The last few days have been some of my strangest. Semi conscious in London, semi conscious Helsinki, semi conscious Osaka, I finally arrive at my house in Okinawa to find that I have given bad info about my front door key, resulting in me being locked out. It is a desolate scene, after 24 hours of semi conscious travel, I huddle for shelter from the driving tropical rain in front of my locked front door. It is dark.

Anyway I am finally saved but wake up the next day to find my Scaffie has disappeared. I am astonished as she was well anchored and there were no extreme conditions during my absence. I find her beached in roughly the same place that all my boats beach – luckily sand rather than rock. I do not feel well.

Grind, crunch, wallop early in the morning.

The rode, as what is the rope that leads from anchor chain to the boat, has worn through due to coral abrasion leading to the Scaffie making a break for freedom.

I cannot get the boat back in the water as the tide is low. I have difficulty locating the anchors, They have moved – very strange.  I finally locate them  jammed  carefully in deep fissures in coral about 20 metres from their original positions. It looks like someone has moved the anchors to  a position that they assumed to be stronger than the original placing on sand. Big mistake – the rode passed right over the coral and it would have taken about 3 minutes to slash through the rope.

A mystery. Anyway after much late night boat saving, Lemsip swallowing and submarine anchor untangling, the Scaffie is now back on her original mooring.

However, she has no rudder.