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Our intention was to stay in Sutera Harbour for a few days, prepare for the trip to the Philippines and continue travelling north to the island of Palawan. Things, as they say, didn’t quite go to plan, however.  We spent Wednesday March 7th sticking to our schedule, which was mainly shopping for drinks, fresh produce and other essentials for the two-week passage. The morning was taken up with a visit to a supermarket known for its variety of Western products and selection of cheeses. In the afternoon, we visited the market in KK’s centre so that Paul could buy some fresh fish, and stopped for a drink in one of the waterside bars overlooking the bay, noting that it would be the last time we’d see it for several years – if at all. From there we went to Imago Mall for a bite to eat and a final shop in the supermarket there, and took a taxi back to the boat to stow it all away.

The morning of our departure got off to a promising start. Provisions were stowed, the water and fuel tanks were filled, engine checks done and the passage plan was all set up in the cockpit on the iPad. I reached into the fridge, to get some spread for my toast and remarked that it didn’t feel as cold as usual. Paul did some checks and confirmed that the fridge had stopped working. A more detailed examination revealed that it wasn’t going to be a quick fix, and it looked as though we would have to postpone leaving. We quickly dispatched our frozen goods to Ian and Marilyn’s boat where they kindly agreed to store it for us. The rest would be fine for a while as it was still cold enough inside the fridge, but there was quite a lot of food in there for a two-week passage. We also had the added stress of having checked out and without knowing how long the problem would take to fix, weren’t sure whether we should check back in again. Word spread about our plight and we had several offers of help and advice from neighbours and marina staff. Paul spent most of the day researching, emailing and contacting various firms and distributors about obtaining a new controller for the fridge to replace the faulty one. By the evening it had been ordered from a place in Devon to be delivered here by DHL on Monday. We had also acquired a huge bag of ice to help preserve the contents of the fridge, so things were looking up and we decided a few days’ delay wasn’t such a big deal . Paul took advantage of the extra time to take his water-logged iPhone to a kiosk in Imago Mall. A chap there had offered to fix it over the course of a few days but at the time we had planned to be leaving the following day.  On the walk back,  we discussed how we might spend the unplanned extended weekend we’d be having in KK…cycle rides maybe, swimming in the resort’s pools, a bit of bowling perhaps? We did none of those things as it turned out. The next ten days would prove to be a lot more stressful than sorting out a broken fridge.

We were both up early on Friday 9th March. Paul had begun to feel ill during the night. He complained of feeling chilled, was shivering uncontrollably and said he was aching all over. He’d also been sweating a lot and had a headache. He’s had random attacks like this before so he took some paracetamol which usually helps, but he didn’t feel much better by morning. He decided this might be an opportune time for me to practise taking and recording vital signs with the medical equipment we have on board. I retrieved the thermometer and a blood pressure and pulse monitoring device and following the instructions, recorded both of our results so that we could compare and contrast. Although Paul’s pulse was normal, his temperature was quite high and his blood pressure was slightly low. He felt lethargic, too so we guessed a day or two taking it easy with regular doses of paracetamol and ibuprofen would sort it out. He dozed most of the day but whenever he woke he still felt rough, he was shivery and his temperature remained high. That night we made the mistake of looking up symptoms online and checking what to do when someone’s temperature doesn’t go down. The number of life-threatening diseases he could potentially have was staggering and scary. Malaria and dengue fever seemed the most likely, according to his symptoms and I kept thinking of his time in the volcanic mud pool on Tiga. Moreover, I had sat in the cockpit earlier that evening so as not to disturb his sleep and ended up with several mosquito bites of my own. We’d heard that incidents of dengue fever had been reported in the nearby stilted village and I thought how awful it would be if we both went down with it. It’s easy to imagine all sorts of worst case scenarios when someone falls ill in a tropical country, and I’m the first to admit that dealing with sick people is not one of my strong points.

Saturday dawned with no improvement after another night of uncontrollable shaking and sweating. I kept suggesting calling a doctor, and even got the list of numbers we’d been given by marina staff for emergencies but typically, Paul kept insisting it was a viral infection and it would pass in a day or two. By the afternoon, though, his temperature had risen to 40 and he’d become delirious;  by which I mean he was awake but narrating a vivid dream about rivers of chocolate among other bizarre things.  It’s so not like Paul to ramble on making no sense and I was seriously alarmed. I told him I was going to get Ian and Marilyn, thinking they might be able to persuade him to see a doctor. I knew he was bad when he didn’t protest, just nodded and said that would be fine. They both agreed with me he needed medical attention as soon as they saw him. Marilyn took his temperature and said he should get checked out at the hospital. I was very grateful for their help and advice. Sometimes you need the assurance and second opinion of a third party to confirm your instincts (as well as to convince a stubborn patient).  Paul felt very dizzy and weak by the time we’d got ready and shut the boat up. Ian helped him up the steps to Sutera’s reception area where we called a Grab for the short distance to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. There, we answered a few questions at the admissions desk and paid the £10 treatment fee for foreigners. We were told to take a seat and wait until someone called the number we’d been given.  A thoughtful security guard, seeing us looking around at the array of led numbered displays and straining to hear the announcements over a tannoy,  made sure we didn’t get confused or miss our turn by looking out for us and prompting us about when and where we had to go. We didn’t have long to wait before being called into the consultation/examination area and after asking a series of questions, the doctor recommended a blood test and rehydration treatment. We had left the boat in a bit of a hurry and hadn’t brought any spare clothing with us. Paul was still shivering and because it was icy cold in the air conditioned building, it wasn’t long before I was too. After his blood test, and while he was attached to a rehydration drip with my shawl around him I went outside for an hour or so to warm myself up and to find a shop to buy water. The diagnosis, when we eventually got it, was a viral infection (if Paul had said ‘I told you so’ at that point I would have been very tempted to slap him 😉 ). Anyway, we were relieved it wasn’t dengue or malaria…and I still blame that mud pool.

The next week or so was all about waiting for the worst of Paul’s fever to pass and to wait for the fridge part to be delivered. At times he felt better, and was even well enough to walk to the mall to collect his iPhone, which had been successfully repaired. To keep the fridge contents cold, we needed to keep buying huge bags of ice from a guy who supplies it to the resort. We’d obtained a number for him from reception but could never get hold of him that way. It was funny hearing Paul on his mobile asking ‘hello, is that the ice man?’ We had to resort to waiting until his van arrived at the car park and making the poor man jump by hailing him when he got out. The virus continued to lay Paul low, however, especially in the way it sapped his energy and he had to resort to just lying on the bunk in the cabin feeling weak and listless. Marilyn pointed out to me that it was strange the results of the blood test had ruled out dengue so quickly as it usually takes longer, which was something I hadn’t considered. It was clear that we wouldn’t be able to continue our travels for at least a few more days.

