Category: Uncategorized

We are hauled, and awaiting repair.

Not long after we anchored the sun set and the fishnets we anchored off moved a lot closer. I have noticed this before, at night hazards always seem to move closer, not sure if this is an optical or psychological effect, either way, it’s a pain, we moved very close to the nets, and I made a good note of where we are by taking transits around the area, that basically means lining up the edges of the net with something on the land, and making sure they stay lined up. Of course, a few hours later the tide turned, we swung and ended up even closer to the nets, which was odd as I thought we should have gone further away. I told Kathy we might need to re anchor, but I sat on the bowsprit for 20 minutes, enjoying the fading light and watching my transits, only to decide we were safe. After a lovely pasta & pesto dinner, I went to sleep in the cockpit, waking every hour or so to check my transits, until at 3am, when the tide swung us again, back to roughly were we started, then I slept through to sunrise.

Looking over to the yard, I could just make out the route in, but it looked shallow, sticks in the mud showed the way and later I watched a motor boat make its way in which gave me a boost.

The nets looked amazing in the morning sun, they are all different coloured 5 gallon plastic containers, large jerry can size.

These drums above on the right are spares I think, they were about 40ft to our stern. This is what you can see from space, credit to google earth.

So just 30 minutes before high water we headed in, Kathy called out the depth. We started with a metre more than when we went aground, so I was optimistic, however we soon hit 2 metres, but were still going, we should be aground at 2 metres, but I added a little into the calibration of the meter to help, but when we reached 1.8 I was wondering how we were still going forward, whatever was under us must have been very soft, so I upped the revs, and we raced in, I figured if I was going aground I wanted to plough through, into the deeper water in the boatyard. It quickly went back to 2 metres and stayed around that for the short trip to tie up alongside in front of the travel lift.

Once tied up, the first of several disappointments arrived, I was told the travel lift is to small to take us in the normal way, so I had to drop the backstay, remove the wind generator and reverse into the travel lift. I didn’t want to do the backstay as it’s going to be difficult to get it back together without loosening the forestays, which means taking the headsails off and removing the furling drum.  I will have to think of a cunning plan, probably involving rope and pulleys.

I managed to keep the wind generator on, the problem would come later once we were on land, then the travel lift wouldn’t be able to escape without decapitating the turbine, and that’s normally my job, using a fishing rod or forehead. To turn the boat around, a man was dispatched into the water to push it around, A dinghy might have been better, but who am I to judge.

The next blow was that rather than change the bearing and launch in the morning, I was told that they couldn’t start today as planned, as they had to do another boat in an emergency, and that tomorrow is national holiday, but they could start on Thursday. So the earliest we can launch will be Friday, I expect it will end up being Saturday. The tides are good until next Monday, after that we can’t get our for another week or more.

I was able to see that some more rubber had worked it’s way out of the cutless bearing, you can see a strip of it here, I have pulled it out to see better, but it didn’t take any effort, so I’m assuming it’s a bit of a mess inside the bearing.
I removed the blades and vane off the turbine so they can get the travel lift away, then I set about doing the job myself, I thought perhaps I could get the prop off, and pull the prop shaft, making it easier for them, I’m still going to be paying them, whoever does the work, but at least this way I might get away earlier. The prop came off no problem, but the PSS dripless shaft seal won’t come off. This is a device that stops the water getting into the boat through the tube that the prop shaft goes out of the boat through. It seems that the LBM engineer, who was the last one near it, had stripped one of the 2 allen grub screws that holds it in place. This is a tiny grub screw made of 316 stainless steel, inside a block of 316 stainless steel, in the bottom of the boat in a most inaccessible place.I’m at the point of drilling it out, but that might damage the seal, and I might end up having to wait a few weeks to get a replacement shipped in, so I’m going to wait until the yard’s engineer turns up, and get him to sort it. Good engineers know how to sort these things. I once had a similar problem on the baba 30 which required me to cut the prop shaft in half to get the job done, I really don’t want to go down that road again.

I forgot to add this AIS chart yesterday, you can see us as the little boat with the white dot, down in the middle, working our way east and edging across the channel getting ready to hang a left up to the eastern buoy and back into Malaysian waters. You can see it’s busy, each triangle is a boat, mostly big tankers or container ships, doing between 5 and 20 knots.

As it’s a holiday tomorrow, Kathy and I will pop into Johor Bahru and check it out, it’s supposed to be a bit of a party town, so I better get my John Travolta suit out, just in case we go dancing 😉

Paul Collister

 

Now if that isn’t clickbait, I don’t know what is.

So we arrived safely, at the entrance to Dalac Marina, We have to wait for high tide in the morning to get in, we went ashore earlier, well the boat did, we stayed onboard. We were looking for somewhere to anchor outside the boatyard. It’s a bit scraggy here, lots of rubbish in the water, we are kind of out of the way, tucked behind the docks, and opposite a big Singapore port, but the charts don’t cover this stretch, other than to say it’s all mud. When we arrived, we went right past the spot we are supposed to anchor in. All along the coast here for a few miles are fish farms, not a type I’m familiar with, they seem to be laid out in an S shape but with scores of bends. See pics below.

We found a gap, about 100m wide between two sets of nets that leads to the boatyard. We approached slowly as we are only a couple of hours after low water. The prospect looked great, the chart plotter said we were in 1-2m of water, but the depth gauge said 14m. the depth dropped steadily and Kathy called out each 1/2 metre drop every 30 seconds or so. When we got to about 5 meters I put her into astern to stop her as that would be fine, however, we went from 5 to 3 to 2.5 to 2 and aground as quick as Kathy could read them off, It wasn’t a problem, and I managed to reverse back after a few thrusts with the engine, and we anchored in 8 metres. It’s all mud here, perhaps a bicycle or two, but we’ve taken on Thai Granite rocks and survived, so there Mr Mud!

