The intriguing thing, is that rarely do we see clouds formed with Atlantic Ocean moisture, such as these.
It's kind of like a pleasant day off Yorktown, VA.
We used to practice handling the boats in the wake of large ships; we'd surf their wakes, in order to get used to anticipating changes and make adjustments.
The boats were single screw, diesel, maybe 31 ft. long. You had to be ahead of the direction that the boat might go; the steering was not the greatest. Of course, there were too many chiefs all at the helm.
I liked the Chesapeake Bay; interesting place.
In Michigan, on Lake Huron, we had a 40-footer, single screw. It was the older design, and I loved it; it rode well.
My last day of active duty rescue work, I was awakened at 5 and told to get ready. A diabetic was lost at sea, and we had to go get him.
Wx was lousy. 30+mph from NNW. 62 F. Overcast and storms. Lake Huron was 12 ft. "chop." Swells 8 ft.
A previous night, I had watched from the station tower as ships moving up Lake Huron, were struck by lightning; they turned blue.
When lightning struck the surface of the lake, the lightning would radiate outward just under the surface, like spokes on a bike wheel.
So this one morning, I was a little wary, shakey, and hungry.
As soon as we left port, our radio quit. The chief decided to stay at sea. Our gyro quit. The chief decided to stay at sea.
After one turn at the helm, I left the comfort of the cabin.
I had on a wetsuit and went back to the towing bit, which was the center of moment. It was the most stable part of the show. From there, I watched the bow of the boat rise and fall 12 ft. about every 5 to 8 seconds. This went on for 5 hours.
The crew, in the heated cabin, kept looking back at me, wondering how I was faring. I was fine. Warm in the suit and protecting some donuts.
They, on the other hand, were sick as dogs; they were dry, but that was all.
Eventually, somebody came back and asked if I might know the way home. We had traveled from the Saginaw Bay to the area north of Lake St. Clair --- no diabetic.
We would search, heading back.
The storm slackened. The sun briefly came through.
I looked over the chart and matched up what I thought might be a couple lighthouses or radio towers --- we were out ten miles. I picked a direction and said, "Go here." X
Good guess. Much, much better than my wondering if the current hurricane might have ambitions for Long Island.
RMOAS. When I was in basic training, we hiked to a training area with full packs, including gas masks. The DIs had us all sit (make your buddy smile mode) in a dirt parking lot, while they demonstrated different colored smoke grenades.
They would pop a red grenade taped to a stick, and walk back and forth upwind of the Company saying, "Now this is what red smoke looks like." Then they went to yellow, then green.
When they thought they had lulled everybody into a coma, they popped one with grey smoke. It was CS.
I have never seen 150 people jump instantaneously from a sitting position to 8 ft. high before, but everyone did. When their feet hit the ground again, they ran in all directions like stampeded cattle.
Everybody, that is, but me. When I got a whiff of the CS, I calmly reached down and donned my gas mask, exhaled to clear the mask, and continued to sit there breathing nice, fresh air.
I didn't fit in, either.