I took to walking to the mall on my own late in the afternoons to get drinking water and fresh bread while Paul rested in the cabin. Sometimes I stopped at a bar to read or people-watch and enjoy a change of scene. On Monday (12th) the fridge part was delivered and I helped to unload the contents of the locker in the cockpit so Paul could access the area to work on it. Thankfully it seemed to work but we left all the stuff out in case it needed more attention. It was frustrating for Paul to feel confined and restricted from doing anything by feeling so exhausted. The delay in leaving had already meant our time in The Philippines would be cut short, and there was concern we wouldn’t have enough time to get to Japan for the start of the rally we’re booked to take part in. All in all, what with the humidity and the illness, and the frustration of confinement it wasn’t the most content of atmospheres on Sister Midnight. I think my bedside manner could do with some refining and I couldn’t help smiling in amazement when I remembered how I had desperately wanted to be a nurse when I was about 14 – it would never have worked as I’m sure Paul will agree  😉

One afternoon, we met a Japanese lady called Mio who was looking for a boat to crew on as a means of getting back to Japan. She was quite an amazing woman who for six months of the year travelled around wherever she wanted to visit with earned money from collecting rare seaweed on a fishing boat in Japan. Her only rule was that she would not fly anywhere. She had heard we would be sailing to Japan and came to visit us. She understood that we weren’t looking for crew but thought it would be good to chat and to swap information. She very kindly brought us a papaya as a gift. We tried it later and I loved it but Paul’s description made me laugh. He said it resembled a melon, tasted of sock and reminded him of mice! I don’t think the delirium had returned ;). She gave us some useful tips about Japanese culture and food and we passed on some names who might be able to help her.

Paul was keen to get a haircut before we left so we got a taxi to a mall a bit further out of town which has a couple of ‘hair studios’ as well as two bookshops and a good supermarket. I bought a guide book on Japan while Paul had months of hair growth shorn away; he looked and felt much better for it. The excursion exhausted him though so we were definitely right to delay our departure. He ate a meal that evening for the first time in days so although the process was slow, he was definitely improving. Our extended stay allowed time for sorting and arranging the many maps and huge paper navigation charts that are on board. They are fascinating to look at, and selecting the ones that relevant for our imminent travels gave me a better perspective of Philippine locations, especially as I’m reading a book about prisoners of war who were held on Palawan Island during the Second World War.

We hoped to leave sometime during the weekend of March 16th/17th, but Paul still felt like he hadn’t enough energy to do anything other than lie in the cabin and doze. Both of us are feeling quite desperate to move on now, and I was worried in case he was relapsing. By Sunday evening, however, after we’d taken a taxi to Giant Supermarket to get some provisions for the Pacific crossing later this year, Paul said we would leave in the morning as it was only a short hop to a place called Sambulong, and we could always turn back if he felt bad. We left at 10 30 on a blistering hot morning, waved off by Ian and Marilyn who we’ll be keeping in touch with. It was the right thing to do because it wasn’t long before the cool breeze invigorated both of us after being stuck in the heat with little change of scene for so long.

Psychologically, we felt we were moving on and making progress with the planned itinerary, even though our time in The Philippines would be shorter.  The highlight of this short passage was the sight of the imposing Mount Kinabalu when it came into view. I had read all about it during our time in Sutera in December. It’s possible for novices to climb this mountain, and many do. Maybe if we had stayed longer and felt fitter, we would have attempted it. The descriptions of altitude sickness sounded a bit off putting but seem worth it for the spectacular scenes of sunrise visible from the summit. We anchored at 6pm near some FADS (fishing aggregation devices), which are best described as large wooden platforms for fisherman. They use them as a base to fish from, and they have facilities for making drinks, provide shelter from the elements and even have a generator for lights. It looked quite cosy from our position near them when it got dark, and we could hear the men laughing and chatting during the night.

The guys on the FADS waved us off when we left in the morning. Mount Kinabalu looked striking in the early morning sunlight before it faded into the distance behind us. Our destination was Tanjung Kaoua, where Ian and Marilyn were already anchored so we had a chat with them on the VHF before settling down for the night. The spot was pretty but a little bit rolly. This would be our last anchorage for a while. It was to be night passages (and taking turns at four hourly watches) all the way to The Philippines for the next three nights.

 

 

Breaking news…..

You can also see our latest position courtesy of our new Iridium Go satellite device. It updates every hour when on, unlike the map I have on this site which updates whenever I remember I have a map to update.
You can find the iridium tracker at this location (Opens on a new page)

We finally motored away from Malaysia and headed up the west coast of Palawan in the Philippines. The forecast was for winds on the nose, but not more than 15 knots, and calm some of the time. We wanted to go a long way offshore, firstly because the reefs are poorly charted inshore, and some of the shallows extend to 20 miles offshore and we would be doing 2-3 nights over this area. The other reason was to be well out of sight of land and pirates. Southern Palawan has been home to a recent kidnapping and subsequent beheading of a yacht couple who couldn’t pay the ransom. It has been over a year since there have been any incidents, and I believe the terrorist group, Abu Sayyaf, responsible for this are on the back foot right now. Still we didn’t want to take any risks.

Unfortunately the wind and waves were a bit more than I expected and we had a very slow passage, we were only making 2 – 3 knots into the wind when using the engine, and that was eating up the fuel. The passage was about 250 miles, and we wouldn’t have enough fuel at the current burn rate, so I decided to tack up the palawan passage, which was the obvious thing to do. The boat goes to wind quite well, and under sail alone it was a much more comfortable ride, and also faster as we were making 5-6 knots into the wind. However because of the zig zagging involved in tacking, we wouldn’t get there any quicker but at least we would have some fuel available, and a more comfortable ride. The Palawan passage is a route up the west coast of Palawan which is quite deep, mostly between 500 and 1000 metres, however it is 20 miles offshore and either side of the passage depths can drop to 1 or 2 metres in a very short time. On the NW side of the passage there is a large area of reefs and shallows, roughly the size of the UK. Amongst this area are many disputed islands including the Spratly islands

Much of this areas sovereignty is contested, and there has been a fair bit of military / Naval drive bys of late.  I looked at a recent news item about a big yacht going aground in this region recently and wondered why it was even there, yet we were now tacking into the same area. I needed to make sure we didn’t go too far, yet on the other tack we headed towards the shallows off the coast of Palawan. As it turned out the wind was shifting a lot so the decisions were quite easy.