As to the police bit, yes that was a touch embarrassing, to get from One side of the causeway that links Malaysia to Singapore you have to almost completely circumnavigate Singapore, it’s a bit like if they had built a causeway/low bridge from Gosport to Ryde on the Isle of Wight, boats would have to go all around the island to get from Portsmouth to Southampton. I realise that means nothing to many of our readers.
Anyway, the Singaporeans won’t let boats into there waters unless you are visiting and check in with an agent and all that entails, they have police patrolling the island in varying sizes of patrol boats from 30 fast launches, through 60 foot very fast motor boats, right up to Navy Destroyers and frigates. We got the middle size one. Add to this annoyance, there is a traffic separation zone all around the bottom of the island, which is a bit like a motorway, central reservation included, The separation zone ensures traffic heading west is in the lane near to Singapore, we were going East, so we have to be on the other side. This means crossing the separation lane, very much in the way someone on a pushbike might cross a busy motorway, very carefully. There is a little bit in the middle you can be safe in. The lane is about a mile wide. Once across, then we flow with the big ships steaming up from behind us for 30 odd miles, then do the frogger game imitation again and cross back to the other side. Now in most places I have sailed, small boats like me sneak along the outside of the separation zone, on either side, and nobody cares, but that puts me in Singapore’s waters, but I gave it a try. I got about 3 miles along when I accidentally strayed , just a tiny little bit into the traffic zone, it was quite safe because the big boats in the lane all go on the other edge as it’s more direct. I was only there for a couple of minutes before I noticed and quickly turned to head back to the inshore bit, but too late. Screaming towards me with spary gushing from either side of his bow was a Singapore police launch. They looked very much like they were going to escort us back to the nick, as one of them started organising ropes on the side the where they were approaching us. By now I was out of the lane, still no other traffic around so no harm done, but I was told in no uncertain terms, but in a very friendly manner that I could not do my journey in their waters and I must cross the separation zone to the Indonesian side to continue. I also got told off for having my AIS off, which surprised me as I was using it loads. I asked ever so nicely if I could motor through the anchorage ahead then cross the zone there, which would save me an hour, they agreed, but followed me all the way, and shadowed me across the separation zone.  I suppose it’s a bit like driving up the hard shoulder between a couple of junctions on a motorway, but being on the wrong side, and doing it in full view of the police.
I checked the AIS and found I had disabled the transmitter, yes that was right, I had assumed it defaulted to on after a power down, but no, I turned it back on, and a few minutes later the police launch screamed up to us again, just to tell us they had us on AIS and all was ok. Which was nice of them. Once across the zone, we were in Indonesian waters, and they don’t go there. But later we had to make a load more detours just to keep away from their coast. Seems a bit over the top to me.

 

The Johor Strait, which is were we spent all afternoon is full of shipyards and old ships, ferry ports and docks. Very busy really, but some parts had lovely beaches. I’m sure Kathy will have more in her post.

We left this morning at 6:50, just as the sun rose, and just a few hours before my replacement wind generator blade arrived. That’s a good game to play when cruising, “What’s my postal address”.
We arrived and dropped anchor just as the sun set at 7:10.

Paul Collister

Yes, our time lazing around in Puteri harbour marina is up and we head off to the boatyard tomorrow.  I’m hoping to leave at about 06:30 as it’s a good 10 hours+ and I’m planning to pick up some fuel on the way from a barge moored in a river. It’s going to be an interesting passage, we could save an hour or more if we pass south of two little islands, but I have been told we will be in trouble and chased away by the Singapore marine police, so we have to go to the north of them which adds a few miles. We will be motoring through one of the worlds busiest ports, looking at the chart it looks mad, millions of buoys, loads of no entry areas, and exclusion zones. and there will be scores of ships motoring through a hundred odd ships at anchor. It’s good Kathy will be here to help, she can steer while I stare at all the AIS targets on my MacBook, trying to work out which one is which, and is it heading our way. The worst of it should last for about 5 hours.
We will anchor outside the entrance to the yard tomorrow night and wait for the high tide in the morning before we can get in. That should be fun, we need to anchor in-between two fish farms. It’s a very rough looking yard, and we are living on the boat for one, maybe more nights, so out with the DEET (mossie spray), I don’t expect they have much in the way of toilets or showers, so it will be a relief to be back in the water later in the week.
I have been looking into the route to America from here and we will probably not go this year. Lots of reasons, but mainly it’s unlikely we will do this passage again, so I want to do it justice. To get to Japan missing the cyclones, we would have to race there, missing Taiwan, Japan would be rushed, Theres a port in Russia, north of Japan, that I hear is well worth a visit and I have heard Alaska is an amazing place, worth a year or two of cruising. Coming down from Alaska, I would love to spend a lot of time exploring the inner passage around Vancouver Island. All of these places would get crammed into a few weeks, plus the fact that we want to be home for all of September makes me think It’s just too much of a rush.
So I have put our next port of call as Tioman, a beautiful Island about 150 miles north of us, on the eastern side of Malaysia, as our next port of call.
We will spend about 5 days slowly making our way there, it would have been on our route to Japan, so if I revert back to the Japan plan, we don’t lose anything, but I expect by the time we have had a few days there we will have worked out some more destinations. We have a lot of options, which is nice, Staying in the gulf of Thailand is possibly and should provide good sailing during the SW Monsoon season, we can visit Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia. Or we can hop over to Eastern Malaysia on the island of Borneo, popping into The Kingdom of Bruni, or going to the rain forest music festival in Sarawak. We could head don to Indonesia and travel along those islands heading towards Austrailia. We shall have to see.

