran to her cabin. What a tremendous act of bravery and valor she performed. We were pelted with hail all the way. We got inside to warmth and dryness and looked out the windows. We couldn’t believe the ferocity of the storm we were engulfed in.

All of a sudden, the lights in the cabin flashed brightly and then shut off. Simultaneously, we heard and felt a thundering crash. I thought the cabin had been hit by lightning, but I was wrong. A large tree limb had fallen onto the cabin’s roof and then bounced off, hitting a power line. The electrical line was severed and hanging down into a pool of water. There was nothing to do but sit and wait.

After all was said and done and the power company showed up to fix the line and restore power, we were able to get out and tour the area and inspect the damage. A couple of cabins had been crushed by the weight of large evergreens falling on them. There were trees everywhere that had been totally uprooted. The damage looked to be considerable. The authorities said that the area had been hit by a couple of microbursts that caused much of the damage.

We were very lucky to have survived this event. I think I will play it a little safer next time.

• Daily Herald Outdoors columnist Steve Sarley can be reached at sarfishing@yahoo.com.