The reason I rushed back from London was to add my huge bulk to the Board of Governors meetings. Very strong juju, drums beat long into the night.

However my concentration is diminished by the imminent arrival of Typhoon Chaba, described below with all the restraint and accuracy of contemporary British journalism.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/717439/Super-Typhoon-chaba-devastating-Japan-South-Korea

Having just re-anchored the boat,  I now have to take her out of the water before I go to Kyoto for more heavy juju and tribal dance. During the rescue operation  of the beached Scaffie, I had contrived to snap the thwart as what I sit on when rowing. I cannot sail her no rudder, cannot row no thwart. Very little time as I fly after lunch on Saturday. I have run out of Lemsip.

When was the last time you saw a broken thwart?

I labor long into the night to patch up the thwart to allow me to row the Scaffie up to the harbor prior to extraction. The fruit bats howl.

There are plates bolted on both sides.

I drag myself from my squalid sleeping mat as soon as it is light. I hook up the boat trailer to the truckette and high tail it to Chiuya harbor. I leave the rig adjacent to the slipway and walk home. There is a horrible screaming from the cicadas, sweat pours off me as I yearn tragically for Lemsip,  horribly bejeweled snakes slither and unwind in the undergrowth as I stumble by.

I swim out to the boat but cannot get it. The tide is very high. Accordingly I swim the boat towards the shore until I can get a safe footing to spring, er I mean clamber, aboard. This is exhausting as the wind is already strongish offshore.

I row the mile up to the harbor. The thwart bends but does not break.

I haul her onto the trailer

The truckette pulls her up the slipway with greatest of ease.

We leave the harbor

The road home

The boat is safe. I get on the plane to Kyoto. I don’t feel so good.