Our friends cat came to say goodbye yesterday, they have headed off to Tioman as part of the ‘Sailing east’ Malaysian rally, I expect we will bump into them later.
A lot of people use these air berths for their power boats, I think it’s because the warm waters cause growth under the boat to be accelerated. but they look strange. A small pump fills the big tanks with air to raise the berth, or the tanks are filed with water to lower it.

Here the boat has been driven into a submerged berth that has then been partly inflated

It looks like they have invented some kind of boat launcher

Fully inflated.

Paul Collister.

At midday on Friday 28th April I left my flat in Liverpool after a great month spent with friends and family in Liverpool, Wirral, Swindon and Milan to begin the journey back to Malaysia. From Lime Street I caught a train to Manchester Airport for my connecting flight to London. Luckily (for me at least) it wasn’t too hot and sticky a day because I was pulling a suitcase weighing 22kg, containing not only the usual clothes and toiletries, but also several items Paul needed for the boat and a fair few food items, including packets of vegan cheese and jars of peanut butter.  It was a relief to check it in at Manchester where I wouldn’t see it again until it was time to collect it from Kuala Lumpur Airport the following day.  It was late afternoon local time on Saturday 29th April when Paul met me after a 12 hour flight from Heathrow. My body clock was still on British time where it was mid-morning, and I hadn’t slept much on the plane so it was disorienting to say the least, especially when we went for dinner when I’d not long had breakfast on the plane! Still it felt good to be back ‘home’ and to see Paul again. I had been looking forward to being back on board Sister Midnight and seeing her new berth right on the southern tip of Peninsular Malaysia. There was one more flight to do before that, however. From KL we had to fly to Johor Bahru, a journey of about 45 minutes, but this flight was delayed for an hour and was followed by a 30 minute taxi ride from the airport to the marina, so it wasn’t until the early hours of Sunday morning that my journey back to SE Asia came to an end.  Walking along the pontoons in the dark I felt the residue of the day’s heat and it struck me that the journey had taken me from the comfort of a hot water bottle and heavy duvet at night in England and brought me instead to the relief of cooling fans and cold showers. Paul had added another fan to the boat in my absence which is set up to rotate above us like a ceiling fan to circulate the air more effectively.

I hadn’t been able to see much of my surroundings the night before, and when I woke up I almost expected to see the familiar sight of Langkawi’s Royal Yacht Club from the last time I’d woken up on the boat.  Talking to Paul and reading his blog posts about Puteri (pronounced Pootree) I was prepared to be unimpressed because he’d been fairly noncommittal in his descriptions. It had looked pretty enough all lit up in the darkness, and the short walk through the marina reception had revealed a clean, newish building leading out to a courtyard with bars, palm trees and benches overlooking the harbour. From the cockpit, viewing it all in the light of day, I was pleasantly surprised to see a hive of activity in the marina complex and resort. Music was playing from a stage on the second storey of a shopping mall where activities for children were in full swing by the sound of it. The marina was full of people who would be taking part in the Sail Malaysia ‘Passage to the East’ Rally the following week, and the associated festivities had culminated on Saturday night with a jazz festival (I wasn’t too disappointed to have missed that ;)). It was a bank holiday weekend here in Malaysia too so visitors had come to stroll around the complex and have their photos taken against the harbour background.  The semicircle of land around the public marina is taken up with attractive blocks of serviced apartments and a huge hotel, the marina clubhouse with its services and facilities (including a library), and several smart-looking bars, coffee shops and restaurants.

The floor above, accessed by an escalator, is signposted as a shopping boulevard.  I saw all this as we took a walk around so that I could get my bearings. Paul was right to state that the shops aren’t much to get excited about. They are mostly retail outlets for designer brands and a string of shops and stalls selling children’s toys, clothes and sweets. Quite a few units in the mall are still waiting to be sold. Hello Kitty is very popular here – there is a ‘land’ devoted to her somewhere close by and the hotel offers trips to nearby Legoland. The convenience store on the ground floor sells plenty of chocolate, crisps, and fizzy drinks but little else. Still the atmosphere was good and everywhere is very clean and well maintained. It’s a fairly new resort so it’s still being developed but it seems to be a popular destination for daytrippers at weekends and holidays already. Staff, especially the gate guards, are very friendly according to Paul. They are employed to let marina patrons in and out of the pontoons, but they also spend a lot of time blowing whistles to tell people not to stand on the marina walls. It’s a long drop down into the murky water but it’s a popular place to pose for photos and naturally, children can’t resist climbing them even though there’s a play area right next to them.

It was too hot to linger outside for long – it will take me a while to become reacclimatised to the heat and humidity I expect. It feels a lot more humid here than it did in Langkawi, but it is the height of summer and we’re that bit closer to the equator. Most of Sunday was spent unpacking and sleeping off more of the jet lag. Early in the evening we went to a shop inside the ferry terminal which is a short walk from the marina, to get some bread. Thunder was crashing around us and it had grown very dark. Paul told me storms are frequent here but they are over quite quickly. There were some interesting sculptures made out of bamboo in the green areas next to the path, and a quirky swing that I was keen to have a go on but it was full of people and we needed to get back to the boat before the rain fell. I did get to go on it a few days later though as the pic below shows (it looks better than it actually was).