Fridge woes digression:
At some point on the passage I noticed my coke zero was a bit warm, and yes, the fridge had packed in again. This was quite confusing, it had been running for a couple of weeks doing a sterling job, the controller I replaced might have failed again, but usually you would expect this within a few hours not weeks, perhaps the compressor had an intermittent fault that was blowing up controllers, a short? I was a bit disappointed at the thought of arriving in the Philippines without a fridge, I had heard importing boat bits into this country was a nightmare and to be avoided at all cost! So with a little trepidation I emptied out the lazarette locker, Something I felt should be possible while being tossed around at sea anyway. Looking at the fuse I could see something was wrong, half of it, the plastic bit, was missing. The rest of it looked burnt. You can see the normal type of fuse above the damaged fuse.

Very confused, I fitted another fuse and we were back up and running. A few days later when Kathy pointed out the fridge seemed to be fixed ok I explained that fuses never go faulty on their own, there’s always a reason somewhere, and I couldn’t understand what was going on, but I was sure there was still a problem. And as if by magic the next day the fridge stopped working again. An investigation of the fuse revealed a similar story, except this time the plastic was there, just melted and dripped and re-set all over the fuse holder. The thing was, in both cases the fuse hadn’t actually blown, and despite everything around it melting, it should have continued to work. This was getting to be an interesting mystery. Obviously great heat was being generated, the fridge draws about 8 amps, at 12V which is capable of creating 100W of heat in theory, which is a lot. If the fridge was drawing too much power, the fuse should blow. I suspect that the fuse and fuse holder where not making a great connection, and the heat generated caused the fuse to expand the contacts or move away from them. I’m open to any feedback on this one, suffice it to say, I don’t like these auto style fuses on boats, and will be replacing them as I come across them here. For now, I put a 10A circuit breaker in the place of the fuse, this has two advantages, 1) it won’t have the heat issues of the auto fuse, 2) if there is a temporary short somewhere, then I can reset the fuse easily without emptying the locker, and hopefully keep some life in Kathy’s vegan cheese

Ulugan Bay
After 2 1/2 days at sea, with the wind picking up, we turned to starboard and into the wonderfully calm Ulugan bay.

The entrance to the bay is marked by the three little islands shown below.

This bay is very protected from the northerly winds and we managed to find a spot to anchor in between the extensive very shallow coral.

You can see the coral on a google earth picture.

We were finally in the Philippines and once we had tidied up, I took a dinghy ride ashore to enquire as to the best way to get a taxi/trike into the main city here, Puerto Princesa (PP).

I was able to get a good look at the Bancas in the river, they are mostly made of wood and tied together with string/rope. Some of the more modern ones use GRP.

Back on the boat we both slept for the rest of the day and generally took it easy.

We would stay here for a couple of days and take a ride into the main city here of Puerto Princesa to check in.

 

Paul Collister

I’ve been back in the tropics for almost a month now but haven’t had a chance to put any posts or pics on. This is the first instalment of the events and experiences of the month of March.

As we shuffled towards the open doors in the departure terminal at Heathrow where a bus was waiting outside to take us to the plane, the air turned icy cold and the building’s huge window revealed a blizzard was underway outside. It was dark, and the airport’s exterior lights lit up the snow flurries to create a pretty, festive scene. Inside Terminal 5, I had noticed several European flights getting cancelled due to the snow – the so called ‘Beast from the East’, and while some of us shivered in our winter layers as the bus meandered around the tarmac, I knew that my next view of the outside would be totally different. I left Liverpool on 26th February after 6 lovely weeks catching up with family and friends. It was now time to return to Malaysia to continue our travels in Asia. I arrived in KL the following day laden with around 50kg of luggage, most of which was heavy weather gear, boat parts and jars and a few food products that can’t be obtained in SE Asia.

After Paul had collected me from the airport, we headed for the welcome opulence of The Majestic Hotel in Kuala Lumpur’s centre, where we had stayed when I first arrived in Malaysia in August 2016. Listening to Paul negotiate the terms for the taxi ride there, I knew I was back in Malaysia. There was none of the straightforward interaction when getting a taxi in the UK. First you have to go to a desk, not a taxi rank, where some haggling takes place about the price of the journey and then you take a ticket with a registration number to the relevant car outside. The price didn’t come down enough for Paul’s liking, however and he told the line of staff behind the desk that he would call a Grab or an Uber for a cheaper deal. At this, one of the men warned him, ‘you take Grab, you die’, which wasn’t a threat as it turned out, just a sulky assertion that it wouldn’t be as safe a ride as they could offer.

We had been upgraded to a luxury suite on our previous stay at The Majestic, and such was the case when we checked in. This time, however we were given the Bridal Suite (which I thought prudent not to publish on Facebook in case people got the wrong idea  ;)). Needless to say it was beautiful, especially the view from our room which was even more spectacular at nightfall.

I had regretted not seeing KL’s Petronas Towers during our previous visit so that evening we went for a walk to have a look at them. It was strange not to have to clad myself in layers against the cold for an evening out and I enjoyed the 30 minute walk in a temperature that had just enough breeze to combat the humidity. The towers were stunning. I thought they looked extraordinary, rising up high in the darkening sky, with their lights twinkling. I would have loved to walk across the bridge that connects them.  The square beneath the towers had an arrangement of fountains which provided great entertainment in the way that the lights and the fountain’s mechanisms made the water appear to dance in time to the music. We sat for a long time in the cool evening enjoying the whole atmosphere.

Late in the afternoon of Wednesday 28th February  we reached Labuan after a 2 and a half hour flight and were back on Sister Midnight by early evening. I was glad of a few days to reacclimatise and get over the worst of the jet lag before we had to move on anywhere. Labuan is the place for duty free products so we were also busy restocking with wine and other provisioning, unpacking and going through the checking out procedures.

The island of Tiga (pronounced similar to the character from Winnie the Pooh; ‘Tigga’) was our next destination and we left Labuan for it on Saturday March 3rd on a rather overcast and humid morning. I steered us out of the marina and out into the open sea before the autohelm resumed duties. We had a few rain showers on the way, some fairly heavy, and although there was a bit of wind we couldn’t put the sails up because we needed to be at our anchorage before sunset so speed was of the essence. The noise of the engine and the gentle motion lulled me to sleep off more of my jet lag in the cabin. It felt good to be on our way again, with the exciting prospect of new countries to explore in the coming months. At about 3pm, a shout from the cockpit announced ‘I’ve caught a fish and it looks like it might be a big one!’ After two years of trying, Paul had finally got one. He reeled it in and I stayed below until he’d killed it (I’m told it had a quick and humane end). The weather worsened while all that was going on and Paul prepared the as yet unknown fish on deck in pouring rain to the accompaniment of loud thunder claps. The rain scuppered his plans to barbecue it that evening. He found out later that it was called a Trevally. I wonder if this will be the first of many?

