Leaving on a Friday is said to be inauspicious, but we were only sailing some 30 miles to a small island Pulau Tiga, where we planned to anchor for the night before crossing to Labuan, which lies some 40 miles SW of Tiga. That day we finally had strong enough wind to shut down the engine and sail, though of course the wind was once again against us… The weather reports predicted squalls and heavy rain, and sure enough, short after we made it to Tiga and dropped the anchor, the first squall hit us. Our hopes of sleeping in the cockpit were quickly abandoned as we hid ourselves inside the cabin from where we watched the terrifying lightings that were hitting the sea all around us. While amidst one of my melancholic broodings I tried reading a book, Petr busied himself reassembling our tiller pilot to see if the repaired circuit brings it back to life. Unfortunately the miracle didn’t happen and we had to face the gruesome fact that we would have to hand steer while motoring all the way to Singapore where we could buy a new tiller pilot. Yet we were not desperate, because at that point we were still hoping to see some of those monsoon winds?!
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Česky