On Monday I still felt very lethargic and only felt up to doing a bit more unpacking, looking up information relating to Singapore and Raffles Hotel on the internet, and lounging by the fans dozing or reading. In the evening we went for dinner in one of the waterside restaurants called The Olive Kitchen, although it specialised in Indian cuisine with not an olive in sight. TV screens were showing music videos featuring songs from The Eagles, Pink Floyd and The Bee Gees. Paul wasn’t impressed but I loved it, and the food was good too. Back on the boat I packed a small bag ready for our visit to Singapore, the third and smallest South East Asian country on our journey so far.

 

You can probably tell from the title, this post isn’t going to be a bundle of laughs, but I just managed to upload these pics, my iPhone wouldn’t hand them over yesterday until I rebooted my mac, an iPhotos problem I expect.

If you look closely you can see the one above has some rubber on the edge, and is noticeably thinner at that point. The other end is fine, so I suspect there was a manufacturing problem at some point with this one. I’m going to use the other one and keep this one as a spare.

It does make me wonder about the provenance of this, it’s marked as being made by MORSE in the USA, and has a morse part number on it, but the quality and finish seem a bit rough and ready compared with the countrose one I bought in the UK.
So could this be a ‘knock off’ cheap Asian counterfeit, or possibly as is more and more common, Morse now subcontract the production of their bearings to an Asian company. I would think it’s come from the same source as the one it is replacing, also bought and fitted in Malaysia a year ago, so I’m no worse off. I will have a look at them when we reach the shores of North America and ‘compare and contrast’

Other techie news, I bought a new PSU for the macbook air and that’s solved my charging problems, Apple now have another £60 to hide away somewhere offshore 😉 but I’m made up, what with a brand new replacement iPhone that charges quickly and takes brilliant pics, I’m feeling properly tooled up (IT wise) again. However WhatsApp is weird with new phones, and deleted all my history, which is a pain.

We have just had a load of fighter jets fly over us, the Singapore military have a base directly over the Johor strait from us, less than a mile, and every few days they make their presence felt with an air display, or a display of firepower.

Paul Collister

We are just back from a couple of days in Singapore. I had originally wanted to take the boat there, but it turns out to be very expensive to keep a boat there, it’s also difficult from a paperwork point of view, you have to go to a certain place in the straits, and anchor and wait for a customs/immigration guy to visit and check your papers, then you can proceed to a marina, where you have to appoint an agent to make your application to stay and clear you in. You need an agent to clear you out as well.
However, you don’t need to go through all the border crossing by road hassle in order to do a bit of shopping. We had to leave Malaysia on Tuesday morning, and check in and get a visa for Singapore, then do the same on the reverse. I wonder if the UK will have to go through this rigmarole when we brexit, it’s certainly looking bad, I guess it’s ok if like a lot of people in the UK who don’t travel much, but I would hate it. On the way over we used busses, you first get in a queue to leave MY you get a bus over the bridge, a short ride, get off the bus, get in a queue to enter SG, get in a queue to get a bus to the Metro. It took us about an hour for that bit, sometimes it can take 3 hours if it’s a public holiday or rush hour. We took a taxi back, that was much quicker as they stamp your passport at the toll booth and you stay in the car. The Metro in SG is brilliant, new, clean, quiet, frequent, very cheap, for £7 we got a card that covers all busses and metro for 2 days. 

I headed off to the chandlers to pick up the bearings I had ordered, passing this temple above, which like the chandlers, is in Little India. Sadly despite the fact I had a text msg from the chandler (aqua) saying he had 2 in stock and would be happy to sell them to me on Tuesday, he seemed to know nothing about it and didn’t have any! He said he could get them for tomorrow but I had to pay in full up front. I explained that I wouldn’t, as he had proved to be useless so far, and I wouldn’t risk it, he said they were in his warehouse and he would bring them early, but must be paid first. I pointed out there was little chance of me not turning up, and should I be struck by lightning, he could just take them back to the warehouse. I think that I might have said the wrong thing, because he then got upset and deplored me not to talk bout being struck by lightning, that it wont happen, and I mustn’t say that, he was genuinely concerned for me, which was nice. There’s a lot of superstition out here. Anyway, I found another chandler, MarineTech, just around the corner, that had a nice lady running the show and a deal was done for her to get the bearings, for a much better price for the morning. I also spent a load more there too, stocked up on varnish now. She had a liferaft for just £750, which is about what I am thinking of paying in postage to get a decent one shipped here. This one is made in China, I explained to her, in my most diplomatic way, what with her being Chinese ethnicity, that I had heard some unfavourable comments about Chinese liferafts, she had heard them too, but was keen to point out that she had sold loads, and had no complaints. But isn’t that the way with liferafts? I have a picture below, I think attention to detail is important in this area, so not checking the spelling of fiferatws is disappointing to say the least. 

Disappointed as I was to end up on top of a rock  a few weeks back, that’s nothing to how the skipper of the ship below must have felt we he hit these three skyscrapers.

Below is a very sacred buddhist temple, a fragment of the Buddha’s tooth is here, we didn’t see it, and frankly, I don’t remember teeth being that big a deal in any of the buddhist teachings I read, but all the same, I thought the temple very beautiful and I’m very pleased to have been able to visit.

In many ways, the towns we have visited have architectural similarities, brought on by necessity, the shop houses , where the shop is on the ground floor and the living quarters above, make sense for a small business, the covered raised walkways are perfect for a place where it can chuck it down at any time, and the roads can turn to rivers, and they also provide a great shade from the hot sun the rest of the time. On top of that, the shops can conduct their business outdoors where it is cooler.

