Things that go bump in the night.

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Fri 29 May 2009 16:07
Friday 29th May
So having just praised our Rocna anchor, last night proved that clumps of
weed and soft soil do not provide good holding for an anchor regardless of
what you put down!

The spot where we have anchored is just opposite a large commando barracks
and so we have been entertained by them going through a lot of their
training in our plain view (strictly no photos though) and the hills all
around the bay are clearly used by them for training exercises of all sorts
including rock climbing and assault tactics etc. Our peaceful evening was
slightly interrupted by repeated gunfire which presumably was a night
exercise!

The wind kept rising and so when we went to bed, we were sufficiently
nervous about the holding here to set an anchor alarm, which turned out to
be very wise as just before midnight, there was a loud clunk and then the
high pitched sound of the alarm and sure enough one of the gusts had pulled
the anchor out of the soft weed and we were being blown out to sea. We
raised the anchor and came back to try again but as soon as we put it under
load it dragged again and when we recovered it, we found another great clump
of weed and mud on it. For the next attempt we crept even closer to the
beach into very shallow water and tried again and this time we got lucky and
the anchor bit in. Reset the anchor alarm and went back to bed, but
certainly did not sleep too well from then on!

Wind died away completely by the morning and instead of the usual call to
prayers from the minarets (0515 is the first of the frequent and very
substantially amplified chants) we were woken by the commando's marching
band who were leading a platoon or two on a parade. I suppose there are only
so many tunes you can march to that can be played on a bugle, but this
sounded all very familiar.

Ate breakfast whilst watching some poor recruits being put through their
paces on aerial walkways and some very strange team activities involving
telegraph poles. One group were sent into the sea (still in full uniform)
and having linked arms, appeared to be instructed to march backwards into
the deeper water whilst an officer videoed them!

Plucked up courage to take the dinghy ashore and leave Serafina (the wind
was very light) and had a wander round the town. A great shame that there is
no room really for visiting yachts on the town quay as it has a large fleet
of huge trawlers and a lot of smaller boats almost permanently moored up,
taking up the space. There is however a very large amount of piling being
done off the quay opposite the town and they are clearly building some sort
of facility, either for visiting boats, or perhaps to house the trawlers.