Author: paulcollister

It’s Saturday afternoon and we are on the arrivals pontoon in Batu Uban, on the Island of Penang, back where I started this adventure with wanderlust back in January.

We decided to leave Langkawi on Thursday as the weather was predicted to be rubbish for a week or so, slightly better to the south, and as we had planned on doing sightseeing in Langkawi, it seemed more logical to get down to Penang and enjoy the festival here then head back to Langkawi when the weather improved.

So yesterday we paid our bills and headed south, it’s a long slog (12+ hours) to do the journey in one go, especially as it’s risky sailing at night here, the risk of collision with a fishing boat/net is high as they tend not to be lit. So we broke the trip up by spending the night at anchor behind the island of SonSong. This is a lovely little spot, but before we could get there we had to deal with some big squalls, the worst occurred just as we were approaching another island called Pulau Paya, I could see it approaching, and with the help of the radar and a little bit of trigonometry I calculated that by dropping our speed to 3 knots it would pass ahead of us, which it did, which was nice. We still got soaked and rocked around a lot, but missed the worst of it. In case you don’t know, a squall is like a mini thunderstorm, you see them on the horizon as an ominous large black cloud, getting darker and bigger as it approaches. Once it gets near, the sea whips up and the rain chucks it down, and there is a very strong wind, sometimes 30-50 knots. Visibility is also very poor. They can take 30 minutes to a couple of hours to pass depending on the bigger weather picture. Most of the squalls come from the SW during this monsoon season, so we anchored on the North East side of the island at Palua Songsong.
It was a very pleasant evening, not too hot, the monsoon wind kept us cool on the boat and Kathy cooked up a lovely pasta dish for dinner.

I slept in the cockpit, we had all the windows open and the boat was lovely and fresh. Accuweather had predicted 70-80% chance of rain during the night with their prediction peaking around 2AM, which is exactly when the rain came. I was in the cockpit, and was woken by a strange sound getting louder, it was in fact heavy rain falling on the sea, and approaching, by the change in volume I could tell it would be big, and soon. I chucked my pillow and sheet down the hatch, jumped in and sprinted around the boat shutting portlights, by the time I reached the front of the cabin where Kathy was just waking, she had been drenched by rain pouring into the boat. within minutes we had the boat watertight again, and Kathy was back asleep. I couldn’t sleep, I was expecting wind to arrive with the rain, and we were very close to the shore. Also this was my first time I had used the new Spade anchor in any kind of real test, so I was worried if we had a problem we could be blown onto the beach. I was also curious as to how this would play out, I ended up watching the rain and wind from the cockpit until 4AM when I fell asleep in the rain. By morning things had improved, but it was still wet and windy. At 9AM the wind started to pick up and was now from the East, so I decided we should leave as we were now on a lee shore, meaning we were being blown towards the beach and if the anchor gave we might have problems.
Just as we got the anchor up I noticed a few fishing boats racing directly towards us, I did wonder why, one of them almost hit us, the other close behind, and I was still bringing the anchor on board, they waved and smiled but I didn’t understand what they were saying, which was a shame. We waved and headed off. We had just cleared the island when I realised that they had all been heading to our spot to take shelter from one mother fecker of a squall that was hidden from us, but heading up from the other side of the island, and I had just motored right into it. This was at least as bad as any Force 8 I had been in, thankfully we had no sails up at this point. I managed to swing the bow around and head back to the anchorage, where I waited for 30 minutes to let the worst of it pass. After that we headed onto Penang, but more squalls came and went, we were in poor vis, rain and rough seas for the next 3 hours. At least the boat held up well. I got a headsail, the Staysail, up and that pushed us along at about 6 knots, The Radar helped me see more squalls, but the AIS is of limited use around here as many commercial ships don’t seem to use it.

As we approached Penang the squalls abated and the sea calmed, by the time we went through the old bridge it was turning into a lovely day, hard to reconcile the hot air, blinding sun with the soaking wet oilies and clothes scattered around the cockpit.

