Man drowns

Last night as I was exhausted and in front of the TV I barely heard the news as I was dosing off, but there was mention of a man that had drowned at East Coast earlier in the afternoon.

Apparently it was in today's papers, front page.
But I only managed to find a reference to it here -

Man drowns while saving his son in waters off East Coast
By : Hoe Yeen Nie, Channel NewsAsia
Date : 10 Dec 2006 2032 hrs (GMT + 8hrs)

SINGAPORE: A man was found dead at the beach at East Coast Park on Sunday afternoon.

The man, identified as 45-year-old Mohamed Ayoob, is believed to have gone into the sea to save his son who was struggling in the water. However, while the boy was pulled to safety, the father went missing. Civil Defence officers were called in and managed to find his body at about 4.40pm. He was immediately sent to Changi General Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
- CNA/ir

Had heard that today's papers had indicated that the time the accident occurred was round about 2pm...

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I went windsurfing on Sunday at East Coast -
The winds were great at 2 this afternoon, so it was quite a smooth ride starting out to sea. Then came the choppy waters... could not hold onto the wind in the sail and had to repeatedly rope it back up... like every other minute...

The choppy waters didn't help with my footing as well. Lost balance quite a few times... at one point it seemed like I was stranded on the same spot for more than 20mins... then I'd move forward when I finally got the sail up and moved forward, only to drift back to the same spot by the currents and choppy waves, when I lost my grip...

It was really exhausting after doing this continuously for more than 20mins, and the mind starts to begin to feels that the situation is almost dire... the thought of one person kept popping into my mind at some point, but that's another story all together...

So after all that falling over... having the sail fall over me... I got bruised (I think it was when the mast came down on my right shoulder) and severely blistered (from all that roping in of the sail) - two on each hand, one on the forefinger and the other on the middle finger... including one more below each big toe.

That's like the most blisters I ever had in my entire life, all at one go.
A brusie the size of my fist on my right arm just below the shoulder, and slight redness across the left shin.

In the end, I managed maintain a grip with enough wind in the sail to bring me back to the beach, at about 15mins to 4.

Proof of battled scars, left & right hands... kinda reminded me of the "Saw"movie poster.

In retrospect, Thank God I made it back to the beach... it'll be awhile till my blister heals before I head back to the sea again...

Note to self - I need to go get myself a pair of gloves.