So Tuesday night, and we had a lovely walk around town, it’s a very pretty place downtown by the river at night. Kathy has pictures, I can’t find mine. It’s like a mini manhattan, but all the high rise are clumped together, making it feel quite open.

Wednesday morning, I picked up the bearings, and bought lots of hose/pipe and stuff, I found a shop selling a TDS meter, but it turns out I have no chance of buying a membrane for the watermaker here. They have to be shipped from the USA. but I have everything except the membrane, and I have membrane cleaner, so I’m going to give it a go. I’m hoping I should be able to make water, but at a reduced rate. The TDS meter measures the salinity, and the purity of the water, so that will be useful.

Now I went to an area called Sim Lim, where there is Sim Lim Sq and Sim Lim Tower. I may write a separate entry on this, or even start a new blog devoted to them, but I was amazed, It was lie going back in time, floor after floor after floor of myriads of shops within a maze of corridors, and every shop selling stuff that cannot be bought in shops in England anymore, Im taking everything from resistors, capacitors, switches, cables, all the Maplin/Radioshack type of things but add on top of that, everything you need to build a recording studio, or a radio telescope, or a 3d printer or . . . the list goes on, I left Kathy in a cafe where she was falling asleep with Jetlag, and I wandered for a good hour. Here’s a shop that sold connecters 

Some speakers or cones

Reluctantly I had to leave, but Kathy was pleased, especially as the next port of call was to be Raffles, for a famous Singapore sling. Kathy seemed to like it there, I suspect she might mention it in her blog.

And here is the said Singapore Sling in the raffles bar /  snooker room.

Lazy day tomorrow as we watch the marina empty of the yachts, they are all heading off on a rally “Sail Malaysia, Passage East”, we might end up following and meeting them on our way north.

Paul Collister.

Generally I’m quite a positive person or so I like to think, but a run of annoying problems had me despairing last week, the cutless bearing, the watermaker motor / gearbox, all things I felt were out of my control and required me to bring the experts in. Normally I see most things as a challenge I can overcome,  normally I would take the view, as made famous in “The boys from the black stuff” with the phrase  ‘Gizz a job, I can do that’. For example, if I was a long way offshore, and I had a mad headache problem requiring surgery, I’d be up for a go. I mean how difficult can it be, I know doctors spend five years + studying, but I gather a lot of that time is spent doing practical jokes on each other, and anyway I bet there’s a whole stack of videos / tutorials on brain surgery on youtube these days. So Friday dawned and it was with this renewed attitude I went back to the watermaker. I’m saying nothing, but check out the video below!

It doesn’t actually make water yet, a trivial point, but it does pump sea water around the system at 800PSI (ish) and brine / sea water is returning from the membrane.
I was able to tease the old brushes out of the motor, and clean it all up quite well, I think the pump does need to be replaced at some point, but I left the motor running for an hour and it didn’t get hot or make any funny noises so I think it has some life in it yet. The main problem now is, 1) the pump needs the seals replacing, I have 2 seal replacement kits on board. 2) the Membrane needs replacing, I can’t be sure, but everything I have read says it has to be stuffed, especially as 3) some of the pipes in the system have started to dissolve and produce an oily black substance from their inner rubber lining, so all the piping has to be changed. I’m hoping to pick up the bits I need on Tuesday when we go into Singapore.

Last Thursday I took a cab over to the boatyard, it’s 40 minutes by road, about 14nm away, but I will have to take the boat all the way around Singapore because of the causeway being in the way. Thats more like a 10 hour trip for me. What’s worse is that the entrance to the boatyard is very shallow, and I have to wait for spring tides to get in, which is another 10 days away, this means that by the time we launch, we will be much further into the cyclone (aka hurricane) season here and the trip north will have more chance of bad weather. Fortunately cyclones are big business here, they are regular each year and do lots of damage so there is a lot of support available. Forecasting is very good, protected harbours are available to jump into, so most of the time it’s not a big deal. Of course there’s always the chance of an unpredictable storm, and a boat problem combining to bring grief, but lets not look on the gloomy side. I’m picking up a new bearing in Singapore on Tuesday, and a spare, incase I should take up fishing again 🙁 It’s not going to cost that much to haul, and do the job, there’s even a chance It might be something we can do in the slings, but unlikely.

Of course the main event of the week/month, if we put the watermaker to one side, was the return of Kathy. I met her in KL yesterday and we flew back, after a much delayed flight, to the boat. It’s great to have Kathy back, and she brought lots of goodies as well. Sadly the missing blade for the wind generator, which the astute of you will have spotted, was 20cm short, can’t see that working. but I have lots of bits to fit to the boat now to make it just that little bit better, a lot of USB charging sockets is one of these additions! I also have a lovely new iPhone, so lots of pictures now. Thanks to Yaz and Chris for sorting that out, it’s only when you need a replacement phone and you live in another country that you see how mad things can be, the old phone couldn’t be posted back, required by the insurers, no carriers will take phones as air cargo at this end. Then the phone comes unlocked, but locks itself to a network, which then has to be unlocked. Then you need a human to transport it back as carry on. What a lot of bother, I’m definitely not jumping into the marina again with it in my pocket.
I expect it won’t be long before Kathy posts her thoughts on Puteri Harbour, she likes it more than me.
I’m spending tomorrow working on the SSB radio, I have just learnt how to use the tuning, and how the bands work, I need to get the wefax and pactor working now. I also need to get the satphones out and fired up before I go into Singapore.

Paul Collister

Apologies to Robert Browning for rehashing the title of his famous poem, but April is here and I am in England. It’s almost time for me to return to Southeast Asia for more adventures but before I left Malaysia I didn’t get a chance to post my blog entry about our final few days in Thailand so here it is with accompanying pictures of more gorgeous places.

