Night to Remember

Sailing Island Breeze to Baltimore, we were passing Norfolk at night, I came up on deck to start my watch and looked at the conditions and immediately went to change into my foul weather gear. It was going to be bad. We were approaching a line of thunderstorms the intensity of which I have never seen before. From horizon to horizon there was lightning flashing so frequently it was like the gods were playing with giant sparklers behind each cloud. We took in all sail, locked down the hatches and motored on. Our course was parallel to the shipping channel, but we were way off to one side to be out of the way of the large ships. These freighters and tankers talked on the radio amongst themselves and they were asking each other about a radar contact to the east of them. We realised they were talking about us and were checking with each other. We announced ourselves on their radio channel and found they were pleased to contact us and they would keep an eye on us through the coming weather.
Our Nexrad radar showed we were heading for a gap in the storm banks, so we drove on hoping to make it through without meeting the worst of the storms.
Alas, we soon saw that the storm clouds were merging and there was no free passage through.
It started hailing, then the rain started and came down in a torrent. We could only see 60 feet around us, and then only when the lightning flashed. The rain was harder and stronger than I have ever experienced. We set George, the autohelm, on course and hoped he and the engine would just keep running while we took shelter under the hard roof of the dodger and watch the storm flash all around us.
A lighning strike came down within 60 feet of the boat and recorded by Adam's camera. I froze this flash for you to see at the end of this video. We were surprised we didn't get a direct hit, but we didn't.
We eventually passed through the rain, it lightened up. Me and Hilmir took over command of the boat and I talked to several more large ships coming past us in the night. It sure was comforting to know these steel giants have curteous and professional men on board who were watching out for us that night.