Growing up, I was told to exit the pool when there was rain. It makes sense- relatively small volume of water + significant voltage can conclude pool day pretty quick.
But what about the ocean? If water conducts electricity, how does lightning not spread to every beach all the time?
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There’s a good discussion of some lightning safety questions at https://what-if.xkcd.com/16/
The sentence that has most stuck with me is “Water is conductive, but that’s not the biggest problem—the biggest problem is that if you’re swimming, your head is poking up from a large flat surface.”
The further the electricity travels through the water, the more its strength gets spread out. So lightning safety is mainly about being far enough away from the places it’s likely to strike that whatever amount of energy makes it to you will be negligible.
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