Boggle Champion

With 30 miles at least, to cover to get back to a jumping off point for our arrival in Johor Bahru,and a SW'ly blowing off shore we were zipping along.

In fact we were going so well with two reefs in the main, that we were averaging 7kts and I was toying with the idea of knocking off the last 13 miles and anchoring off Tanjung Pengelih , where we had to check in again. The last 13 miles were going to take us parallel to the traffic separation scheme again, but we were making excellent time and would arrive at Pengelih by about 1700.

Naturally mother nature had other ideas. As we cleared the penultimate headland, the wind wound up to 22kts and the tide v wind , made even the reach we were on a tad bumpy, so living to fight another day we called an early halt to the day and anchored in 4.5m, tucked up in the lee of the very last headland Tanjung Sepang, before we would have had to have started motoring into a headwind .

As the afternoon progressed we could see from our snug position the effect that wind v tide really has. We would have been thumping our way west for no reason. The seas looked as though there were waves very close to a metre in height churning through and past the passage we had decided not to take.

Random selection of letters 

Instead we played the last rounds of Boggle- a game at which Christopher is so quick, that we had no chance. It's a sort of self contained "scrabble like", word game. 16 letters and two minutes to make as many words as possible. Sounds easy? Well let me tell you, it aint. The letters fall randomly and maybe upside down or even sideways , from the particular position you are viewing from. The word is made only by letters that are actually touching each other. When you have a 16 year old, writing words down rapidly, that you can't see for looking, its very frustrating. Scores are attained if at the end, you have a word that nobody else has.

So Christopher is the crowned champion Boggler for this trip. We came nowhere close to his scores.

The scrabble world domination series however, had ended in a perfectly contrived three way tie. All of us winning the same number of games....although I'm sure that one of MY scores, was probably the best!!!! Well it's my blog , so obviously it was the highest score!

Next morning we left just on first light- a judicious decision as it turned out.

During the night, once the wind had dropped,the local fishermen had laid a web of nets across the channel we were taking. Picking our way through the fishing net buoys, we again entered the Straits, albeit very close inshore. So close inshore in fact we were inside the numerous anchored dredges sitting idle.

sneaking along inside the anchored ships

As we progressed west wards I detected a vessel sitting off a new facility construction , with what appeared to be a floating pipeline leading from it, back towards the shore , so we deviated a little further out into the traffic,to give it,what I regarded as adequate clearance , when a security boat decided to accompany us until we were well clear of the dredge. Perhaps there is a notice to mariners out with a proscribed clearance distance, and I'm thinking my 0.2 nm may not be the correct distance, but our personal escort just shadowed us, sitting just off my starboard quarter until he deemed it safe to leave us again. He never tried to contact us by voice, hand signal or vhf , just shadowed us.

On time and on budget we arrived of Tanjung Pengelih at 0930. Lowered the dinghy and went ashore, appropriately clad, as always on these occasions, in long pants and shirt (other than t shirt ) covering shoulders, to satisfy the dress code of the country. Seems very odd to be in dinghy in long pants. However we weren’t wading ashore, merely tying up the the jetty.