And the storm came(at night of course).
12 October 2013 | Mabul Island, Malaysia
Cloudy and now partly cloudy
Last night, before we went to bed, we prepared the cockpit for a night of rain. we had no idea what the forecast was out here in the middle of no where, but we tend to do this every night. It was a good thing we did and a storm started up a few hours later. First came the lightening and thunder--lots of it. Most was cloud to cloud but it just kept on booming away. I stuck out computers into the oven to protect them from getting a rude shock. The inside of our oven acts like a Faraday cage, at least that was what we had been told(write me if I'm wrong). This shields them from a "magnetic pulse" that lightening puts out that can fry not only your computer but all the electronics on the boat. The oven isn't that big to take everything so you pick and choose. About 0100, the storm hit with a vengeance. The winds howled through the rigging and I saw it hit 46 knots at one point. Yeow! We'd dropped out anchor on the northeast side of the island and while we got the wind, we missed most of the waves and chop that came with the storm. Our wonderful Rochna anchor held fast again as did Azizah's. When we entered the anchorage yesterday, Will, off the other boat in Tawau was already at anchor since he left the day before we did. During the previous evening, a BIG dive boat had entered the anchorage and seemed like he put himself very close to Will's boat. By this morning, both Wills and the big diving boat were gone. No clue when or where they went to but they are gone.
At 0100, it started to pour and thundered and became downright nasty. Tracy and I sat in the cockpit for a while watching the progression of the storm. sure am glad I closed up the sides of the cockpits. By 0400, it was pretty much gone and just the big rolling waves kept hitting all the boats.
Richard and Samia picked us up at Zephyr and in we went with a dinghy full of diving gear. We were ready to go.
I'll type more later but it's nap time after last night. Plus I'll have some pictures since the battery in the underwater camera is getting re charged.