Pass Me More Rum! Telaga Anchorage, Langkawi, October 2004

Not to mention the brown trousers!

Di has on her fridge 'do something that scares you every day'. I keep telling her, just getting out of bed every morning scares me!

We have had a bit of an adventure today and I have so much adrenaline, rum and wine pulsating through my body that I cannot sit still. I tried having music blasting out of the portable CD player (with earphones), but only lasted two songs.

Being a little (too) keen to get out of the marina and once again enjoy being at anchor, we decided to go anchor off Chenang beach (just the other side of Rebak where there is a nice beach and lots of good restaurants). Well, we motored there (old depth sounder working) and just as we anchored, our NW facing bay suddenly had squalls from the NW! In consultation with the radar, more was on its way. We waited for a lull (wind blowing enough to flatten the water), and decided to go back to our nice little anchorage outside Telaga Marina.

We made it back with out any more squalls; just a bit of thunder and some lightening. One of the boats who had previously anchored near us had moved to where we were earlier, so we thought we would anchor near the island by the channel. Near is the operative word! A local fishing boat of the large variety came and took the mooring boy behind us. To cut a long story short (??) a squall came in at around 40 knots tumbling down the hill, swirling along the cliff, nearly laying us over broadside and our anchor took off! (We had 30m of chain out in 2.5 m of water!) By the time we started the engine, dinghy alongside, anchor winch on, we were almost ashore! Not to mention the rocks on our stern. Just before we landed (I was thinking of my first grounding) the anchor must have dug in as we swung around and nearly side swiped the fishing boat - who were watching with mouths open. (At least we had our clothes on!) Another yacht next to us was watching until they realised that they were also rapidly approaching us - dragging faster than us. Peter was yelling instructions to me from the foredeck, and (you might be surprised) I was following orders! So, many revs forward, backward then ended up stern into the wind (gale) reversing back very fast towards the stern of an Adams (he was not moving but looking intently!). Luckily Stolen Kiss sits happily stern into the wind. Anchor was well stuck, but finally all was up and we motored around the anchorage (depth sounder not working) until the squall died down.

All is now quiet and we are at anchor again. Hopefully safely!

Phew! Almost my first ever grounding! Our first drag!!