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Despite my scepticism about the concept of jet lag, I have to admit I’d been feeling a bit ‘spaced out’ since we arrived here. I thought I’d slipped fairly smoothly into a new sleep pattern considering the time difference and the long journey, and I put my lethargy down to the change in climate.  On Sunday, however, we were both amazed to discover it was 2pm when we woke up. I think I can say I was officially jet-lagged!

The rest of the (short) day was uneventful, and well…lazy (in my case anyway). I spent most of it reading, and researching events taking place in the George Town Festival in Penang, our next port of call.  Paul did some work on the electrical systems on the boat and a few other tasks while Radio 6 music entertained us in the background.

Today we were up at a more respectable hour. Paul got on with some varnishing on deck before it got too hot, while I continued sorting, stowing and throwing in the main cabin. When I went up to help drape a canopy over the boom (to protect us from the sun) that Paul had been repairing (see pic below), I felt the full force of the heat and humidity: I was drenched with sweat in less than a minute! About an hour later though, it went very dark, the wind got up and the rain pelted down for about 20 minutes before it was hot and sunny again. Such squalls are common…and refreshing.

Later in the afternoon we took a taxi into Kuah town to do some shopping. It’s hard to describe how different the shops in the main streets are here. The words ramshackle and higgledy-piggledy come to mind, but they are a delight to go in and browse.  Langkawi is a duty free island so there are shops with huge sections selling chocolate, alcohol, cigarettes etc.  Smaller shops are treasure troves crammed with gifts, houseware and electrical goods.

After picking up a few things (including wine because alcohol isn’t sold in supermarkets),we had a meal in an Indian restaurant. It was a self-serve buffet with the veggie bit separate so I was able to have a tasty vegan meal. We’ll be here for a few more days before travelling to Penang.

 

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

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

Paul C.

As most of yesterday was taken up with getting the boat shipshape, we didn’t venture out until evening.  It’s surprising how quickly a day passes when it’s spent sorting out cupboards, stowing clothes and rearranging bookshelves.  Just before the sun set we went for a drink at the yacht club bar and sat watching the party boats return from their beach jaunts. These are lit up with fairy lights and the dancing and cheering continues on the top deck until the boat is tied up.

Today’s boat trip around the islands south of Kuah was a good chance for me to get the feel of Sister Midnight and to learn the differences in her steering and navigational instruments after the familiarity of Lady Stardust’s equipment.  The only concern I had was that I found it harder to see ahead because of the height of the spray dodger. Luckily, it was so calm, it was easy to spot the jetskis, pleasure boats and fishing boats. It felt great to be back on the water, especially in such a beautiful place. Kuah, like many places in Langkawi, has a legend to explain its name. Apparently, in a Romeo and Juliet-like scenario, a union between a couple was refused by the girl’s parents, and in the resulting family feud, pots and pans were thrown at the island of Belanga Pecah (broken pots). The gravy jug landed at Kuah, which means gravy. In the end, the fathers of the feuding families were turned into mountains, and they are quite beautiful to look at so that all worked out well.  The lush, mountainous islands have eagles soaring over them constantly and as we motored past them, I noticed several pretty orange flowers (in my limited knowledge of all things botanical, I thought they looked like orchids) floating on the water.

After lunch at anchor in a shallow bay in the lee of those mountains, we set off on our return journey.  Apart from a slight worry about possible uncharted rocks in the water, it was a relaxing and enjoyable trip back. The breeze was refreshing, the sun was warm on my skin and it was just too tempting not to lie back and doze for a while.

When we got back, I went to the shower block to wash off all the greasy suncream. The first thing I saw when I entered was a beautiful green lizard on the wall above the sink. It looked just like the ornamental ones people have on their walls, but it scuttled off when I got near.  When I came out of the shower, I was convinced one of the monkeys was about to come in. The noise was so near the door and was just like the sound monkeys make (although when I tried to replicate the sound when explaining it to Paul, he said it was nothing like a monkey). When I looked outside though, there was nothing there. I think whatever it was had moved onto the roof of the block because I heard scampering sounds above me. Things like that really emphasise the feeling that this is an exotic and amazing place to be. Below are some pics of the day.

