Lightning flashed across the sky. Black clouds were piled up like an avalanche of rocks waiting to crash on our heads, and rain streamed down our faces. It was coming down vertically. I stopped in mid-sentence and started counting under my breath.
one thousand, two thousand, three thousand …
The age-old method of roughly calculating how far away the core of the thunderstorm is: count the “long seconds” between the lightning and the following thunder. Each second counted is considered to represent one kilometre. As a general rule of thumb, if it’s any closer than eight, get the hell out of wherever you are and take shelter.
four thousand, five thousand …
As someone who takes people out to the bush for adventure activities for a living, this is a crucial concept, especially where water is concerned: any closer than eight kilometres to the storm lightning comes precariously close to where you are, and if you are in or on any kind of water when it gets struck, you are cooked. Literally. Water is an excellent conductor, and the result of, say, a discharge of 300 million volts in the river, lake or ocean where you’re happily and haplessly paddling your kayak, stand-up paddleboard or surfboard around, will melt your vessel and disintegrate your bones. And if you’re on the water, sticking out above it, you’ll be the tallest thing around, and will be the most likely thing to attract any strike. It’s worth getting out.
six thousand, seven thousand …
We ran on, flat chap. We had thought we’d squeeze a run on the beach in while waiting for the tide to come in and the swell to come up, and, in our infinite wisdom, had chosen to ignore the thunderclouds building up. Now we were running through a vertical curtain of water that came down with all the force of the monsoon, raindrops hammering our skin like pellets of hail.
You gotta laugh. Haha. We turned to each other and grinned. These are the experiences that lift daily life up out of the doldrums of drudgery and routine, and make it exciting.
eight thou …
Badabadaboom.
Thunder rolled across the sky and the ocean. We exchanged another look, and, as one, turned around and started sprinting back down the beach the way we had come. There is such a thing as too much excitement.
The rain intensified, and we gave up trying to have a yarn. My partner Kiana clenched her teeth together, screwed her eyes up, put her chin down and her head forwards, and charged through the sheets of water.
Another streak of lightning, forked across the sky.
one thousand, two thousand …
We made it back to our break, and there, in front of us, were two young blokes paddling out into the surf. They looked like they were about 13, and were, therefore and by definition, mad keen, bulletproof and terminally ignorant. I contemplated warning them off, then decided it wasn’t critical yet, everyone has to make their own mistakes, and anyway who am I tell anyone anything.
three thousand, four thousand …
A woman carrying a pink foamie without a leg rope, blowing around fifteen ways with the wind, struggled up the beach towards the waterline, following a ten-year old who clearly had also decided that right now was the best time to try to learn how to surf. When do you make the call? When do I decide that my training as an outdoors professional endows me with the moral duty to protect people against themselves? Where is the line between trying to do the right thing, and being an arrogant arsehole, telling other people what to do?
I stopped running and turned to the woman.
‘Yous going surfing now?’
‘Yeah,’ she panted, and wiped the wet hair out of her face. ‘He’s so keen, you know.’ She shrugged and gave a tight smile.
‘All right.’ What do you do? ‘Just so you know, that lightening is getting a lot closer, ey.’
‘Uh … yeah. Is it?’ She glanced over her shoulder at the sky, fat and black. ‘No worries, thanks.’
‘Good luck.’
I ran on, chasing Kiana, miles ahead by now, ducking her head and heading up the stairs towards the shelter of the trees around a picnic table. Good move, Kiana. The only thing worse than being out in the open when lightning strikes is being under a tree.
five thou …
Crash boom bang.
We were decidely in the danger zone now. Five kilometres is basically right overhead. I threw the car keys to Kiana, and sprinted to the edge of the dune overlooking the surf. These kids needed to get out of that water.
I looked over the edge of the dune. Good news and bad news, don’t you hate that.
On the one hand the mum and ten-year old had bailed out, and were now running full pelt down the beach towards the stairs. Good. They’d worked it out.
On the other hand the two grommets had pulled the pin as well, and had gotten out of the water. Unfortunately they were now hanging around the brand new stairs that were in the process of being constructed on that side of the beach.
A 40 meter long construction of solid steel. Standing out of the landscape like a sore thumb.
The only thing more likely to attract a lightning strike than a human standing up out in the open is a human resting their hand on a 40 metre long steel structure that is the only elevated feature for miles around. Like they were doing right now.
I stared down at them. I couldn’t hear a thing, but I could see their gums flapping. It wasn’t hard to imagine their 13-year old conversation.
Bluey: ‘Mate, did you see that straighthander that I got! That was fully sick!’
Joe: ‘Yeah man, I got almost fully barrelled in that knee-high close-out. Epic, man!’
It was like listening to myself.
I saw them lean back on the steel frame of the stairs, boards casually under their arms, posing in front of the Tableau of Nature’s Wrath, lightning arcing across the sky, their arms flapping enthusiastically in front of them. A great story in the making, no doubt. If they made it out alive.
Lightning.
one thousand …
I stuck my head over the dune and screamed.
‘Hey yous!’
Two heads turned, looking around.
‘Yeah yous! Get out of there!’
two thousand …
They looked left. They looked right.
‘Up here!’
They looked up.
‘Get outta there! Get away from that thing!’
I could see their lips moving. I couldn’t hear them over the racket of the rain, but I knew exactly what they were saying.
Bluey: ‘What the fu ..’
Joe: ‘Get fu …’
Boom.
Thunder right overhead.
Flash. Lightning immediately after it, hard on its heels. Hitting the water in front of them. White light cutting through the curtain of rain, searing itself into my eyeballs. Black dots dancing in front of my eyes. I shook my head to get the water and the thunder out of my ears. Stuck my head out over the edge.
They’d gotten the message.
They jammed their boards under their arms and bolted down the beach, away from the steel frame, up the old stone steps. Across the carpark and off and away.
Better late than never.
The storm raged. The swell came in at perfect straight lines, dead onto the shore. Cutting across it at a 45 degree angle was the windswell, whipped up by the storm, drawing a pattern of diamonds on the ocean.
Half an hour later the wind dropped off. Clouds vanished, and blue skies appeared. The windswell packed up and left, leaving behind clean westerly surf, rolling in and breaking immaculately.
The calm after the storm.
I paddled out. And for the next two hours me and one other solitary bloke carved it up like there was no tomorrow, one perfect set after another. No one else came out. An empty line-up on a perfect day, thanks to the lightning
