[warning: non-geeky personal blog entry for benefit of extended family] A few weeks ago mum and dad were sailing their boat up an inlet in a group of islands called the Andamans. (They’re about halfway between India and Thailand and belong to India) They ran aground on a coral reef on a spring tide thanks to some bad local directions – although dad takes the blame for sailing unknown waters on a spring tide. There was one more tide that was a couple of inches higher that evening so they had one shot to get the boat off the reef. Luckily she ran aground level on both keels so they sat it out without causing too much damage and on the evening tide she just floated right off. On inspection both keels had a few scratches but no serious damage. I should add that they’ve managed to get halfway around the world without getting into a pickle like this. 🙂

Here’s what things looked like at low tide with mum on the foredeck: