Stuck by lightning in El Salvador. Now What?

The Moment Everything Went White

Bahia del Sol had become predictable after five months on the mooring. The storms rolled through most evenings with their usual routine. A little (sometimes a lot of) wind, a burst of rain, thunder rumbling somewhere far enough away that it did not feel personal. We had reached the stage where the boat heeled over, the rain pounded against the deck, and we barely looked up from whatever we were doing aside from checking that the deck drains weren't clogged.

Around nine that night, that familiarity shattered.

A bang cracked through the cabin so loud it felt like it detonated inside the boat. A sharp fizz followed. The interior aft of the cabin lit up. Then darkness. The kind of darkness it takes a second to realize it happened.

We stared at each other, trying to piece together what had just went on. Then it landed. We had been struck by lightning.

Not the actual strike…but you get the picture.

The First Minutes After the Strike

The moment reality settled in, we were on our feet. We peered out the hatches for any sign of smoke. Nothing. No burning smell, no sizzling deck. That gave us just enough reassurance to slide into denial for the night.

The batteries that had originally shut down, came back online. The system monitor stayed off, but that felt manageable at nine at night in a rainstorm. We told ourselves it had been a near miss. A close strike, nothing more. We went to bed with that thought even though it felt thin.

Daylight would prove how wrong we were.

Lightning Damage Assessment: The First Layer

Morning hit and so did the truth. The first casualty was the shunt for our Cerbo GX monitor. Fried. The second was our alternator regulator. Toast. Annoying but not catastrophic.

We tested the engine. It fired up fine thanks to its lack of electronics. We tested everything else we could think of. The autopilot, compass, GPS and chartplotter screens all powered up. Our anemometer and depth sounder had already died in El Salvador before the strike, so at least they did not need to be added to the list.

By afternoon we had convinced ourselves we were lucky. A few components lost. A few replacements needed. Manageable. Expensive, but manageable.

Then came the logistical reality. Our warranty parts could not be processed in El Salvador. Local prices were marked up to painful levels for buying replacements. With our visas ticking down, the quickest option was for Mark to fly to Canada, buy everything, grab the warranty items and fly back.

Not ideal, but doable.

Or so we thought.

Checking and testing.

The Moment We Realized It Was Worse

Once Mark returned, we installed the new parts and fired everything up.

Cue the unraveling.

Nothing wanted to talk to anything else. Systems lit up but refused to communicate. The worst moment was discovering the radar was dead and the main chartplotter had decided to stop connecting to the network entirely.

Two days of sweating in the aft electronics cupboard, we had a new reality. The damage was not minor. It was not even close.

It was time to pursue the insurance claim for real.

The moment we realized a lot wasn’t working.

Filing a Marine Insurance Claim From El Salvador

We contacted the insurer when the damage still looked small and they opened a file immediately. Once everything escalated, the real process began.

The insurer assigned an adjuster. In our naïve optimism, we hoped the claim was small enough that they would not send someone to physically inspect the boat.

They did.

They also wanted photos of the masthead. And they wanted the radar removed for inspection. Which is how Mark ended up strapped into a bosun’s chair on a Saturday afternoon while the estuary turned into a washing machine of jetskis, powerboats and tour boats ripping through the anchorage. Each wake slammed the hull and sent him swinging like a pendulum. Ideal conditions for holding tools. Only one prized wrench went flying into the water.

Masthead inspections.

The adjuster arrived two days later. His verdict was quick. We had not taken a direct hit. Instead, we had been blasted by a severe electromagnetic pulse from a lightning strike close enough to cook a lot of electronics.

The claim was approved. That meant the real work could begin.

Not an accurate representation of how happy we were to compiles lists and paperwork.

The Marine Survey and the Long List of Damaged Gear

The first job was documentation. The insurer needed a complete inventory of every electrical component on board and its status. The list took days and was longer and more depressing than expected.

Meanwhile, a bigger clock was ticking. Our visas were expiring. The weather window to cross the bar out of El Salvador was approaching. We needed to prove to the insurer that the boat could safely navigate back to Mexico for repairs.

The engine worked. The autopilot worked. That was enough. We left with a patchwork navigation system and a lot of fingers crossed.

Officially leaving El Salvador.

The Ongoing Reality: Lightning Damage Does Not End

Three months later, we're anchored in Zihuatanejo. We have the basics working. The claim is nowhere near complete. Replacements are waiting for us farther north. We just have to sail there with what we've got.

Cruisers say lightning damage shows up in layers. First the obvious failures. Then the subtle ones. Then the ones that appear only when you need the system most. It's true.

Lessons Learned From a Lightning Strike at Anchor

We learned how fragile marine electronics really are. We learned that insurance claims are marathons. We learned that even near misses carry consequences that linger for months.

Most of all, we learned that cruising forces you to adapt whether you feel ready or not. Lightning does not care about departure dates or visas or tide windows. You work with what you have and keep moving.

Sailing is still sailing, even without all the electronics.

The Story Is Not Finished

We are still working through the claim. Still ordering parts. Still troubleshooting systems that behave strangely at the worst possible time. Every passage teaches us one more thing that stopped working quietly after the strike.

This season has become a test run of half tech sailing. It is not pretty, but we are still out here making miles and figuring it out one component at a time.

The lightning strike was one moment. The aftermath is a long story we are still living.