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

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

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

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

Paul C.

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

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

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

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

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

Paul C.

 

It’s all been rather wonderful so far.  I was expecting crippling heat and humidity but although it’s hot (31 degrees) there is enough of a breeze to temper it. Paul says it’s decidedly chilly compared to how it was when he was here last.

For most of the journey here we were in air conditioned environments, so it wasn’t until we arrived at Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday evening that I felt the temperature for any length of time. The hotel we stayed in that night was to be a treat after a 24 hour journey with only sporadic periods of sleep.  For no apparent reason, other than he ‘must have liked the look of us’ according to Paul, the receptionist upgraded us to an open plan suite at no extra cost. Five star splendour indeed.

We only had a few hours before we needed to leave for our flight to Langkawi, so after making the most of the wide range of fabulous-looking dishes on offer for breakfast (six different flavours of porridge, dim sung, sushi and miso soup to name but a few), we headed out into the city.  Kuala Lumpur is a bustling, noisy and traffic-choked capital city.  It was quite a feat to cross the busy main road outside the hotel, even with the aid of a crossing – and the petrol fumes were overpowering in the heat.  We set off for Chinatown, about 20 minutes’ walk away in the old part of the city, being careful to avoid the deep chasms next to the pavements which act as drainage gutters. No one seems to worry about health and safety here.  On the way, we paid a visit to the Hindu Temple below. Inside the peaceful courtyard, incense was burning and people were praying – a welcome ambience after the crowded streets.

From here we walked to Petaling Street in the heart of Chinatown.  It was late morning by then but Paul said it was nowhere near as busy as it would get later on.  Still it was a feast for the eyes, ears and nose. Vendors were selling food of all descriptions. I saw the frog porridge Paul had put on an earlier blog entry, as well as other unusual (to our eyes) fare.  It’s common practice here for pet cats to be kept in cages.  The two we saw had signs on them informing people that they were not for sale – they were pets!  Later we discovered that this is done to keep them safe from predators and to stop them running away. I guess the signs were to stop people getting the wrong idea.  The pic below shows the narrow, chaotic and wonderful street that I would loved to have had longer to explore.

At about 1pm, a taxi took us to the airport for the hour long flight to the island of Langkawi. On arrival, laden with a trolley full of heavy luggage (we’d had to pay £8 excess baggage for being just 1kg overweight), we looked for a taxi to take us to the marina.  The way this works here is that you go to the taxi stand within the airport, tell them where you want to go, pay for the journey up front and receive a piece of paper with the driver’s registration number on it. Outside, you wait in a line while a member of staff offers help to anyone who might be bemused by the operation. It was quite amusing to see everyone clutching their little pieces of paper and bobbing up and down to see approaching cars’ number plates.

We arrived at the marina at about 6 30 and made the most of the daylight (it gets dark at 7 30 all year round here) to get our stuff on to the boat.  Sister Midnight, our home for the next four months is wonderful. She’s a lot more spacious than Lady Stardust and Paul has worked so hard to make it clean, inviting and comfortable.  I was delighted to go down in to the air conditioned cabin and check out the facilities, the galley and all the extra cupboards and lockers – mentally planning where to put things. This is an ongoing job but luckily there’s no great rush at the moment. After a quick trip to a nearby supermarket for basic provisions, and a light snack as it was getting late, we did just enough sorting for the night’s needs before a much-needed sleep. Below is a picture of some monkeys I was thrilled to see on our way out this evening. There were several more following them and Paul managed to get them on video.

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My final sunset here until our return

This is the Yacht club and hotel

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

Paul C.

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Paul C

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Paul C.