Just a word on AIS, if you are following us on AIS you need to be aware that AIS wasn’t designed for the internet, it’s really a ship to ship safety thing, so ships broadcast to each other beacon signals and it’s just like radar, but with more information like GPS Position, name, callsign, speed, course, and some physical boat details. Coast guards and harbour masters also use AIS to monitor shipping, and actually can generate fake AIS signals to simulate hazards for ships to be aware of.
We have the cheapo version AIS-B, which doesn’t give destination, or whether we are anchored/steaming etc.
Also the Internet sites like “Marine Traffic” and “vessel finder” don’t have many listening stations, if any. They rely on feeds from people who have setup AIS receivers and connected them to the internet, these are mostly hobbyists, or universities and consequently coverage can be scratchy. I think there are two different sources of AIS data for the internet in Penang, one of them can’t see me in Batu Uban, but the other can. There are sites like AISHub who merge data from various reporting sites / organisations and then syndicate it back to them
The main point here is that if you don’t see me on AIS then don’t be alarmed, it just means Im not in an area monitored by an AIS internet connected receiver (or possibly we have sunk, in which case you can be alarmed). I would expect when we hit the Pacific, you may not see another AIS signal from me again, other than the fake ones I can generate from my iPhone when I have a signal.

Tomorrow we go hunting for a berth with electricity and move the boat there, before we head off into town for Kathy to experience the joys of Penang.

Paul C.

 

Yes, up early before the heat/rain to get another coat of varnish on the port side. Im now at the bottom of the tin, and thanks to the couriers varnish detecting algorithms in their cargo handling equipment, I wont be getting a delivery anytime soon. I went to the local hardware store to find that the tin I bought a few months ago had not been replenished, and they didn’t plan to. Sometime I just don’t get how they do business here. It seems they stock the shelves randomly, and when it sells they restock with a new random selection. I did manage to get fuse holders and some LED bulbs, so back at the boat I rewired the fans with better cable and fuses in line.
The problem I had, as the surveyor pointed out, is that the previous owner had tacked lightweight cables supplying the fans into the heavy duty cabin lighting connections. Should a fault occur on the fan, like a short, the wire could catch fire before the heavy duty lighting circuit trip kicked in (or out to be precise). I have fitted fuses to two of the fans, two more to go.
Yesterday I re-routed the furling line for the genoa, this is the line you pull on to put the sail away, when I last tried it for real, it was so stiff I had to use a winch, I wasn’t sure at the time how much of this was down to my inexperience with such a huge sail, my weak shoulder, or a problem with the line. Anyway, I think it was a bit of all three, but the line now runs very free, and I have re worked the jerry cans at the side so the line doesn’t rub on them. Can’t wait to get out and try it for real.
We took a walk around Eagle Square later and Kathy took pictures of the God Eagle, I so would love to know what all the little eagles make of it.

Talking of which there where lots of Eagles and Monkeys out and about tonight.
We went into town to a street market, which was fun, lots of food vendors and the usual market stuff, but everyone seemed very happy and the overall mood here is one where everyone seems to be on prozac. Taxi drivers often burst into laughter telling us about life here.

I think tomorrow we have to make plans to get down to Penang before the arts festival there ends.

Paul C.

 

Up early, mostly due to the last of the jet-lag, and up out and varnishing. I now have it so I can get the whole of the port side varnished in under an hour.
Next up a trip downtown to show Kathy the shops, I was also able to drop off my old UK iPhone for repair. Kathy chose cutlery, crockery, sharp knives ( a bit worrying) and a plastic bread board, which was the best we could find here. I would hope a nice block of hardwood will come along at some point to replace it, after all we are in the middle of dense tropical rainforests!
From the shops we headed onto dinner at what is claimed to be one of Langkawi’s finest Indian eateries, the Hotel Malaysia, which is an altogether grander sounding name than the place appears. Still lovely food. I had a decent meal there with Tim last time we were here.

After that onto the supermarket for a big shop and taxi back to the boat. All in all a boring day, but last night I did manage to wire up a lot of my NMEA signals, so now my radar knows which way we are going and can give me compass bearings for targets, and the Navtex will only report data for the local area. I had planned to feed the NMEA into the iKommunicate system, until I remembered it’s not here, at the last minute I got scared it might be seized by customs and posted it ahead with some other bits. sadly that parcel never made it out of the UK as it has been rejected by the carrier and is being returned, at a snails pace, to my UK abode. Goodness know when I will be able to get that back here.

