Author: paulcollister

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.

It rained through the night, and when I woke up the new varnish was covered in rain drops, spoiling the surface of the last coat of varnish. I dried the wood with a rag hoping the weather would improve, then stayed below and did some research on shopping and where to leave the boat when I travel home next week.

I took a trip downtown to check out all the hardware/marine suppliers I had failed to find before, I found them all, not where they are documented as being, bought paint and Epifanes varnish thinner, I had sent an email off to Epifanes the dutch manufacturer of the varnish I use, it’s quality stuff, but hard work here. I was pleased to get a reply, he confirmed that it would be difficult to varnish here, but possible, he persuaded me that I should use his thinner rather than the local turps and to let him know how I got on. He also had some other good tips. I also bought some flashing led lamps for the boat, I already had two, but these ones are good for 100 hours operation and turn off in daylight automatically. So when I next anchor, I will look like Blackpool illuminations. Needed because of the massive amount of fishing boats out here, many who drop nets in the anchoring spots.
I also found a fire extinguisher shop and bought a fire blanket for the galley, I had been looking everywhere for one of these, not something normally used here it seems. Outside the shop there was a couple of trees that seemed to be having root problems, glad I didnt lay that pavement.

So by the time I got back to the boat the sun had come out and drying had completed and varnishing could commence. I managed to get a second coat on after sanding back the first one and removing the rain spots, I also sanded back the blue paint under the cap rail, that will get painted tomorrow, followed by another coat of varnish on the wood ( 2 down, 8 more to go).
I think I have saved that cap rail, port side by replacing the rotted teak bits with new plugs. The starboard side is still untouched.
Then onto the pool to cool off, followed by the removal of the Aircon Water pump
This pump had given up the ghost, it’s 15 years old, and has been pumping salt water all its life, so fair enough, Im hoping if I can replace it the air-con will work, but there may be more problems.
Tomorrow everywhere is shut so I will do some painting and varnishing.

Paul C.

Up early to get on with the sanding, I have now sanded down the cap rail and rubbing strake on the port side, to bare wood, and laid down 1 coat of 50%varnish/50%turpentine. A very tedious job, but no more sanding, just another coat of varnish every day until I have about 8 coats on. Sadly it started raining not long after i got the last coat on, hopefully a light sand tomorrow will fix that.

The dinghy came back today, which was nice.

Went shopping for fresh salad ingredients tonight, and spotted this little chappie on the way.

The rain was evident all around the island.

Here you can see lots of boats in the bay, mostly ferries laid up as we are out of season.

It was a bit worrying to see the terrorist incident at Ataturk airport in Istanbul, as I’m changing flights there in a week on my way home! Awful affair for all involved.

Tomorrow, more varnish, pay the bill and get ready for early depart on Friday.

Paul C

That’s an Iggy pop reference…

So the anchor was delayed in customs, it’s now been released so the delivery day has slipped to Saturday, a few days after I was planning on leaving Langkawi and heading back to Penang. Also the dinghy was meant to be ready today, but that hasn’t shown up, to be fair I didn’t chase it, been very busy sanding all day. I started on the cap rail and rubbing strake, it’s going well, but the wood is much darker than I would like, also has many black stains. I’m looking into lightening it.
So eight hours sanding and a first layer of varnish on half the job, then a swim, supermarket, finally an omelette for dinner.

Tomorrow more of the same, I probably wont blog as I’m going to be busy getting the boat ready for the trip to Penang.

 

Tim cooked a loaf today, best ever, he has left me some ‘starter’ which looks like wood glue, but apparently is alive, but subdued in the fridge. Like Frankenstein, I will be bringing it back to life shortly and attempting to turn it into an edible loaf.
Tim took a taxi to the airport at lunchtime, it’s been great having him here to help with the work and to just enjoy the boat, after all thats the boats main purpose. I made a list of shops I wanted to check out, especially I was looking for anchor lights, off I marched and covered a lot of ground, despite the heat. I got some lights, not quite what I wanted, but they should work, basically all round flashing white lights I can put on the boat when at anchor. After shopping I called by the food area that is on the was home near the main shopping mall, I’m not quite sure what it’s all about, that is , is it just a Ramadan thing, I suspect not, but it was quite amazing, stall after stall of great food, snacks, meals, drinks, puddings etc. A bit like the oriental food stalls at an open air festival, but multiplied by 100. I bought a stack of food, and a massive juice drink, possibly mango, for less than £3

I will be going back soon, to stock up the fridge.

I feel a bit sorry for Kathy as it was mostly meat/fish orientated. I expect we will find a veggie option, I did spot this place on the way home, it said ‘open new moon and full moon’ which seems a strange way to run a business, but it does say “Clean-Moderate-Delicious”, who could refuse that!

Closer to the marina I watched a row of palm trees being planted, there’s lot of work going on around here to smarten the place up.

I took a shortcut through a row of Malaysian restaurants on the way back and caught this little chappie on video. I’m hoping he kept well clear of the kitchens, for his sake.

