The Storm and the Sailboat

This is my father in law's sail boat.
It is not very big, but the big boys and the kids had lots of fun going out on it. They would pull it out of the water at night and just leave it on the beach. Jon took Addie and Ben out and they had so much fun.
One afternoon when all of the kids were sleeping Es (FIL) and Joe (BIL) took the boat out. They were going to sail down to a point and meet Jon and James (BIL) so they could sail back to the house. Shana, my sister in law, and I had been out sitting on the beach and saw a storm coming. We talked to our husbands about not going, but they said if the storm hit they would just pull the boat out and go back for it later. I thought this picture was really neat, you can see the storm passing by our beach house.
Here is the sail boat as the storm caught up with it.
To the right of the beach house, you couldn't even see the storm.
They were doing okay sailing, but the wind was working against them and they weren't able to make it back in.
And then I was taking this picture. I hate that it is so blurry, but that was not my biggest concern at the moment. The storm had caught up with them and blown them right over.
This was a very scary moment for me. I knew the guys weren't wearing life jackets and I didn't know if they were okay. I ran inside, dropped off my camera and told Shana what had happened. Thankfully my mother in law, Pat, was still taking a nap so she didn't have to worry.
At this point I took off running for the beach. The storm was just moving in so the water was pretty rough and it was starting to rain. When I got to the beach I couldn't see what was going on out in the water so I grabbed one of the life vests that we had down at the beach, it was a child size, but I thought it was better than nothing. I swam out to the boat and thankfully they were both okay. They had tied all of their gear down so they hadn't lost anything. I grabbed of their sunglasses and hats so they had their hands free to try and get the boat right side up. Thankfully a flood of men came out of their beach houses in the middle of the storm to help them. It took everyone to get the boat going again and then they had to take the boat back out and just ride out the storm. Shana and I watched the whole thing while we prayed for everyone's safety. It doesn't seem like that big a of a deal now, but at the time it was terrifying.

This whole time Jon and James were driving up and down the beach looking for the boat since they didn't meet them. They were getting ready to call the Coast Guard until they finally came home and saw the boat safely up on the beach. It is a running joke in our family about what bad luck the guys have with boats and this would NOT have been the first time they had to call the Coast Guard.
We are all so thankful that everyone was okay and I am thankful to finally have pictures to document their boating misadventures.