We anchored opposite Tiga at 5pm in fairly shallow water. Conditions were almost exactly the same as when I last saw Tiga in December, although thankfully the sea wasn’t as rocky. Through the drizzle I spotted monkeys lining the beach and could see a few people near the resort. Heavy clouds ruined any chance of a sunset view but when darkness fell, the island looked pretty, lit up as it was with fairy lights.

Sunday brought clear skies and warm sunshine. I looked out at the island just before the sun came up; it looked gorgeous in the dawn light. The monkeys had returned to the shoreline, some of them scampering back and forth from the beach to the water’s edge. Apparently they like to beach comb, gathering up the coconuts and other treasures that wash up onto the sand to store and examine later presumably. We went ashore in the dinghy in the afternoon. I finally got my wish to set foot on ‘Survivor Island’ and found it to be as picturesque as I imagined. There weren’t many people around, just a few day trippers who come for the famous volcanic mud pool, and some guests from the small holiday resort.

Paul was keen to have a dip in the ‘anti-ageing’ mud so we set off to find it. It was very hot and if I’d known how far away the place was I would have waited somewhere shady. We were attacked by biting insects almost as soon as we entered the jungle path. Luckily we were armed with insect repellent so hurriedly applied it on top of the sunscreen. Despite being fearful of coming across millipedes, the only creatures we saw were the more welcome sights of monitor lizards and monkeys. A sign informed us the pool was a 20-minute walk away but it felt considerably longer in the heat, and parts of the path were worryingly wet and swampy. Several smiling, mud-clad walkers passed us on their way back from their bath and assured us we would love it. I hoped Paul would because I was still not in the least bit tempted to take a dip in its murky depths. As I became more sweaty climbing the path’s steeper parts, however, I almost reconsidered, thinking that at least it might be cool in there.

The pool was deserted when we got there and Paul lost no time in stripping down to his trunks and plunging in, leaving me in charge of the photography. I watched him from the wooden viewing platform and thought about not only all the flying bugs hovering above the surface, but also of what might be moving around inside the mud – not to mention all the human bodies that had been in there previously. I couldn’t help but ask him why he was prepared to put himself through that: ‘For the experience’, he replied, ducking his head under to become completely immersed. He reported that he could feel ‘things’ in the pool and that it wasn’t possible to swim as it was too thick.  As is often the case, the walk back seemed a lot quicker but it was decidedly uncomfortable for Paul as the mud dried on him. I think he was glad to leap into the sea to complete his experience. I’ll stick to moisturisers  😉

I had a much more pleasurable first time experience the next day. I learned how to kayak! I had watched Paul go out on it in the morning and thought how relaxing it looked, so when he suggested I had a go I thought I should at least give it a try.  I was thrilled to find I could balance enough to stand up in it, and even more pleased when, after following Paul’s instructions regarding the paddle, I began to propel myself along. It didn’t take me long to get the hang of it and I thoroughly enjoyed it. In clear waters it will be marvellous to drift along in the water and observe the scenes below. Not being a big fan of swimming and snorkelling I have at last found something water-related that I can enjoy.

Later, we went out in the dinghy to take a closer look at the coral reef a short distance away from us. As we drew closer the surface resembled a huge pile of white bones. This is dead coral and can be very sharp, so once we had anchored the dinghy, I donned my flip flops and clambered ashore. My initial delight that the long, crunchy reef was entirely free of rubbish was shattered when I came across several of the ubiquitous and currently controversial plastic bottles at the far end of the reef. Paul did some snorkelling and reported a few fish but not as many as we’ve seen in other places. Next, we dinghied over to the shore of Tiga and I got out to paddle over to the beach, where I intended to walk its length until parallel with Sister Midnight where Paul would pick me up. I saw plenty of monkeys on the way and I’m not sure if I was observing them or they were watching me. They are much more wary of people here than in the more populated islands. It was great to look up and see a grey, furry face peering from the branches of a tree but when they spotted me, they tended to shriek – possibly to alert friends and family of my approach. I saw and heard plenty of colourful birds and watched groups of silvery fish leaping in arcs in the shallow waves. Paul took photos as he followed in the dinghy until it was time to collect me. A delightful way to spend an hour on a Monday afternoon. It was even worth the sandfly bites I felt all over me later.

We left the beautiful island of Tiga just after 9am on Tuesday March 6th.  The wind enabled us to sail most of the way to KK where Paul had checked to make sure a berth was free for us. The six hours it took to get there were lovely. A fresh breeze filled the cockpit and the water was calm enough to relax and enjoy the ride. The entrance into the marina was practically as effortless as the last time I remembered, with marina staff guiding us in and taking our lines. It was good to see Sutera Harbour again, a place I will always associate with Christmas. Now, it was festooned with decorations from the recent Chinese New Year celebrations. An added bonus not long after tying up was being greeted by Ian, who I hadn’t seen since Miri. Later, he and Marilyn called by for a chat and offered to get some cheap fuel for Paul. We went out for dinner with them later to a Chinese restaurant where you had to choose your food from an array of ingredients laid out in containers which were then given to the cook. This was the start of an unplanned, extended stay in Kota Kinabalu but it turned out to be an ideal place to be ‘stuck’ in for the couple of weeks that followed.

Kathy

We were all set to leave Malaysia on Thursday 9th March (Yesterday), but just as we were about to leave we had a problem.

The previous night we had popped down to the market to stock up on fresh food and fish.

They know how to sell tuna here

The singing veg seller

Afterwards, we stopped along the boardwalk and Kathy enjoyed what was meant to be a final glass of wine, the waiter must have been taken by Kathy as he made her a little rose out of the serviettes, at least I think it was meant for Kathy?

I was up early in the morning, topped of the water tanks, and I was almost ready to start the engine when Kathy pointed out that the fridge was quite warm, on further inspection it was clear it was faulty. We had just filled it with goodies, and Kathy had a big stock of vegan weirdness she had brought back from the UK, things like vegan cheese. We really need the fridge if we want to have any fresh food while at sea, in these temperatures, most fresh food goes off very quickly. Also I’m addicted to chilled fizzy drinks here. I don’t bother with them much in the UK.

The fridge compressor and controller are shown below,

I was able to make an educated guess that the compressor was ok and that the Electronic controller was most likely the problem. This is shown below.Looking closely once I had extracted it from the fridge, I could see a big crack across one of the power semiconductors, A Transistor/Triac or some such device

I reckon this is the problem, but it’s not something I would consider trying to repair, the wires go into an epoxy filled heatsink, so any repair might also fail. And the controllers are still available new, however the closest supplier is in Singapore, and he gave me a 10-12 week lead time. Eventually I organised DHL to collect one from an ebay seller in the UK and it should be hear in a few days time.

