An essay about travel, mental health and being trapped in a lightning storm
by Steve Xoh

I had a bad trip in September. Not the kind of bad trip that I had back in my early 20s when I was trying to be Syd Barrett and took too much LSD. But a bad travelling trip.

For the second half of 2025 I’ve been trying to do things that support my mental wellbeing and give myself permission to spend more time being fascinated by the things that fascinate me. So, with this in mind, I decided to book a trip to the national marine reserve of Alonisos in Greece to do a week of snorkelling and spend time being fascinated by sea creatures.

To cut a long story short - it didn’t work out how I imagined it would. The weather in Alonisos was some of the wettest, coldest and windiest they had seen for some time which meant that snorkelling wasn’t possible for most of the week I was there. And because the weather was so bad the islanders had decided to shut down early for the winter meaning no boats, no busses and no places to visit to escape from my very small and dark apartment (with noisy neighbours right above). And to top it all off I got a bug or food poisoning on the second day of being there which meant that everything I tried to do had a horrible twinge of sickness to it.

All of this meant that instead of creatures, sunshine and sea, I spent most of the time stuck in my rather oppressive room becoming more and more anxious and plotting ways to come home early. (This wasn’t possible due to weather travel disruption, ferry strikes and not being able to move my flight.) It feels important to say at this point that I realise a “bad trip” of this nature really is a first world problem and I could be stuck in a much worse situation. And, at the same time, as an artist who has little disposable income to spend on things like this and as a human whose nervous system can easily get triggered into a spiral, it personally felt like a very challenging experience.

In the end I decided to abandon Alonisos and got a ferry to spend the last two days in Skiathos before flying back. The weather in Skiathos deteriorated even further with some of the heaviest rain I have ever seen and crazy thunderstorms. But on the final day before I flew back I woke up to beautifully warm sunshine and only a scattering of little white clouds. I even managed to eat breakfast outside on a little balcony for the first time in the week - something I had imagined doing every day of the trip. I wanted to make the most of this break in the weather so I did some quick research to find out if there was a remote beach I could hike to for one last snorkel. I spotted a place called Nikotsara beach which was about 6km from my Airbnb, packed my stuff and headed off.

The route to the beach was impressive. Once I left the main roads I saw no humans for an hour - only goats, sheep and the occasional dog guarding a scary looking farm. The path wound through some steep hills and down into a narrow tree-lined valley with a stream that flowed into the sea. The beach was exactly what I was looking for. Very remote with no humans for miles. The only problem was that the storm from the night before had churned the sea up so much that it was a bit too rough and murky for snorkelling so, rather than ending the trip with a dissatisfying snorkel, I decided that I would just enjoy sitting on the beach watching the waves for an hour or so.

Nikotsara beach has very steep cliffs either side of it. Huge grey slabs of jaggedy rocks, dotted with trees, shrubs and tufts of grass. As I surveyed the sheer slopes I spotted some mountain goats grazing on an impossible gradient. This fascinated me. These distant creatures weren’t just grazing, they were playing and running and jumping on a surface that I could barely imagine standing up on. It was as I watched the goats that I noticed the clouds descending down the valley. Dark, grey clouds that told me I was going to get very wet, very soon. Then, out of nowhere, there was a bright white flash of lightening and an almost instantaneous clap of thunder that made the goats scarper and a gang of hooded crows caw loudly and quickly fly off to find shelter. Hearing the almost deafening thunder and seeing the animals flee, I came to realise that I was situated on a very exposed beach, next to a huge body of water, surrounded by tall cliffs and trees and the only way to a safe shelter was back up to the top of the hill. I very quickly came to the conclusion that I was stuck and needed to take some sort of evasive action.

More deafening thunder crashed around the cliffs, followed by torrential rain, so I found a little cave-like bit of rock to hide in to try and keep dry and minimise the risk of getting struck by lightning. Creating a tent from my coat I did some phone research to find out whether sheltering in a cave by the sea was a good idea. I found lots of articles suggesting that it was in fact a very, very bad idea so I waited for the next clap of thunder and then scuttled away from the beach towards a clump of shrubs and brambles and leant against an earth bank which seemed like a more sensible thing to do. More under-the-coat phone research told me that this was only a marginally better alternative to the cave. So, as the lightning continued to crackle in the air, I looked for the lowest place possible and scampered into a sand/dirt ditch and adopted the lightning pose - a weird crouch on the balls of your feet with your hands up around your head that is a last resort to minimise chances of a lightning strike passing through your heart! (I admit I didn’t adopt the pose fully - one of my hands was trying to use my phone under my coat to find out more about lightning!)

As I crouched (or cowered) I read that most lightning strike casualties are caused by ground current where the current spreads across the ground (hence why the caves were a bad idea), that lightning often strikes the same place repeatedly (like at the top of the cliffs, which were my path to shelter) and that if lightning strikes sand or sandy soil (like where I was crouching) it creates Fulgurites - weird glass-like structures also known as fossilised lightning. I also read about strange phenomena of sensing lightning forming before it strikes through noticing static charges, buzzing sounds, a smell of ozone and St Elmo’s fire - a weird glow around objects. I became a bit obsessed as to whether I was noticing these things or just being very cold and wet. But most helpfully I learnt about the 30-30 rule for being caught in a lightning storm: seeking shelter if the gap between the flash and the sound is less than 30 seconds (for me it was around 2-5 seconds!) and waiting at least 30 minutes after the last clap of thunder before moving on. Whilst it was helpful to learn all of this it meant that I was crouched in my ditch for over an hour!

But what was most fascinating about this experience was that once I was no longer huddled, soaking wet and looking out for signs of static buildup, this whole incident became the highlight of the trip and I’m not exactly sure why. I’ve told lots of people the story of being on this beach and through doing so have realised that I actually found it incredibly exhilarating, even though there was a chance of death or serious injury. I think a big factor in this was the fact that the imminent danger was a phenomena of nature. I couldn’t create a story about my situation being bad because of the uncaring, unfair or inconsiderate actions of other humans. It was just nature doing what nature does and has done for way longer than humans have existed and I was getting to experience it close up and totally alone. This, coupled with my nerdy interest in wild and crazy weather and finding myself learning more about it, whilst being in the middle of it, felt deeply satisfying. (As I was crouched in the ditch I also recorded some live audio for the podcast version of this edition to help pass the time!)