Well, one story begets another. At any rate, after reading Mike's funny story I figured I better tell my own version of this kind of mishap before one of my "freinds" does it for me. Some 25 years ago, while still living in The Netherlands, we bought a 35 ft houseboat (Pacemaker, Drift-R-Cruz) to let our family escape the insane frenzy on the European highways in the summer. Alas, it had a single 250 hp gasoline engine and little or no keel, whereas my only experience as skipper was limited to sailing small, gaff-rigged wooden boats on the Friesian lakes. Needless to say that negotiating the frightfully busy and windy Dutch canals, locks and rivers turned out to be an interesting experience. However, let me try not to digress. Our first summer holiday destination was a nice little sandy beach in the Biesbosch, a labyrinth of river forks and deltas somewhere in the South of the Netherlands. There are not too many nice beaches like that in all of the Netherlands, however, and when we finally arrived there I could barely see any beach at all because of the forest of anchored and rafted powerboats and sailboats. When I finally found a little opening between two boats with their bows on the beach there were the usual dinghies, anchor balls and playing children to obstruct a clear shot at landing our own boat. So I decided to move in slowly, kill the engine, lock the helm, jump overboard with the anchor line and pull ourselves in by hand. Fortunately, the wind was blowing away from the beach (or so I thought in my confused sailboater mind) and should help me stop the boat in time.... To make a long story short; as soon as I jumped overboard I not only found out that the water was neck-deep so I wasn't able to exert any pull but the boat stopped immediately and started blowing back to deeper water. In no time at all this proud, big boat skipper was trailing at the end of a 200 feet anchor rode like an oversized piece of fish bait, with most of the beach population cheering me on (or the boat). I must admit that by the time I had managed to wrestle myself back on board again (no swim ladder out!) and was lying flat on my back, gasping for air because of the exertion, the thought of simply motoring back home came up more than once. So, I try not to laugh too hard nowadays when I see other skippers coming into the harbor or bay and perform their own comic version of a highly original landing. Besides, I still botch too many landings to ever completely forget my first one! Flying Dutchman "Rivendel II" (Townsville)