We are back in the yacht club, it’s not like a real yacht club that we have back home, this is a marina, and now it’s grown to quite a big commercial operation. The office hangs off the end of a large development of apartments/hotel rooms, trendy designer shops and the usual array of franchised food and drink outlets. However, having said that you can see from the header picture I just uploaded, you get some cracking sunsets from Charlie’s bar. The complex is a short walk from a decent shopping mall, and a nice walk a little further into town, but not for the faint hearted when the suns out. I’m ok being an Englishman (mad dogs and all that).
We have had a week here, and haven’t done a lot really, the gang of grey ships we passed through on the way into the harbour were part of a huge military showcase here for the International Maritime and Air Festival, I think that’s the front for what is more honestly known as an arms fair. But we have had fighter jets flying overhead all week, some of them are very noisy. It coincides with school and public holidays, so the whole island has been rammed.
I was very pleased to find my favourite hardware store here stocked the cable I needed for the broken gear stick, so I picked up two, as the throttle cable is the same age, and presumably on its way out. It took the best part of two days to change the cable, as the steering had to come off, the bracket on the engine was seized, on and I had to saw off the connecting rod and fabricate a new one. I took the opportunity, while I was deep in the bowels of the boat to do a few other jobs, like cleaning the raw water filter, and generally cleaning the hull inside. I also managed to identify a couple of jobs to add to the list, like replacing one of the water hoses, that seemed a bit crunchy when squeezed.
I have put a few pictures of the binnacle, which is the thing that has all the engine and steering controls on it, mostly so I can remember how it all works in the future 😉
The new cables waiting to be connected
The gear works well, but I have a problem with tension on the throttle, I have a practical solution, involving a clamp, but it’s abhorrent to me as an engineer, so I’m musing on a better solution, I will probably post to the baba owners group for their wisdom on the matter. Basically a big spring at the engine end is always pushing the throttle back to idle, much like the spring on a car’s accelerator peddle, but unlike a car, you don’t keep your foot on the throttle, you need cruise control, the clamp I took off, basically crushes the cable casing onto the wire inside, that can’t be right.
Still, I have a strong elastic band that works amazingly well for now 🙂
The authorities here threw a maritime parade for the holidaymakers this week, about a dozen big cats, motor boats and old schooners were dressed up with lights and TV screens and paraded around the harbour/bay for a couple of hours, they seemed popular, I can understand that as the Malaysians seem to love their bright LED lights, and these boats were so decorated, that to me they looked like garish fruit machine/one armed bandits, on steroids. One catamaran had the whole side covered in a wall of flat screen tvs displaying flashing lights, 80 style pop video effects and adverts. 
The fireworks at the end were nice, above the giant plastic eagle
Finally I managed to upload one of my videos, it’s me and kathy swmming around the boat in Ko Phi Phi. The boat is in about 8 metres of water, so clear.
Let me know if it doesn’t work.
We are hiring a car tomorrow, it’s Kathy’s last day here, so we are going to take a ride to the top of the big hill here in the gondola ‘sky ride’ and also stock up on a few bits and pieces. We will also check out the food festival in Chenang.
Paul Collister
Lovely mermaid you found Paul!x