Neil, G4OAR, tells me he is moving closer to having a powerful Ham station setup with some serious aerials, so I’m hoping to be able to connect with him soon using the boats SSB Transceiver.

I’m not sure when I will get to post this blog, I’m going to wait until we leave port, assuming that happens in the next few days.

Update….

The day after I wrote the above I was hit with a Viral Infection, of an unspecified kind (Read serious man flu), that was last Thursday, 9 days ago.  At first it was just a bad night of fever , shakes, big temperature swings and lots of sweating, then it seemed to improve, then it got worse and eventually Kathy and our friends from Songbird persuaded me to go to hospital. It had been a few days and it wasn’t getting better, also it was possible it was dengue fever, as it had most of the symptoms and we are in the right place. But it was unlikely, especially as it goes for people who walk unprotected in forests on the islands or jump in mud volcanoes 😉 .
The public hospital here in KK was great, they saw me quickly at A&E, and agreed that with a temperature of 40 deg C, I was a bit on the fevery side and that they should take blood samples and check me out for dengue. I started to feel better during my few hours in the hospital, they injected a load of drugs into me and put me on a drip to rehydrate me. Also it was freezing in there, which might have helped. Anyway after a few hours they sent me home saying I had a viral infection, but my platelets were happy, and so were they.
Back on the boat I was up and down, up when the fridge part arrived, and although weak, Kathy helped me empty out the lazzareete lockers and get to the fridge. Replacing the controller had the fridge up and running, at the same time I jettisoned some of the lockers contents that I really didn’t need, in an attempt to create a better air flow around the fridge.  I suspect that may have been a factor in its failure.

The next few days were a bit of a blur for me, it’s been 8 days now since I first felt ill, and I’m finally feeling good enough to throw the lines and head off. We have now lost 2-3 weeks from my original schedule so our trip through the Philippines is going to be very fast. Perhaps only 4 or 5 nights actually looking around ashore in the 2 weeks we have to get from the south to the north.

 

 

Paul Collister

We are currently sitting at anchor off the lovely ‘survivor island’ Palau Tiga, waiting for suitable weather to head north east to the Philippines.Right now there is a strong wind predicted from the NE Monsoon, which will make the passage quite uncomfortable. We could try to beat it by leaving now, but that could backfire if the winds are early or if we make slow progress. This passage takes about 3 days for us and is just a bit more than we have fuel for, so we need the wind and waves to help not hinder us. Many of the upcoming passages are like this. Still it’s most pleasant sitting here in a very calm anchorage.

Kathy was out today doing a bit of Kayaking, which was a first for her, it looks like we are going to need a second kayak soon.

Yesterday I went for a mud bath.Not sure why, I was dirty enough already, but this is one of the main reasons people visit the island.It certainly was an interesting experience, I tried to swim in the mud but that didn’t work, but it’s very pleasant just lying on the surface, I can skip the Dead Sea experience now I think.

Back on the boat I am pleased to say the leaks I repaired are good, we had quite a lot of rain on passage here and since we arrived, but Kathy has pointed out the leak I missed in the galley. One weird thing did happen when we arrived, we have a depth sounder which is crucial when coming in to anchor, it works very well, except just as we approached the land here it started mis-reading, saying we were in 40, then 45, then 50 meters as we got closer to the shore, then it would jump from 50, back down to 40 and repeat that cycle. Fortunately I had just setup the fishfinder device which was showing me that we were in 4 metres as expected. Today I swam under the hull and cleaned the transducer in case that was the problem, and as I swam back to the ladder I passed the transducer for the fishfinder that was hanging in the water at the rear of the boat, it was making a loud clicking sound, which I think is normal, but it reminded me that I had left it running. Back on board I turned it off and then noticed that the faulty depth sounder was now reading correctly. It then dawned on me that the sounder went faulty around the time I started the fishfinder, so they must be interfering with each other. That’s quite a relief and easy to prove next time the sounder mis-reads. I suppose they both work by sending pulses to the sea bed and listening for the echo, easy to see they could interfere with each other. The fishfinder is suspect anyway as it constantly shows fish passing below the boat, but as I have proved it’s very rare to find any fish around here?

Talking of fish, I finally caught one!My first this millennium. My average is now one per decade, with the last catch being in 2006, on the ARC. This was with a fancy lure and a wire leader, I’m confident this is just the beginning of a constant supply of fresh fish. The said fish was a Trevalli and tasted gorgeous, even if it was one of the most miserable looking fish I have ever seen. I suppose he/she might have been a lot happier before it took my hook, but I don’t think so. I filleted it into 4 large pieces and have just finished off the last two, which I cooked in the barbecue.The barbecue is made by Magma for the American market and uses a disposable gas cylinder which I haven’t found outside the USA. I bought an adapter to allow it to work with European Gaz cylinders, even though they are rare outside of Europe. I just ordered two canisters from a specialist camping store in Kuala Lumpur only to find they can’t ship them here due to restrictions on postage of gas bottles, you would have thought they might have known that and advised me before I handed my money over to international money transfer companies. Anyway, I spotted a camping shop in Labuan and couldn’t believe they had a big stock of gaz bottles, cheaper than the ones in Kl, so as the saying goes, ‘we’re barbecuing with gas’ ?

I’m now two days at anchor with the extra power consumption of Kathy’s iDevices and cooling eco system, and the solar panels have us fully recharged by about 11am. Also the airlock in the calorifier has found its way out and we have working hot water again. All the others bits I worked on have turned out good except for the masthead light which was not working, I now know what that old rusted solenoid in the bilge was for. I hacked it out and taped up all the wires as it was not working anyway. I knew if it mattered I would soon find out. I expect the old masthead drew too much power to route through the switch panel, the new LED light won’t have that problem, but the solenoid solution seems more appropriate to the spreader mounted working lights?

We took the dinghy about a mile up the coast and about 0.5 miles off the shore to visit a coral island, very interesting, something I wouldn’t like to hit at night, but seemingly made of dead coral fragments lumped up in the sea as if they had been dumped there deliberately to form an island.

 

From here on in, until we get SIM cards in the Philippines we might not be able to post much, so don’t be surprised if the blog goes quiet for a while

Tonights sunset

 

Paul Collister

 

 

 

Nothing interesting here, just boring leak fixing, feel free to skip.

I was aware of two leaks (leaky areas) on the boat, one was in the starboard cabin lockers, most likely caused by the chainplates, the other was overhead in the cabin hatches. So I decided to fix these before Kathy gets back, 1, because they are very messy jobs, and 2, because I would be doing a lot of cursing as I worked through these tasks and I’m best left alone at times like this.

