It was 1:30 am. We were anchored at Isla Jicaron and something happened that hasn't happened in a long, long time. It rained. It was a sprinkle at first and then a soft rain. We quickly closed our hatches and I went up on deck. I admired my wife's genius - she had put our sunshade up and it was protecting a lot of the boat from the newly fallen rain.

3:30 am. It struck in massive force. The wind was blowing 20 knots. The rain was falling harder now and the whole island would light up for a brief moment. It was a massive lightning storm. Casey came into our bedroom and announced that something was wrong with our sunshade.

Kathy and I bolted out of bed and up into the cockpit. The wind was howling and the sunshade had lost two of its poles into the sea below. The rest of it was billowing in the wind like a big parachute trying to rip the boat from its anchorage. I yelled to Kathy, "What were you thinking putting the sunshade up? Man! What a foolish thing to do." Kathy, fortunately, ignored me and focused on the problem at hand. We needed to get the sunshade down.

As we got to the middle of the sunshade we needed to disconnect the main halyard. I disconnected it and held it in my hand, and then, for some unknown reason, let it go. It was dark: no moon, and no stars. Lighting would flash and for a brief second I could see the halyard swinging violently in the air - its metal shackle ready to kill. "Duck!" I yelled.

BOOM! Something hit something, but we didn't know what. It was so dark that I had trouble seeing. Kathy had a flashlight but I told her not to use it; I didn't want her to wreck my night vision. BOOM! It happened again. I caught a glimpse of the shackle at the end of the halyard. It had hit the windmill. But then a miracle happened: the halyard swung from the windmill and wrapped itself around the backstay. I quickly shutdown the windmill and grabbed the halyard. I decided to hold onto it this time. We then finished getting the sunshade down.

Lightning flashed again and we started placing anything electronic that wasn't tied down into the microwave and oven. Even a close strike could destroy all of our electronics and I wanted to make sure we still had a GPS, VHF, and computer. After we finished I ran up to the cockpit and assessed the lighting. I would see a flash and begin counting until I heard the thunder. I just couldn't remember the rule. Is it 1 second per mile? I couldn't remember.

It took two more hours before the storm subsided. It was a good wake up call. Just because it's calm when you go to bed doesn't mean it's going to stay that way.