Paul C.

Up early today for a motor around the the island. Langkawi is made up of loads of smaller islands, and just to the SW of Kuah, where we are berthed is the large island of Dayang Bunting. This in itself has scores of smaller islands off it. So we left without event, a calm slightly dull day, but a light breeze to cool us. We went anticlockwise around the island as shown below.Kathy steered us out of Kuah and soon got the hang of it. Notice the freezer bag used to protect the iPad, our main chart plotter right now.

Later Kathy put together a lovely lunch while we lay at anchor on the new Spade Anchor.

We motored up the eastern side of the island, and this time I took the inshore route, the last time with Tim we stayed offshore for safety, I realised why when I noticed a few uncharted rocks had been marked on the chart ( I know this technically makes them charted, but as they were added by users of the charts, not the makers, one has to be careful assuming how accurate they are. Also if there is one uncharted rock, there might be more! ) As it turned out we missed them all and arrived back in the marina about 5pm.
My first attempt at berthing failed, I was just a little to far off the pontoon for Kathy to feel safe stepping ashore, so like a pro I reversed back out the slip, and had another go. This time I over compensated and almost parked the boat on the pontoon finger. All was well, and thanks to the fact these pontoons have nice plastic fender strips all along the edges no harm was done, we just slid along and Kathy stepped ashore and tied us off. I need to work on this, the problem is I just cant see the pontoon finger from the helm once I get close. As Mr Wilde might have said in these circumstances, either that spray hood goes or I do.

Just realised I didn’t explain the title, I lost the bucket overboard while getting water to flush the anchor chain down. The deck wash pump didn’t seem to work, but thinking about it now, I may have turned the seacock off for it (Duh). Anyway, we set about the bucket overboard drill and due to the fact the water was calm and warm, the bucket survived, it only took 3 attempts. I wouldn’t have fancied his chances back home though.

Paul C.

Had a nice lie in today before tackling the new AIS antenna, I had to route the antenna cable through the boat to the chart table. This is not as easy as it sounds, and involves clearing out the quarter berth and also the stern lockers, and quite a bit of crawling around in confined spaces. Thankfully the job is done, but I’m unable to check it works here as there are no AIS stations collecting the data and putting it onto the net. This won’t be a problem once we travel a bit. I can see enough of the other boats in the area to make me think all is fine.

The old anchor sits on the pontoon waiting for me to find a new home for it. I’m thinking of putting it in the bottom of the stern locker, keeping the weight low is best, however it’s hard work to get into that space, and when I next need the anchor, it will be in a storm situation and probably not the best time to be emptying out lockers and hauling a huge weight around. I hadn’t appreciated how big it was until I had to manhandle it.

We are still spending lots of time stowing stuff away, Kathy has been re-arranging the galley, I have been assigned lockers on the port side of the v-berth, I have two lockers in which to keep all my clothes for the next 4 years, so that’s the first locker sorted, not sure what to keep in the other one 😉

Last night we saw a gang of monkeys traversing along some overhead power cables, I was hoping Kathy would be impressed by seeing some monkeys here, I had no idea they had planned such a turnout to welcome her. I have a bit of video below.

So todays work stopped us getting out, hopefully tomorrow we can go for a motor/sail around the islands.

Paul C.

 

Well we are back at the boat now, Kathy seems to like it, the journey was fine. I was very relieved to have got everything through the customs without issue, it was all supposed to be free of duty, but they can be difficult with boat parts sometimes. I also had bags of wholemeal flour which looked well dodgy in their clear plastic freezer bags. The boat was just as I left it, AirCon running, no smells, and no sign of life. By the time we had unpacked and picked up some basic stuff from the local supermarket it was nearly midnight, so off to bed.

This morning we collected the new anchor from the marina office and I fitted it, now I have made two new problems, where to put the old 60lb CQR, and how to make the new Spade anchor not rub on the whisker stays.

Getting the old anchor off and the new one on was hard work on my poor broken shoulder, either I’m becoming an old man quickly or 60lb is a lot of weight to dangle on a chain.

