It was a boring morning of sweltering heat, but we were determimed to sail this new boat. Tampa Bay was a sheet of glass...absolutely no wind. As the day progressed and we sweated away, we watched the full sails luff in the still air, and noticed that all around us the sky was turning darker. After a brief while, the sails began filling out as the water started to ripple with a strong breeze.
AND THEN.... We were hit by quite a rolling thunderstorm, the sea in the bay rose up to a chop, the wind whipped up to 20 knots while we were under full sail and suddenly, CRACK!!, lightning struck so close to the boat that it knocked out 3 of the electronic instruments through the current in the water.
CHUCK DIDN'T EVEN HAVE A CHANCE TO COUNT TO "ONE-ONE THOUSAND"!

The depthsounder was completely blank so we couldn't tell when were in shallow water. This can be a bit scary in this area where sand bars abound and we could easily run aground and badly damage our large rudder!

Later, back at the marina, Chuck was able to recalibrate all three instruments and we found that there were 3 levels of electronic shock that can affect these touchy electronic tools and our strike was the worst, not counting a direct hit! It was very close to a direct hit and certainly very loud!!!

We considered this whole event a "trial by fire"!!! The wind really picked up and we got this boat moving right along and that was the most fun. But all the wet, messy, sideways rain was just inconvenient! At least it was cooling on a miserable, hot Florida day!

NOW...a week later, our second sailing trip was just ideal. We'd had to take several days to do errands, finish repairs and do polishing.

We got underway from the pier and actually docked this almost 40' boat by backing it into the slip [not an easy task for even oldtimers] with just the 2 of us so we are feeling very independent. We are feeling adept at all the sailing and electronics usage. On this particular day, we had a nice windy and cool, for Florida, day and set out for the gulf of Mexico by one channel out of Tampa Bay and returned by the more northern one used by the big ships. It was over 20 miles and we had strong winds and sailed most all the day. We sailed around Egmont Key Island with the lighthouse shown below.

We are feeling much more confident about taking off for our trip around Florida but still hope for fair weather.