STRUCK BY LIGHTENING ! !

AUGUST 13, 2014

WAITING ON THE STORM

About 8am this morning another thunder storm blew in. The sky turned black ,buckets of rain were pounding down on It's Perfect and we could see nothing. The wind that had been blowing in the 30's hit 60+knots. Rod was at the helm with the motor running, the anchor was holding but our nerves were raw as we waited out the storm. Island Fever one of the many backpacker boats was anchored between us and the shore. With only one other boat in this part of the anchorage there was plenty of room to swing.

The rain was finally letting up and the wind back in the mid 30's and then down in the 20's. Island Fever was still in place his anchor holding. After more than an hour of high stress, hard rain and screaming wind the sky began to get lighter and the rain was letting up. Rod cut the engine and we were sitting in the cockpit watching the very last of the storm blow by.

We were talking about how well It's Perfect did in the storm when a huge bolt of lightning crashed down out of the rainy clouds and with a deafening sharp crack hit our main mast. We were in shock as we watched the windex fall down in flames to the water below. After our hearts quit pounding we began to check the boat for damage. All the electrical instruments are out. Our incomplete damage list reads like a West Marine catalog.

Auto Pilot Ray Marine                                                           
Tri Data (wind,depth & speed)

RL70Radar display & pathfinder scanner                           Pactor Modem
R70 Chart plotter at the nav station                                     

TS50 Kenwood SSB & Tuner

R-NAV300 GPS                                                                         

Wind Indicator

Nema 2000                                                                                 

VHF Radio/AIS

Inverter/Charger                                                                       Refrigerator
Bilge Pump controller                                                              FM/CD Player Stereo
All navigation lights ST60                                                     

The list will go on. After we had pulled ourselves together and assessed some of the damage we knew we needed a GPS to get us back to the mainland. Rod took the dinghy to Island Fever to see if they had a hand held GPS they could sell. The captain said he was in the cockpit and watched as the lightening bolt hit our mast, quite a sight. He was very glad it wasn't him. He was great and sold us his Garmin GPS72H hand held unit for $100. We felt very fortunate to get it.

We stayed one more day and were again sitting through another large thunderstorm at day break. The winds hit at least 50 to 60 knots. It did not last as long and it was over. We left the next morning and anchored in Porvenir about sundown. Island Fever joined us the next morning to offload backpackers & we stopped by to see if he had any weather information. It seems Saturday will be the day for the 60 mile sail up to Portobello to begin the slow process of putting our boat back together.