Saturday, January 22, 2011

Tis a dark and stormy night…

…and we are out on obs. There is lightening on the horizon all around us, but that has been the norm recently, so we don’t pay it too much attention. Around 19:30, we are out with a group of West hyenas test chasing prey. It starts to rain - oh well, we start to head home. We make it through Camel X when it starts to RAIN. Like, pour buckets. Two minutes later and we can’t see beyond our front bumper – the rain is whiteout and horizontal. &*#%. We stop the car, which is literally rocking in the wind, and hope for the best. Meanwhile, lightening is striking all around us, and then it starts to HAIL. Wait, this is AFRICA, it’s not supposed to hail here!! Brian and I are in the car with ex-Fisi-camp-superstar Jaime and her bf Than, and we are all thoroughly convinced that a) we will be struck by lightning and b) we will be sleeping in the car. We fall into stunned silence, and I personally contemplate where the lightening will go when it strikes the antenna and comes into the car via the coaxial cables (yeah, physics!). The storm ends about an hour later, at which point we look out the window to see the car sitting in....a lake. It has rained 56mm (2.2 in), which is just enough to cover all the grass on that plain, and the wind from the storm is rippling the water in an eerily convincing way. We chill out for a while, wait for the water to sink in a bit, and then Brian balls out-of-control to get us home!

5 comments:

Leslie said...

Duh...ALWAYS disconnect the tracking when it starts to lightening! :) Did you end up sleeping in the car? If not, how the heck did you get back to camp? I had stashed a blanket, a jar of Skippy, and some biscuits under the backseat because I was afraid of something like this happening, but it never did, and I think I ended up eating the Skippy. Sorry 'bout that.

Tor Bertin said...

Exciting!

Tracy said...

Claro we disconnected the tracking so the silver box wouldn't fry!! But the cables still come into the car...

I'm still not sure how we made it back to camp - I was totally convinced that Middle Sunrise would be a rushing river, but it was a puddle instead! Glorious.

Steve Sauter said...

Why do you think it does not hail in Africa? It should.

Leslie said...

Touché. Audrey told me she once worked for someone (not Kay) who emphasized the need to take care of the telemetry boxes in an electrical storm by proclaiming, "Research assistants are a dime a dozen, but those tracking boxes are PRICELESS!"

Glad Middle Sunrise came through in the jam. Sounds like some top-notch driving.


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