I will leave the details of the trip so far to Kathy who is writing her blog entry as I speak.
Paul C.

Early start tomorrow, it’s always a bit nerve wracking leaving the boat to fly home, there’s the awful realisation when you’re on the plane, that you didn’t turn the gas off, or the seacocks are open, or the bananas you left hanging in the main cabin are going to turn into a million maggots by the time you return.
I have spent all evening trying to cover all these angles. I never do though, if only I had a way to remember what to do 😉

So today I varnished the oven handle, didn’t want to take on anything too hard. I also cleared the decks, literally, and tidied up. I sent some money off to the marina in Penang, which I owed them, and bought some juice for when we return in August.
Im travelling out of Kuala Lumpa on the first day of Eid, when fasting for Ramadan ends. It’s a major national holiday, so probably not a great day to travel on, tomorrow everyone returns home to be with family and friends, so travel is likely to be very busy, I just have to get to my hotel in KL, so it shouldn’t be too bad.

Saw this chappy this morning on the way back from the post office, he was about a foot long!

My final sunset here until our return

This is the Yacht club and hotel

I might make a last entry from KL tomorrow, otherwise see you in August, when Kathy will probably take over the blog, so it might get a bit more entertaining, certainly it will be more legible and grammatically correct (She’s a proper proofreader )

Paul C.

I had a nice restful morning, eggs and toast before I started on the varnishing. Today I was doing the coachroof trim, however by 11 am the wood was so hot, I could have cooked my eggs on it, so there was no way I could put varnish down and expect it not to bubble. So I sanded the wood down ready for later when the sun went down a bit. I did a bit of tidying up and some boaty chores.

Every morning I wake up and forget to check my todo list until the end of the day, today was no exception, but at 5 pm I remembered today was really my last chance to bake bread using Tim’s recipe and his special ‘starter’ before I head home. So the first instruction was to bring the starter to room temperature for an hour. this meant the mixing and stretching business was going to seriously clash with my pool time. So I ended up rushing  parts of the process, also the lack of scales to weigh the flour had me flummoxed. Finally while the bread cooked I investigated the lack of working water gauges.
it seems the port tank is the only one wired to the display, the starboard sensor just has some wires arriving at the meter but aren’t connected, I need to think this through.
However the port tank seems to be reading 50%, on removing the sensor from the tank, it appears the float that goes up and down the tube, doesn’t float anymore. once I moved it from it’s midway position, it dropped to the bottom and wont float back. Pretty rubbish for a float I thought, perhaps they fitted a sink by mistake.
So I wired up the Starboard tank and it was reading Empty, instead of Full. The sensor seemed to be shot, but on removing it the reading changed to Full, so a bad connection was suspected. The bad connection (Actually a short caused by a bad installation) was fixed and now I have one tank reading correctly.

So for the next ocean crossing, we shall use the Port tank with gay abandon until it runs out, then switch to the starboard tank and keep our eyes glued to the gauge.

By now the bread was burning underneath, and anaemic on top, I gave it another 15 minutes to burn then hunger took over my logic and out it came to cool down.

 

And onto Sanook, this is my neighbour here in the marina

Sanook is a Tayana 37, however her hull has lost its planking effect and she’s in a rather neglected state. She is on my port side and over to starboard is a westsail32

Now the westsail is one of the first double ender, Colin Archer inspired boats that took off in America. It was very successful and was one of the early cruising boats that got middle class folks out onto the water, previously the reserve of the rich or the home building types. Bob perry was commissioned to design a bigger and better westsail, he came up with the Tayana 37, which was one of the most successful blue water cruisers ever mass produced. From the Tayana 37, Bob went on to design the Baba 30, (Lady Stardust) and then the Baba 35 and Baba 40/Tashiba 40

Sister Midnight is a Tashiba 40, and one of the last and most refined double ender (Canoe Stern) boats that Bob Perry designed. So within a few feet of my berth, I sort of have the whole Bob Perry history there to see.

Now if you search around a bit you will find that Sanook was sailed here by an English man who won quite a few trophies in her, racing in various regattas here. He went on to build up a little empire of Asian chandlers in Phuket and Bankok

Tomorrow is my last full day here, so a quick varnish, then a big tidy up, need to make sure there’s nothing for the bugs to live on.

