A few days ago we were hit by a thunderstorm while at anchor in Richmond
Island harbor, south of Portland Me. The wind held at about 40 knots
for 10 minutes or so and gradually diminished, and we were surrounded by
lightening, though there were no hits within a half mile. I had started
the engines in case we dragged, and was monitoring the position on GPS,
a year old Garmin 545. At the height of the storm, the GPS lost its
connection, and would only come back after a a full reset (faster than
the initial cold start, but slower than a normal power up). This was
repeated several times during the storm.

I assumed that the problem was the lightening, but I noticed also the
the little rubber cap on the unused connector was off, and it would have
been pelted with heavy rain, so it also could have been the problem.
The unit has worked perfectly since then.

So my questions a does lightening often cause this problem? Is it
more likely that a bit of water on the unused external antenna connector
was the real problem? Is it likely my unit is defective? Should I just
assume that I'll always lose GPS at the worst moment? (Yes, I know the
answer to that one!)

BTW, my 35# Delta with 50' chain held fine in the hard mud (or is it
soft clay?). A neighbor with a CQR was not so lucky - he had set with
lots of rode, and deployed a kellet as the storm approached, but it let
go completely on the first 35 kt gust. He tried to reset a few times
but ended up circling for 45 mintues until the storm died down and then
he finally reset. As it turns out, we had switched to Delta anchors
because of problems trying to set a CQR in the very same anchorage 15
years ago.