The chainplates are basically steel bars very securely bolted to the boats hull, the wire shrouds and stays holding the mast up are fixed to these, and it’s important they are in good condition, otherwise the mast might fall over. In actual fact, the design of this boat, a cutter sloop, means I have 11 stays holding the mast up, so the failure of one might not be as bad as on other non cutter rigs. The plates go through the deck, and because the mast is constantly tugging at them, the seal between the plate and the deck eventually fails, and lets water in. This isnt really a failure, more a fact of life on boats, the nature of the problem means that these will fail, and should be resealed on a regular basis. It’s not much different to how old wooden boats would need the seams recaulking every so often.
The chain plates on this boat were replaced about 8 years ago, the original steel used might not have been the best, hopefully the replacements are better. I can’t see them completely, but the plates look to be in good condition, however I need to pull all 8 of them out, when I get a chance and give them a proper inspection. Probably when I have to take the mast down I will do this.
In the meantime, I’m replacing the sealing so that the water stops coming in and the lockers can dry out. Below you can see the locker is lined with a silver foil, this was supposed to keep the heat out from outside, but of course it only works on radiated heat, being a foil, and there’s not a lot of that in a locker. What it is good at is hiding problems.

With the foil gone, the rust and damage becomes clearer. Fortunately the rust is on the backing plate, not the chain plate, the bolt will need to be replaced.

Beind the foil, the voids have been injected with expanding polystyrene, again I think to reduce the heat transfer, this would work, but it also allows for any water that does get through the deck to stay trapped and do damage. Ths explains the rust stains under the cap rail, where the water couldnt escape. On top of this the void under the cap rail is filled with foam and encases lots of electrical wiring. All of this I have to remove by poking, scratching, scraping, all while my neck is twisted one way, my body the other, and I’m bent backwards to reach the void. A little cursing may have occurred at this point.

This is the rotted plywood headlining in the lockers that had to be removed.Eventually all the foil, foam, lining and rotted wood was removed. The the sealant was replaced. Before I did this I ran a hosepipe over the area and could clearly see the water coming in on each of the 4 chain plates, before I couldn’t see this as it was trapped in the foam, but spread around over time.
It’s looking a lot better now, just bare fiberglass in the lockers, but in a few weeks time, when I’m sure the leaks are fixed, I will refurbish the lockers properly and have them looking smart again.

Next the hatches in the main cabin. These hatches are mounted on teak bases, which, I think, give it a touch of class. However the teak bases are made of 4 pieces, one on each side, and joined at the corners, and sealed with caulking, this is what I think has failed and is an easy fix. I have a special multimaster machine, made by the German firm Fein, which has a special fitting designed just for this job of cutting out the old caulking. Here you can see the results, and you can also see the gap underneath where the caulking sits that was leaking.

Once the bulk of the caulking is cut out, all remnants of the old caulk must be removed, then the area completely degreased with acetone, teak is naturally a greasy wood, and this grease stops the new caulk sticking to it.
I should have also used a primer, but none was available, so I hope the cleaning was enough. Now I had a tube of the best caulking, Sikaflex 290DC, but I had used it 3 months ago and it was probably off, despite only using a small amount. So I cut the tube in half and found caulk that hadnt gone off yet and was able to use that. I’m getting a lot better applying caulk with a gun/nozzle these days, but this required a spoon to extract the caulk, adding a new dimension to the job. The caulk has the consistency of very thick treacle, it’s very very sticky, and has “skin homing” and “target avoidance” systems  built in. So using the spoon technique was never going to be easy.  The trick with caulking is to get the stuff on quickly, and then get the masking tape off pretty quickly too, before it develops a skin. I thought I could fill all 10 seams then be back for the first before it skinned, but I was a bit slow, and ended up rushing and getting gunk in the wrong places. However, I can tidy this up once it has set, as I will be sanding down the wood a re-varnishing soon.

It’s not easy caulking on near vertical surfaces, thankfully the caulk only ran out a little.
I’m hopeful that this problem is sorted for another decade or so.

 

Paul Collister

 

I was in the stern of the boat re-making some of the earthing cables, these are heavy wires joining all the metal parts of the boat together. This is done for several reasons, the main one being to stop galvanic corrosion, but it also helps in the case of lightning strikes, and could help reduce interference to the HF SSB radio. None of these reasons really make sense to me when investigated properly. And in the case of corrosion, it is possible they could make things worse. however, I’m in a minority here, so I connected all the wires together, the wires themselves seem to corrode and become detached very quickly. It’s a rubbish job, I have to contort my body to fit in, more skin lost to the boat. Anyway, I was using my multimeter to check the continuity of the earth wires and I pressed it against the eye bolt that holds the steering cable to the rudder quadrant. I have put a picture of the said eye bolt below

I was just a little surprised when the bolt snapped in half with just the slightest push from me, Obviously I had either acquired ‘super powers’ like spiderman, or I had been steering this boat around with the steering ready to fail at any moment because of a condition known as crevice corrosion.
It turned out to be the latter. There are two eye bolts connecting the steering, and if either fails you lose steering, I had already checked the one closest to me and it was like new, so I had assumed, never assume, that the other one, which is hard to see, would be the same, but for some reason water was getting to the other one and it, and the wire and clamps were in a bad way.

It’s all tickety-boo now, but I was a bit freaked out  that I had actually missed this, and it would have been a pain to fix at sea, but worse could have caused a collision when manoeuvring in the marina. I have now spent so much time in the stern of the boat I am confident I have checked everything and feel quite good about it all. Ah just remembered I need to grease a bearing, Damm.

While I was down there I had noticed two shiny Racor fuel filters connected in series, I had seen them before but hadn’t given them much thought, I assumed they were connected to the cabin heater, but now I have serviced that I know they are not and the thought that they may actually be in use on the engine bothered me, as I had never changed them. So I followed the hoses back from the filters, to under the engine, across to the other side of the boat, along the side of the engine, then to a dead end!Here they had been terminated with some bolts being screwed into the pipes. I may well resurrect them and use them to create a fuel polishing system. Anyone who thinks I have gone mad to want to polish my fuel needs to do a bit of research, polished fuel is the best!

