All of the sudden, barreling east, right down the bay, and coming right toward us, there was a large electrical storm, lightning popping all along its front edge and it filled the gap between our northern and southern storms. We were one mile east of the Causeway and the new storm was about two miles west of it. Plenty of time left, keep fishing!

Crack! Boom! Lightning hit a channel marker not three hundred yards from us and then Unkie uttered his infamous remark, “I’ve got time for one last cast.”

He casts out and hooked a nice one, which cost us valuable time to land. During the fight with the fish, I got Brad’s life jacket on him and donned one myself. Crack! Boom! Another bolt hits a channel marker not one hundred and fifty yards from us. “Let’s get going,” I yelled as the rain started to batter us

Really getting pounded by the storm, we saw that we couldn’t head back to the bait camp. There was almost a solid wall of lightning between the two locations. The storm was still heading our way. Full speed ahead to the northeast, was our only partially open choice.

Northeast of us was the Texas City Dike, a nine mile, red granite, wall built out into Galveston Bay. Its purpose was to smooth the bay waters for the Texas City harbor and channel, however, and I repeat, however, we were heading in on the rough side! The wind hit us then, the waves built up, all working to slow our speed. We barely kept ahead of the lightning, and the rain was blinding!

We kept heading northeast and kept getting pounded by the storm, wind, rain and four- foot waves, which are huge for the bay, since the distance between the wave crests is probably only ten feet, very rough! Wave tops in the Gulf in four-foot seas are twenty-four to twenty-seven feet apart. Lots of up and down for us, and luckily the drain plugs in the boat did their job and at least we didn’t swamp. Looking down, I believed Brad liked this and glancing over at Unkie, he didn’t have a care in the world. Personally, I was scared to death!

Plowing on through the rough water, we finally spotted the dike and could make out a bait camp on our side and headed straight for it. Closing in on the dike, I anchored the boat with the bow pointing into the storm, which had slacked off some. With the rain pelting down, we got out of the boat, soaked to the skin and waded to the dike and then some smart aleck under an awning at the bait camp, asked, “Kind a rough, wasn’t it?” If my nine year old hadn’t been along, there would have been violence!

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