Major Thunder & Lightning and This Time it Was Very, Very Frightning!

So yesterday we had a lovely time a huge thunderstorm come through extremely close to us.
And remember, we are now the end boat on this dock...
Oh. Boy.

It started with clouds building on two sides of us.
Lightning to the Northeast of us.
The wind clocked around and became cool (ok this part was good!).
Then this chubasco came through.We saw at least 50-60 lightning strikes make contact with something.
Not just up in the sky, but actually hit ground (or building).
I saw the right tower of the church get hit twice.
At least 30 of these strikes were "too close for comfort".
There were probably 60-100 other lightning flashes that we didn't see hit something.
The sound sometimes was instantanious with the lightning.
Not a good thing.
Too close.
Remember, we have a 65' metal pole sticking out of the top of our home...

And rain.It dumped for at least an hour.
I stood in the cockpit for the most part.
We turned everything off in the boat and hoped our little Florida lightning arrestor would do it's job.
Apparently it scared those bolts away.

Dirt everywhere.
Pouring off the rigging, sunshade and bimini.
So when it trickled down to a sprinkle (say that 5 times fast) I went out and washed the boat off.

All in all, pretty exciting.
But next time we hope it's farther away!