Wednesday 15^th March – Ko Lipe

During the night I was woken by howling! It was very loud and sounded just like the wolves in horror films. As I came round a bit and heard barking too I realised it must be coming from the stray dogs we had seen on the beach. I went into the cockpit to listen some more, hoping it wasn’t howls of pain I was hearing but they stopped after a few minutes. Paul told me he’d heard them too and decided the dogs probably just followed suit when one of them started making a noise: ‘oh, what do I do, shall I howl or bark – I’d better do both, that’s what all the other dogs are doing’  :). The strays appear to be very well looked after here. I saw a few signs on display on the island advertising the charity that cares for them (Animal Care Lipe), and the ones we saw looked well fed and content. After a lazy day on board we had a look at the other beach (Sunrise Beach) late in the afternoon. There were even more dogs on this beach and it was a lot less touristy. The bay was full of moored longtails and as its name suggests, it’s the beach where early risers can see the sunrise.  After an early evening drink in a bar, where a gorgeous little pup wanted to make friends with Paul, (see pic) he went off to a beach bar while I browsed the shops.

Since it was probably going to be my last chance to do so and also because I’d backed out so many times before, I braved having a Thai massage. I’m very pleased I did – it was wonderful. For an hour, you just lie on a mattress where incense is burning and soft music is playing while a professional masseur kneads and bends, manipulates and even walks on, your muscles and limbs. The price (£7) includes head, feet, neck and shoulders – very relaxing, and highly recommended. I met Paul in the bar two hours later just as the beach nightlife was starting to heat up. Fire dancers were twirling blazing batons to a growing crowd of onlookers on the sand, beachside clubs were booming out music and staff from bars and restaurants begged passers-by to choose their establishment. It was back to the boat for us sleepy party poopers, though :).

Thursday 16th / Friday 17th March – Lipe, Barat and Rawi

We decided to leave Lipe mid-morning. Not to go very far, just to have a look at some of the other  islands around us. Paul’s makeshift gearstick worked well and we arrived at Barat at noon.  There wasn’t a lot to see there, apart from a few divers on a nearby man-made pier, but at least there weren’t as many longtails racing past us. Once we’d secured a mooring buoy, Paul took the dinghy to check whether the island had anything on it that might be worth a closer look. It didn’t, so we had a leisurely rest of the day and prepared for a rocky night because the weather began to deteriorate early in the evening.

As it turned out, there was a storm in the night but it wasn’t a bad one, compared with others we’d seen in the Tropics but the sea state caused quite a bit of rocking. The swell made the boat rock from side-to-side, so sleep was disturbed by some items becoming dislodged and falling and we had to close all the hatches and windows when the rain got heavy. Paul went for a snorkel with the Go Pro this morning because the water is so beautifully clear here, but with the rocking making everything that bit more difficult we decided to slip our mooring and move on.

Hardly a minute had passed when we experienced an alarming jolt and heard an awful grinding noise -one that I don’t want to ever hear again.  I was convinced whatever it was had gouged a hole somewhere in the hull and ran to the bow to look over the sides to see if I could see anything. Paul has described the sequence of events in his post. At the time, I just followed instructions as it happened. One of these was to lift up the floor hatches in the cabin to check if water was coming in!  I don’t mind admitting I was scared then because I had no idea how serious things were, or might get. The situation was made worse because the swell kept making the boat jolt and crunch as it repeatedly came into contact with what turned out to be a boulder directly underneath us. I had to suppress the urge to squeal each time it happened in case water was about to gush in. I was actually planning what to try and grab to chuck in the dinghy when I heard the longed-for cry from Paul ‘it’s ok, Kathy we’re clear’! The swell had finally pushed us off the boulder. It wasn’t until later, though after Paul had checked all around the hull that I felt completely secure. He really does know exactly what to do in any crisis, and more importantly, he does it without panicking. He did say that I reacted very well though so maybe I’m getting better at remaining cool, calm and collected :).

After that drama, we didn’t move very far but we moved to the wonderfully peaceful and picturesque location of Rawi. No longtails at all here and no rocking, which was just what we needed. It was too hot to do much else but sit by the fans until the sun lost its fierceness.  At 5 we set out to explore the serene-looking island, marvelling at the clear water on the way.  The pictures show just how fabulous it was, all the more so for being deserted and quiet.  We clambered over rocks, paddled in the warm water and watched the living shells and crabs scurrying along on the sand. Paradise found!

On our way back to the beached dinghy we spotted a few uninvited guests investigating it.  The monkeys we had seen when we arrived had evidently heard us and had emerged from the woods to see if there was any food going. One of them picked up a mosquito repellent spray, and threw it down in disgust, while another was taking great interest in one of the oars. Seeing us approach, and hearing Paul telling them to clear off made one run at us – it looked aggressive and I reacted by running into the sea to escape its wrath but it was all bravado because it thought better of tackling Paul and scurried away. My fear came from reading a sign on the beach that warned people not to feed the monkeys because they can be dangerous, but the picture below shows their possible reaction to it.

We took our time getting back to the boat, lingering in the dinghy to look at the incredible scenes of the marine life under the surface of the water. It was so clear it was almost better than snorkelling. While the monkeys scrapped and chased each other on the beach, we watched sea urchins, vividly coloured tropical fish and living corals. It was the ideal antidote to the anxiety we’d experienced from the rock collision earlier in the day.