I moved onto the leaks next, there’s just a few small leaks, and they never bother us here, despite torrential rain at times, because everything dries so quickly, but I’m not that long out of the Irish sea to remember how cold the northern latitudes can be, and how damp stuff is really horrible, how you dream of getting to port for a chance to dry stuff out. So I’m working on these. The annoying one is the hatch above the table, this just drips a little from the hatches wooden frame, I had assumed this would be a pain to trace, so I removed the headlining (ceiling) around it, no trivial task in itself. This revealed a very dry area, and no sign of any water, despite the hose above covering the area with lots of water. The water was coming through the wood, directly. Looking above I could see the caulking in the wood had failed, so that’s a relatively trivial job to fix. I hadn’t needed to dismantle the headlining, but it was reassuring to see it all dry inside anyway.
The next job was the chainplates, some of which had been weeping a little creating a slightly damp space in the lockers below them. I’m not removing them and rebedding, they don’t need that, but just resealing them where they pass through the deck with fresh sikaflex sealant. This should sort the problem for a good few years.
In my mind there is a mythical place were I will do all of these jobs properly, when I get there, wherever I happen to be at the time of realising a job needs doing is never appropriate for many reasons. The place I am waiting to get to, is a bit like North America, where supplies of high quality parts are plentiful, but it’s also like Thailand, were skilled craftsmen are everywhere and very inexpensive. It’s very hot so the boat is always dry to work on, yet also quite cool so you get get the varnish and paint jobs done without rushing. It will also have a great boatyard, with lovely facilities, perhaps even a pool, but will also be so cheap you won’t feel pressurised to get the work over quickly. I will let you know when I find this place 🙂

For now I have the problem that I don’t think you can buy the sealants I need for the caulking of the chainplates in Borneo, I did see some in a shop, but it was a silly price and had gone off. So I had a couple of small tubes shipped in from the USA, reading the label it says to use within 24 hours of opening, which is crazy, I am keeping them in the fridge to try to lengthen the time they are usable, but tomorrow morning I will be up with the sun, to try and get as many chainplates done as possible in one day.

 

Chinese new year continues..

These guys have been doing the rounds for a few days, might get them to visit the boat, checkout the budding Michael Jackson.

“The lion’s dance is primarily performed at the beginning of the Lunar Year to drive negative and evil spirits away from the household.  The dance of the lion along with the din of firecrackers, clashing cymbals, and gong and drums that accompany it is believed to scare the monsters, ghosts, evil spirits away. Lion dances take place during the first few days of the Chinese New Year and are performed by two people manning a special lion dance costume, one at the head of the lion, another at the tail and body of the lion. The head of the lion and its movement of the eyelids are known to bring vitality and longevity, while the tail of the lion sweeps away bad fortune and unpleasant things from last year.”

“A mirror is attached to the head of the lion which is known to dispel negative energy. Most of the shops and the houses are visited by the lion dance performers which is believed to expel all the bad luck and usher in good fortune.”

Paul Collister

 

The trip from Pulau Tiga to Labuan took about 5 hours and was pretty uneventful, it rained for most of the trip, quite heavy at times, so I took the opportunity to see if I could use the radar to plot the rain’s progress. Rain shows up on the radar quite well, so you can see the area it covers and watch it move, however, the radar also has built in rain removal, so you can see objects like ships and land through the rain. I couldn’t work out how to use this, the radar on Lady stardust had a knob you twiddled to adjust the rain sensitivity, but this one is more sophisticated, and requires me to RTFM ( do some reading). I pulled into the same berth I was in last time I was here, except this time Isabelle was in the next berth and jumped out of her cockpit to take my lines, which was nice. We first met her on the Santobung river and then again in KK at the Sutera harbour Marina. It’s quite a small well connected community of cruisers up here on the NE coast of Borneo, many of them don’t see much reason to leave.

Ian & Marilyn were also in Labuan when I arrived, their cat, pictured below leaving for Tiga, is huge. We had become friends back in Miri, I helped them wire up an anchor windlass wireless remote. I was invited around for a ginger beer tasting, (homebrew piss-up more like) with all the other yachties in the marina, and I had assumed ginger beer would be quite un alcoholic, wrong again. After one glass I had that uneasy feeling that everything was a bit wobbly, my head wasn’t clear and I was about to start talking nonsense. Still it was good to meet the other guys

Craig, pictured below with his partner and dog, lives on a large powerboat a few berths along from me, but he has just bought a big old steel yacht opposite me, and he rows back and forth, as it’s quicker than a long trek around the marina wall.
Bill was another guest, he’s from Australia and built his own steel yacht a few decades ago, 800 km from the sea inland in Australia, and has been sailing her around asia with his Columbian wife ever since. I tried to practice my Spanish with her, and got into an argument where I tried to persuade her that she was pronouncing the Spanish LL wrong, I think it’s a Columbian thing 😉 .

So finally I had to get down to doing some of the bigger jobs I had been putting off, first off was wiring in the new sat phone system, which is the iridium go, this allows us to stay in touch when well offshore, and to download the latest weather reports. it comes with free phone and SMS calls, well I say free, it’s about £100 / month contract, they should have chucked an iPhone X in for that price.
The problem with this install is routing the cable to the antenna, I had also decided to fit the wifi antenna to the solar panel frame at the same time, as the cable could take the same route. Everything in the lockers at the stern of the boat had to come out, most of it fitted on the other cockpit benches as you can see,  the ropes all went onto the deck.

The quarter berth also had to be emptied into the main cabin. All in all I spent two days running the cables, I did lots of other little jobs along the way, and l lost a lot of skin with grazing and cuts.

All is installed now, and looks like it should work well, however I don’t want to activate my sat contract until I want to start using it. Daft to pay when I have good wifi here, and probably across the Philippines and Japan.

Yesterday was Isabelle’s birthday and she was doing drinks and nibbles on her boat at 6, but before that I had to evacuate my boat, I thought I was on fire, but the hotel groundsmen next to the marina were burning the undergrowth along the edge of their grounds. I thought this was inconsiderate, but it turned out they were trying to smoke out a large cobra snake that had taken up residence there. I had to leave the boat for an hour and I was in the middle of sorting out the oil leak at the time and was covered in oil. I must have looked odd to the scores of tourists passing by on their day trip motorboats.

The engine had been using oil, not a lot, but too much for my liking. so I cleaned out the drip tray which seemed to have about a pint of oil in it, the next day I had a new trickle, which was good, as it confirmed that the leak was from the sump area. This is where mobile phones come into their own, I was able to get the camera close to leak and I’m pretty sure it’s coming out of the sump drain pipe connection, the problem is I can’t access it easily to tighten the nut, but I did a reasonable job. I will know soon if it worked.

