Day: 12 October 2016

Just a quick post, we had a few hiccups with the rigging, the eye for the bobstay was just a little to wide to go in the fitting on the boats stem, so had to be taken away and ground down a few thou. The staysail furling gear would not come apart easy to give access to the turnbuckle that needed to be loosened to get it down. The rigger used an angle grinder to cut through the turnbuckle in the end. I’m not sure he quite realised how much tension was in the rig because it split with a lot of force and the mast vibrated so strongly and a twang shook the boat, that down below Kathy thought someone had fallen off the mast!

So now we have everything except the forestay and the backstay done. This needs to be done in the morning and early, as I have checked us out of the harbour with the port police. this was remarkably easy, hats off to the Malaysian harbour master who handled the change of ownership, and change of boat name/registration very smoothly and quickly. Now I have an exit paper for Malaysia with my name and the boats name on it, the rest should be plain sailing (no pun intended). Just need to do customs and immigration. This is a great port to do it in, as I may well be the only customer they have tomorrow, it’s so sleepy here, I had worried I would need to go to Kuah and join all the ferry passengers in a long queue.
The only real shock was that you have to pay light dues for every day in the country. He said the last 3 days in Langkawi would cost 8MYR (about £1.50) but I also owed for the last 3 years since the previous owner had brought it here. I was thinking quick, 50p a day, 1000 days, £500 Crikey! I was very relieved when he told me the total came to 100MYR, or £20. I didn’t hang around for an explanation of the maths just handed over the money pronto.

So the blog may go quiet for a few days, I don’t know when we will reach Phuket, the plan is to sail there, so the wind needs to go more to the west, right now it’s either calm or mad squalls from the NW, not the best, but there’s plenty of islands to hide behind. If the rigging completes tomorrow, we will rush over to Koh Lipe, or Koh Tarutao, then Friday to Ko Lanta, or Koh Kok, then Saturday to Phi Phi, then Sunday or Monday into Phuket.  or something like that, there’s plenty of options available. However I don’t know how we will fair for wifi/3g coverage, and I have no way to charge the MacBook, so I guess Kathy can post to the facebook page where ever we get some 3g coverage.

Childish humour follows…

 

Paul C

I love those two words together.  It sounds like a song or a story.  Anyway, we are here in Telaga after an unexpected extra couple of days in glorious Rebak. Due to our food supplies running so low we just ‘had’ to resort to eating in the restaurant for two nights.  It’s not often you get to eat in a place where the waiting staff are eager to lay the napkin on your lap as you sit down, and wait nearby to attend to your every need.  The food and the setting are sublime, too.

Sunday was quite a wet day. The showers are spectacularly heavy during monsoon season, and leave a shimmering plain of water on the stone pathways, which the sun deals with fairly quickly. Unfortunately the wetness brings out the caterpillars, too (or seems to).  I went for a walk to take some pictures and they were all around, wriggling across wherever I went to step. It made me realise how much I’ve been sheltered from my phobia of ‘wrigglies’ and that it has got worse instead of better.  My yelps of alarm drew some strange looks from other people and there was nothing else for it but to return to the sanctuary of the boat.  The internet was a bit haphazard in the marina but there was a good signal in the main part of the resort so we spent our final evening on Rebak at the beach bar so that Paul could catch up on emails and then walked back along the coast just as it was getting dark.

We were up early on Monday morning to prepare the boat and check conditions for a departure.  We’d more or less decided we’d just go for it whatever the weather since it is only a short passage and we were keen to move on – Thailand is beckoning.  It was overcast and humid when we left at midday.  We had one very heavy squall about 30 minutes after leaving but apart from that the journey went well. I was able to see how the route I had created panned out. This was useful because it turned out I had plotted us a bit too close to the land, and when the wind is strong and blowing onshore it’s necessary to give it a wider berth to avoid being blown on to it.  When I do the next route I will take that into account, but the finished ‘lines’ on the navionics didn’t differentiate too greatly.  The ‘kink’ near the number 2 at the bottom is where we discovered the autohelm wasn’t working.

I’m becoming more proficient and confident with the steering but sadly,  it seems I still have a way to go with the cleating and line-throwing.  The cleats on the fuel pontoon were double bollard type ones – I wasn’t sure which part of them I had to cleat on to and my hesitation meant they came undone (not a disaster as we were secure by then but frustrating for me).  Once we’d filled up with fuel we headed to our berth where two guys were waiting on the pontoon to help us in. As we drew closer I threw the stern line to one of them and I was so pleased that it didn’t drop in the water and that he caught it, I didn’t notice that (as Paul told me later) I almost knocked the poor guy over by throwing it straight at him instead of to the side of him! Well I’ve always thought it’s good to learn from mistakes.  Hopefully none of the above blunders will occur again ;).

Paul went off to check us in once we were tied up and I set about getting the boat shipshape.  Sitting on the end of the pontoon, waiting to be encouraged nearer was a lovely-looking cat, so encourage it I did. He or she (I’m inclined to think female) was very friendly and as curious as cats are supposed to be. She came onboard and sniffed around every bit of the boat, including an open drawer in the quarter berth where I was worried she’d trapped herself for a few moments.  She allowed me to fuss her for a while and then decided she’d seen enough and off she went. I haven’t seen her since, although there are quite a few ‘boat’ cats in this marina – and dogs, too.  Paul’s still not keen on the idea, though.

We had a walk around the marina late in the afternoon.  Lots of boats here, but the area around it is fairly deserted and some of the shops and outlets are closed or never opened in the first place.  Still it’s peaceful and pleasant enough, and we’re only here a few days while the new rigging is fitted. There is still nowhere to buy fresh produce, however so it looks as though we will have to get a taxi or hire a car to stock up on provisions for our next leg of the journey.  We will probably be at anchor for several nights so it will be a ‘big’ shop.  Until then, it was time for another meal out. There are restaurants all around the harbour but we chose one nearest to the boat.  Another Indian one – definitely my favourite food.