Saturday 18th March – A bit more Lipe

We returned to Lipe this morning, mainly because it’s a good point to leave for our next stop -Telaga Harbour in Malaysia, and we also wanted to take a look at the island’s other coastlines. However, after motoring around and assessing (and rejecting) the suitability of various likely spots we ended up in the same place we’d anchored at before. Same 23 metres of water but this time using the makeshift gearstick, which is becoming more familiar now that I’ve had some practice. The humidity forced us to relax in the cabin all afternoon and it wasn’t until 6 30 that we ventured out in the dinghy to get provisions. Walking Street was hot and sticky and crowded so we got what we needed pretty quickly (I tried not to flinch at the cost of five pounds for a jar of peanut butter) and headed back to the cooler shore. Since this was our last night in Thailand, we went to The Paradise Bar at the end of the beach that we’d become fond of, and had drinks while listening to great music and chatting to the friendly staff.  It would have been lovely to stay longer but as the only drinker of alcohol I had to remain ‘steady’ enough to help carry the dinghy to the water, and more importantly, be able to get into it in a graceful manner.

We had a somewhat disturbed night due to loud music from the bars wafting over and the fact that the wind had increased in strength.  There was a possibility that boats moored or anchored nearby could swing and hit us and we were concerned that we, too might drift if our anchor dragged.  Typically, that had to happen while we were both asleep so we had a rude awakening at 7am when a strong thud jolted the side of the boat. It was better than any alarm clock – Paul was up above in a matter of seconds to discover that the anchor had dragged and the boat had struck the ferry that had been quite far away when we went to sleep! Thankfully, though it wasn’t too serious a collision, just a scratch on the paintwork. As we made a sharp exit out of the bay, I saw a sleepy looking crew member from the ferry looking slightly bemused.

We made it back to Telaga Harbour without any further incidents, and from there back to Langkawi’s Royal Yacht Club.  There was a maritime festival going on not long after we arrived. The boats in the marina were festooned with artwork, flags and lights and there was a party atmosphere in The Deck Bar as well as in the local cafes and shops. We walked to Eagle Square and watched the parade of boats on finale night. It was quite a sight: flashing lights, dancers in national costume, music and a spectacular firework display at the end. In a few days I would be leaving these hot, sultry nights for the more temperate climes of the UK and Italy and would not be seeing Langkawi on my return at the end of April.  There are other countries and waters to explore and navigate then, and I’m thrilled at the prospect of seeing our first one at the beginning of May: Singapore – and the famous Raffles Hotel beckon.

Kathy

I’m doing a little bit of consultancy for the windfarm at the moment, so didn’t get started on the boat till lunchtime. But I managed to extract the watermaker from the bilge area where it lives, As predicted it was difficult, it was bolted to a piece of wood, with the nuts underneath. This wood was then fixed to the bilge with more bolts, or screws, or glue. I couldn’t tell, because the deck-wash and water pumps were fitted over the fixings, these pumps were plumbed in rather rigidly making the whole affair rather complicated. Fortunately I found a ring spanner I could get underneath the wood to fit on the nut, unfortunately I only caught 3 out of 4 nuts as they came off, but I was happy enough to have kept the spanner from going under the fuel tanks in the bilge.

So I took the Drive unit, or motor as I would call it apart. I love taking things apart, and this was quite easy, especially with the manufacturers instructions handy.It became apparent quite quickly where the problem was, water must have been getting to the outside of the motor end cap, and had found a way into the motor.

You can see a lot of white powder, this looks like aluminium oxide to me, or an oxide of whatever the motor casing is made of. The cap / end cover from the motor has a bit missing, this is what became the white powder, or oxide (rust). the presence of water has caused some other rust, not a lot, but the brushes that carry the power to the coils were/are seized in their carriers and don’t make contact with the armature, or is it a commutator?

I could fix this up, I need to get new carbon brushes, probably not that hard here if you know where to go. I could use some epoxy resin to fix the end cap.  I moved my attention to the gearbox at the end of the motor, where the direction of rotation is turned into a piston like action and found a crack in the casing. I don’t think it matters actually, but I couldn’t get the piston to budge, so either it’s seized in the gearbox, or the gearing is so high I wouldn’t be able to anyway.
By now I’m wondering what’s actually ok, the membrane housing should be ok, presumably the high pressure hoses will be ok, Im replacing all the fresh water hoses anyway, but they’re pennies. The high pressure pump looks ok, but until I can run it I won’t know if its ok. Presumably it’s feeling its age too.
I’m thinking I might not be putting this back together again. I packed all the bits up, wrapped them up, and they are in a locker now. I sent off a few emails, to the manufacturer and to a spares stockist to get prices for a new motor/gearbox. I will wait and see what happens. A similar brand new watermaker is about $6500 USD. I think it can wait until we reach the states, our longest passage will be about 5 weeks and we can do that on our tanks without any problem, might need to get one of those deck solar shower jobs and fill with rainwater. I think the watermaker will come into it’s own when we cross the pacific on the way back, where we will go for months at anchor, and this saves us lugging jerry cans of water back and forth in the dinghy.
I’m coming to the opinion that very few things on a boat get to enjoy an 11th birthday, ten years seems about the most you can expect from electrical or fancy mechanical kit. My Macbook air is playing up now, which is devastating, but I can see corrosion inside the USB and charging connectors. I do need an excuse to buy the latest and greatest macbook, but not if it’s going to fail within a year too.

I spoke to the local boatyard today and arranged to visit in the morning to see what it’s like and get some commitment on the cost of the cutless bearing job and when it can be done.