Today brought the job I could no longer find a good enough excuse to delay any longer. It was replacing the hot water calorifier pipes. You can see below how cracked the outer surface of the pipe is, the ends had been leaking too. I have been carrying the replacement pipe around for over a year, and my big fear was that once I got the pipe off, the new one might not go on with the tight curves needed. I can’t run the engine without these pipes. In the end the fitting of the pipes went quite easily, I had to drain the coolant from the engine, then flushed out the system with fresh water before adding antifreeze/rust inhibitor. Of course I can’t work with fluids without getting them everywhere, also the coolant is harmful to skin, so that was fun trying to keep dry.
Before: (working well)The pipes take hot water from the engines heat exchanger (radiator) system, and sends it to the water heater at the back of the boat to heat the domestic tap water.

After (Not working)

The manual for the water heater say’s it’s intake should be lower than the takeoff point at the engine, well it’s not, and other then a complete boat redesign with the engine being installed another foot higher, it’s not going to change. So although the plumbing went well, there’s a problem, I think with an airlock in the system. I spent ages trying to sort this, mostly by pulling pipes off at various points and waiting for water to arrive, usually hot, full of chemicals and squirting all over my hands arms and legs. I thought I had it all working when I got the hot water to go through the calorifier, but it doesn’t flow back to the engine.  The sun set and I decided to leave this for tomorrow, once this is done, I can stow everything back in the stern and get onto the deck leak jobs, I have 3 days to fix a small leak on the main cabin hatch, and to see what I can do with two chainplates that are damp inside.

It’s Chinese new year, and it’s my year, the salty dog (Actually the Earth Dog 1958), I did hope this might get me a discount in the chinese restaurants, but I doubt it.
There’s no shortage of red lanterns in town, and a big bash is planned for next week here in Labuan.

Paul Collister.

I’m currently anchored off Pulau Tiga, half way between Kota Kinabalu, the capital of the Malaysian state of Sabah, and Pulau Labuan, the duty free island state just offshore from Brunei after a glorious days sailing.
First I had two nights in KK in the luxurious setting of the Sutera harbour marina.

Yesterday I popped into town and picked up groceries, finally got some nice tomatoes and fresh lettuce, as usual, the Imago mall had put up a big display for the Chinese New Year

Can you spot the lucky charms on the shelf below, It wasn’t that long ago that the colonising Brits insisted the indigenous tribes cut down on the old skull collecting thing.

 

Pulau Tiga, (AKA Survivor Island)

Early morning, 9AM and I’m all set to leave the marina, I had to wait for the office to open to pay the bill. It was a gorgeous day with just a light breeze and a very calm sea. The marina only charged me for one day, even though I had been there two nights. Very generous of them, I will be back.
I motored effortlessly out of the marina into the sea, and immediately realised there was enough wind from the right direction to sail, so up went the Main and both headsails, off went the engine and we were away. I started off close hauled, then as I passed around the back of Manakuan Island I turned to the south and let out more sail until I was on a reach. On went the Monitor self steering and I settled down to a 4 hour passage to P. Tiga. The sea remained very flat but the wind varied between 5 and 10 knots, however we spent most of the time making between 5 and 7 knots, helped along by a bit of current heading south. There is a buoy at the bottom of Tiga, it’s an easterly cardinal, meaning to keep east of it, It’s a long way off the island and marks a big underwater spit that travels out, I figured I could cut the corner a bit, one chart had 20 mtrs of water there, the other only 1.8, but that was an old chart. As I approached in 28 mtrs of water I was quite shocked to see it go from 28 down to 4 metres in less than 10 seconds, at this point I went to kill the revs only to remember the engine hadn’t been on for many hours, and the sudden realisation it’s not so easy to kill speed under sail, I hung a big left, risking a jibe, away from the shallow and quickly saw the depth rise. Back on course and I was then able to beat up the leeward ( in the winds shadow) side of the island and find a nice anchorage. This was one of the few times I had sailed the boat in a decent wind but a flat sea, it was very pleasant. I have put a little vid of the conditions on below.

Also I was able to measure the tacking ability easier, and I programmed a tack into the autopilot to take me through exactly 90 deg, which turned out to be pretty close to the limit of the current sail / rig setup. This means I can only sail 45 degrees into the wind when trying to head upwind. I would hope to get closer to 35 deg, and can fine tune this, one of the problems I can see is that the headstay is not very tight and I need to see what I can do about this.

Pulau Tiga was the setting for the TV Reality series Survivor island, Kathy mentioned this when we took shelter here a few weeks back, but didn’t go ashore. This time it’s so calm and sunny here I was able to launch the Kayak and have a little wander. First off I paddled over to the nw edge where the beaches were full of monkeys, shy ones who disappeared into the trees as I approached, the island is full of lovely beaches everywhere, at the first resort I spotted the  monitor lizard below, and while snapping this a bigger shock appeared from the trees

A Zombie! not really, but a mud volcano monster. At first I wondered what the heck… I thought this person has some serious skin issues, and tried not to stare, then I remembered the ‘mud volcano experience’ that the island is famous for. More of the monsters appeared, heading for the sea, quite surreal, they posed for selfies, then entered the sea, only to return as near humans. Apparently they will look younger and live longer now, somehow I don’t think this has been through a very thorough peer review process. But it’s cheaper than buying ‘No 7’ or whatever the current trend is.

I took these pictures with the new android phone, and I do like the phone, the big screen is much nicer than I imagined, and all the apps work just the same as on my iphone, however the camera sucks. I hadn’t appreciated how much I take for granted on the iPhone, there’s loads of shake on this one, not sure if that’s due to exposure time, or lack of stabilising software, also it cant handle bright lights, or low light. The display is rubbish in bright sunlight, so bad that the 2 minutes of footage of the monkeys I shot turned out to consist of my ugly mug staring at the phone trying to see what I was filming, without realising the camera was on me! SO now I don’t know what to do, it’s nice being able to take pictures from the Kayak without worrying about damaging the phone, for £90 I can risk it, but I do miss the quality of the iPhone.

It’s now tomorrow, I couldn’t get internet last night to upload this, and it’s very calm, I will explore the island more and stop another night.
Just as a footnote, not everything is perfect in paradise, I have a little hole in my finger where I burnt the skin off melting the end of some plastic rope I was seizing, then I followed that with a broken toe. At least I suspect it’s broken or very badly bruised. I had left one of my Yankee sheets (ropes) lying in the cockpit sole, normally I’m more tidy, and I jumped down onto the rope, and my foot landed on the big figure of eight knot in the end. The knot rolled, my toes curled under it, and my foot continued in one direction and the toe in question remained steadfast. It hurt like hell, I couldn’t walk much for a day, and  it went a funny colour. If you’re reading this Kathy, and they find me dead on the boat from some deadly toe based infection, I want it clearly stated on my death certificate as cause of death to be ‘Death by Figure of eight knot’. However I think it’s healed enough for me to try one of the island walks later.

 

Paul Collister