BBQ on the beach with a surprise

On Sunday we biked to the beach with our friends Anton and Mami to have a barbeque.  It was warm and sunny in the morning, but by the time we were 3/4 of the way to beach it suddenly wasn't sunny anymore.  There was a park with gazebos near us when it started raining heavily and we took shelter until the rain cloud passed.  We decided that probably most of the rain was going to stay to the south of us by looking at the sky, and we continued on to the beach.

 

The view of the weather from the beach was very picturesque.  The waves were choppy, and we could see individual rain clouds that would pass by to the north, south, or offshore. 

The beach was mostly empty, likely because the first rain cloud that trapped us at the park drove a lot of beachgoers home.  We were surprised when a man on a horse rode by.  He seemed to be having a lot of fun.

We found an abandoned carseat on the beach and we put our tarp over it to sit on.  Kyle and Anton constructed a BBQ pit with abandoned metal trays as a wind break.  We brought our own charcoal,  metal grill surface, and tongs for the food, but everything else we found on the beach.

We cooked some meat on a stick, potatoes, mushrooms, tofu, and corn.

Not long after we got to the beach and started grilling, a really big rain cloud suddenly appeared to the north of us (the picture above is looking to the north-- the gray background is rain).  For the next 30 minutes or more, we got to watch lightning strikes in all directions in that cloud and listen to the roll of thunder claps from the comfort of our completely exposed position on the beach.

For a few minutes, the sun came out. 

The warm sunshine was appreciated, but it didn't last.  Not long after this picture, a big rain cloud appeared from behind the sand dunes and got us.  We had just started to cook chicken, but we abandoned it on the fire.  Mami had brought a small umbrella that Anton and I huddled under on the car seat.  Mami hid under a washcloth that she had brought (it kept part of her surprisingly dry) and Kyle built up the cooking fire to a warm inferno, but he was otherwise completely drenched.  It was A LOT of rain!  

The umbrella that Anton and I were under was good for a few minutes.  But then the rain was so hard, that the cascades coming off the sides completely soaked my legs and my outside arm.  After 5 minutes, Kyle, Anton, and I on the blue tarp on the carseat were sitting in large puddles of water... Mami, standing in the rain under her little washcloth, was actually better off than we were.

After about 10 minutes of downpour, I suddenly realized that we were sitting on a blue tarp!  We picked it up and huddled under it, over Kyle's fire for the rest of the rainstorm.  We still had body parts sticking out of the tarp getting wet, but we were better off.  Kyle's fire was provided some warmth.  Even though our particular rain cloud had a lot of water in it, thankfully it didn't have any lightning.  The sun came out during the rain, giving us a lovely rainbow.

Eventually the rain slowed enough that we decided we wouldn't be any worse off if we left the relative dryness of the tarp and biked home.  We left the uneaten, burnt and wet chicken to the seagulls and headed towards home.

The rain stopped not long after we started biking, thankfully.  We got home, took hot showers, put on warm clothes, and met up again at a ramen house for a hot bowl of noodle soup.

Something Kyle said during the downpour stuck with me.  He said that he couldn't remember a time that he had been so unprepared to deal with a rainstorm.  We didn't expect the rain because it was so beautiful and sunny when we left Sapporo, so we had no raincoats and only Mami's umbrella.  When we were at the beach we were many kilometers from the nearest place we could take shelter.
I think he was right-- I can't remember the last time I got so wet in the rain.

That's all for now,
Bre (and Kyle)