Paul C

I was working hard at the poolside earlier, my solataire score is very poor and I’m putting the hours in to improve it, when I heard a knocking sound above me. I looked up to see some kind of duck on the balcony above trying to get through the glass windows.

I have no idea what this is, I’m pretty sure it’s not an eagle, but it is quite big. I haven’t seen the monkeys for a few days, but I could hear them today, which was nice as I’ve been pondering on the banana peeling issue. I’m still not sure why the monkeys seem to have a better way to peel them than most of us humans. If you have no idea what Im talking about, then checkout this video on youtube. Are we able to evolve into beings that can traverse the solar system, split atoms and understand gravity (nearly), yet we missed out on how to peel a banana properly. What else have we missed!

I know what I missed, the dates I travel home, because I arrive on a Wednesday, I presumed at some point that I left on a Tuesday, but no, I leave on a Wednesday, thanks to the rotating earth thing, I leave Wednesday morning at 11AM and 19 hours later I arrive at 11PM, wish I had realised that when I booked my flight and hotel to KL from here. I was able to move the hotel back a day but had to book a second flight, still a flight to KL from here only costs £18, so not a disaster, and I get another day by the pool to work on my solataire tactics.

The anchor was “out for delivery” today, but it didn’t arrive, and the UPS site has just changed it to  “Scheduled for delivery Monday” on it’s totally useless tracking site. Still I will at least be here on Monday now, varnishing away.

The two boats to my port side have been bothering me, the first boat ‘sanook’ has a familiar look, and the boat beyond it is a rather sad rusty affair. I decided to check out the first one today and found a slightly interesting story, I will tell more tomorrow when I take a picture to explain. However suffice it to say, that as Malaysia has a very small indigenous yachting community/history, most of the boats here have travelled some way to get here. For many it’s the end of the line, as the next stop would normally be a passage to the Red Sea and onto the Med, but the Somalian pirates put an end to that for many people. I think it’s only slightly cranky people that have the kind of boats you see here, I guess I must be one of those people, I feel a bit like someone doing ‘the way’, also know as the ‘Camino de Santiago’, however I’m starting at the wrong end, and meeting everyone who has finished and is about to fly home. I wonder if Sister Midnight will end up being sold in some place like this a few years down the line and if anyone will bother to type the name into google and find out what happened.

So tomorrow isn’t about packing anymore, but more varnish. Will have a lie in and some eggs for breakfast, seen as it’s Sunday.

Just got a buzz on the phone to say Djokovic is out of Wimbledon, does that mean Andy Murray has a chance again?
What with the Brexit, the state of the Tory party, poor old Jeremy, and the sad news of Caroline Aherne, I think we must be going through some strange time/space vortex thing and everything is getting jumbled up.

Paul C.

 

 

I really need to learn how to paint, perhaps there is a night course I could do. I have painted a large chunk of boat and a large part of my leg, hand and neck. I have also painted parts of the boat that shouldn’t be painted, a bit of the pontoon, quite a bit of the Andaman sea, but that’s hard to be accurate about, and lots of clothes. Still Im very happy with the result, the port side is looking great, It’s the ultramarine blue strip I painted. I will get stuck into the starboard side in August.

Because of the high humidity here, I have to wait for a couple of very hot days to dry the varnish to a hard finish, otherwise I can’t sand it down ready for the next coat. also there’s the chance of trapping moisture in the varnish.

I took this picture of the cockpit from the pontoon, it’s a big cockpit, and full of junk including the life ring Tim and I picked up when out sailing.

I have pretty much decided to keep the boat here for the rest of July while I travel home, this means I don’t need to worry about the trip back to Penang now, also I don’t get to use my new anchor lights or the cardboard anchor ball I made.

Tomorrow I’m hoping to get a final decent coat of varnish on the cap rail to protect it while I’m away, hopefully it will be dry enough by then. Also I’m expecting the anchor to be delivered, other than that, I will be starting to put the boat to bed and worrying about humidity, insect, cockroaches and leaks etc.

Paul C.