Kathy hits the sky tomorrow, looking forward to her arrival, you won’t believe how high the dirty dishes are stacked 😉

Paul Collister

 

DCIM120GOPRO 

 

 

Yesterday was good, after a lot of flapping around I got the two foot pumps at the galley sink working, the left one pumps sea water into the left sink, at quite a rate, the right one pumps fresh water, quite slowly, into the right sink. Perfect.  The seawater wasn’t coming in because the hole in the boat that it comes in form (thru hull) was blocked. I tried all sorts to unblock it, it was really solid whatever was in there. I eventually got water to come in after hammering a very thin tube down, but it wasn’t enough really, It’s a very thin thru hull so I didn’t have anything that long and thin to use, then I came across some chopsticks, perfect size, hammered one in, seemed to go a long way then jammed and snapped off. It was at that moment I remembered why we use wooden bungs in boat holes, the wood swells up when wet and makes a great seal. Bugger! It wouldn’t come out, and the hole was filled perfectly. Should it ever fail in the future, I need to have chopsticks handy to seal it. Anyway, I drilled the chopstick out through the through hull (and attached seacock). Then hammered out the chopstick, then found a rat tail file of exactly the right size, and with some mighty hammer blows managed to get the inlet cleared. The thing is it was only a few weeks ago I walked around under the hull with a screwdriver poking every hole to make sure it was completely clear, so how did this happen. I have a feeling something else is going on, and in fact this hole has been glassed over, but that can’t be right. We will see on the next haul out. It has to be understood, and checked properly as this sort of thing can sink the boat when you’re not looking, especially if I have hammered off the flange that holds the thru hull on

I have had a reasonable quote for a haulout just around the corner from here, unfortunately, the causeway that links Singapore to Malaysia is in the way, So I have to circumnavigate the island to get there, so thats a whole days trip. I’m just waiting to see when they are free. The bureaucracy around here is a bit mad, they have decided sailors can’t buy diesel fuel, as we are foreigners and the fuel is state subsidised for Malays. So a man comes around under the cover of night taking and returning Jerry Cans, crazy. I heard their is a fuel barge near Singapore I can use, but the ‘night diesel man’ here says the fuel is dodgey in the barge, but then he would say that. He marks up the fuel by 50%, nice work if you can get it.  Also the marina wants £5 to check me out with the harbour master, but the boatyard want £70 to check me in with the harbour master, even though they’re only a mile away. A little further north, the whole process is free. I believe I also have to do the whole customs clearance to go from the port to the boatyard! I’m fighting this one.

The Watermaker

I’ve been putting this job off for over a year, partly because once you start using a watermaker you cant stop, or it breaks. Let me explain. The picture above is the same as my watermaker, but new and shiny, and without the pipes that join it all up. Top right is the electric motor which drives a water pump attached to it, top middle. It pumps water into the long tube, which houses a membrane. So the principle is really simple. The membrane is like a filter, think of it like gauze, with holes so small the salt in the water can’t get through, but the water can, so you pump the water through the filter and hey presto, out the other side is fresh water. The problems are two fold, you need very very very small holes for this to work, and because the holes are so small you need a massive amount of pressure to get the water to go through them, hence a very high performance, energy sapping pump and motor drive is needed. Secondly, you’re pumping sea water into the membrane, the sea water is full of organic life and other matter, if you don’t keep flushing water through it to wash these little chappies along then they take up home in the little holes and block them and grow into surrounding holes. The manual says that if I don’t use the watermaker for three days in very hot tropical climates, then the membrane will be damaged by this growth, you can pump in growth inhibitors, and cleaners, but then you have to pump them out as they’re poisonous. A lot of flapping around. I believe a new membrane is about £500, but I need to check, I’m bound to need one.

So below is my actual pump,

and here is a pipe going to the membrane, a variation on the chopstick, me thinks. I have no idea what this might have been for.

So I spent a while understanding the hoses and where they all go, the manual says this system can make 13 litres an hour, in ideal conditions, but the previous owner (PO) has written 6 ltrs/hour on the manual, which doesn’t seem a lot, but its more than we need for a day, 3 ltrs each. I’m surprised it makes any, given that the hoses are connected all wrong, the waste excess sea water is being fed with the sea water in. I can’t believe the PO could make such a big mistake, but I have checked and checked and I’m sure it’s wrong.
So anyway with a good understanding of how it all works now, I fired up the motor from the switchboard, Nada, nowt, nothing, Oh well, out with the multimeter, yes 13V on the motor, but nothing, cut the cables back and measure the resistance, infinity, or ‘Open circuit’ to the motor. So the motor is stuffed.
I have done a bit of googling and it seems the motor replacement could be a few thousand US dollars, but here in Malaysia, most motors can be repaired for pennies. It has carbon brushes, so I could be lucky and it’s just these, whatever, I have to extract the motor from the pump, that’s bound to need some tool I haven’t got, and require some skin from my knuckles before it leaves the bilge. A job for tomorrow.
I’m happy that at least I understand the system now and it’s not a mystery anymore. I’m sure it can be repaired and I’m looking forward getting it running.

At lunchtime, I took a walk down to the ferry terminal to get some provisions from the shop there, I took some pictures on the way back, my cheap ‘genuine Apple iPhone replacement camera’ seems to have deteriorated even more, but hopefully Kathy brings me a new (to me) iPhone out on Saturday, so I can take some proper pics again.

This last one taken with the front facing camera, but I prefer the bleakness the other camera provides, seems more fitting. Such boring buildings, where’s Gaudi when you need him.
The hat’s on it’s last legs, did well for a paper hat, you can’t beat the genuine panama Kathy bought me, but that’s back home sadly.

Paul Collister