The last night of our Carnival Mardi Gras cruise and a little after midnight I believe we were still about 100 miles out from Port Canaveral. I realized it was storming and decided to go look from our cabin balcony. It looked as though we were almost through the storm and the next thing you know the loud crack of thunder and lighting strike happened right in front of my son and I. It looked so close and we were shocked and shaken a bit but when we went inside to see my phone actually got this incredible shot we were excited. Slow motion is even better.

My nine-year-old son and I were out on the balcony of our cabin of our cruise ship. It looked as though we were passing the storm and it was getting behind us so my son came out with me and was actually just hugging me while I was videoing and unexpectedly the lightning strike was directly in front of us. Of course, once we heard the loud crack of thunder we went back inside our cabin and shut the door. My nine-year-old started to get upset and as I was, I was playing back my video and was surprised to see we got it all recorded on my cell phone. So then we thought it was pretty cool.

We were on the carnival Mardi Gras cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean, maybe 100 miles out from Port Canaveral? And that’s roughly our location at the time.