 

After a little swim at the yacht club I snapped this sunset, that’s the Rebak and Telaga area in the background. I could get to like it here.

However now Tim has gone it’s 24/7 maintenance on the boat. I need to get as many jobs sorted out before I return home next week. I have a very long lists of jobs, but the biggest is probably the varnishing of the rub rails and cap rails. Im hoping my anchor and dinghy repair will arrive in the next couple of days, as I plan to leave for Penang on Friday.

Paul C.

 

Today is Sunday, Tim’s last day in Malaysia. We decided to take the boat out, and possibly visit a posh looking resort about 2 hours sail away. After a few phone calls I spoke to someone in the resort who would let us use their berth there for a few hours, but it was quite a complicated setup and I wasn’t sure if it would work out in reality. Anyway we set off, Tim took us out of the marina and we headed north to look at the two big boatyards there as I had heard one was very good for yachts and was curious. We passed a fishing village, mostly on stilts, then past the boatyards. Soon the wind picked up from almost nothing to a good 10 – 15 knots, this was my cue to get the mainsail and geneo up. The wind was caused by squalls passing by, we could hear advancing thunder and I wondered how big the squalls might be, I wasn’t bothered as they rarely last more than an hour or two, and this boat can take a much bigger hammering.
Once we got the hang of sailing this big heavy beast, we found it was quite fast in just 10-15 knots, however the squalls approached bringing rain and much bigger gusts. At one point there was a rapid wind shift which left the genoa backed and trapped on the staysail stay. I had to start the engine to help recover that situation. I was able to bear off and run before the high winds and we made great speed towards the resort. When we got there it looked full, and rather shallow (in more than one way) so we motored around, took some pics of old boats (below)  then headed back to the island south of the resort where we dropped anchor for lunch and a swim. Most of the islands around here are full of dense tropical rainforest vegetation. Look at the picture to the left to get an idea, this was the shore by where we anchored.
Tim had a swim and I checked out under the hull while swimming around the boat.

Will write more tomorrow as it’s nearly 2AM here now

Paul C.

Sadly this huge tuna or maybe even shark, got away

 

Today started with more varnishing, I think it’s going to be difficult to do much varnishing here as the humidity and temperature are just too high.
Next we had to deal with the broken gas shut off valve. This is an electric solenoid that allows me to turn off the gas from the galley without having to pop outside to the gas locker. I had to strip it down and fix a broken wire then epoxy it back together, it now works. My problem is this boat has American systems everywhere, and the gas is all plumbed using USA fittings, which I can’t get here. I have a vague plan of taking the boat to Seattle one day and selling her there, so I would like to keep the American bits where possible. The two 5 US Gallon gas aluminium (or aluminum if your in America) tanks are especially great for cruising.
Anyway, my repair worked, and should last until replacement parts can be obtained from the states.

I took advantage of the fact that all the bits of the gas system had to come out of the gas locker to give it a good clean, this however made me realise how dirty the cockpit surround was so I then moved onto cleaning the fiberglass in the cockpit, this came up lovely and now needs to be polished to get a shiny gleam to it.

Finally with all the cleaning done it was off to town for some shopping and dinner. After dinner Tim took a cab back to the boat and I had a leisurely stroll home, taking the snaps below on my way.

It’s Tim’s last full day here tomorrow as he flies off on Monday, so I think we will go for a motor/sail around the Island.

 

Paul C

Today started with the early (8:30) arrival of Chris, the rigger. He scooted up the mast and took measurements of all the rigging, that’s the wires that hold up the mast. There’s a lot on this boat, I think 13 in all. they all need to be replaced to get insurance for the boat.

Tim worked out that we could get a ferry to Thailand and have a couple of hours there, it’s really not very far from us, 1 hour on a fast ferry and £6 each way. Also I could buy an electric sander there, as the shops are all shut here with it being a Friday. As the morning progressed we were getting more and more results coming in from the UK referendum, I was very very disappointed at how it was going. By lunchtime it was all  to clear.
It was a pleasant trip to Satun, I bought a sander and glasspaper,  I had to get some Tahi Baht from a cash machine, everything is now about 10% more expensive for me because of the leave vote, hopefully that will improve a bit.

After a couple of hours looking around the shops we got the ferry back. I think we probably spent more time queuing to get our passport stamped in Malaysia and Thailand than we did walking around the town there.

Once back at the boat we had a quick swim to cool down and met up with Touch from the marina in Penang, He drives a big 40m motor cruiser (Millionaire boat, as my kids would call it) for it’s owner and had motored to Langkawi for a couple of weeks.

We decided to cook on board, but the Gas solenoid that shuts off the gas had developed a fault and I couldn’t fix it in time for Tim’s preparation, so we fell back to a Plan B where we cook on the outside barbecue.

After a fast familiarisation course (learning how to turn it on) we were once again ‘cooking with gas’ and Tim rustled up a lovely Omelette containing all the veg we had left.

Tomorrow I might be able to sand down the rubbing strake ready for it’s first coat of varnish. Will need to buy some turps or white spirit first.

Paul C.