We joined our neighbours for a barbeque on the pontoon here for new years eve, then we dragged some chairs to the end finger and watched the massive fireworks display the resort had organised (gif above). There was a big party going on over the water in one of the hotels gardens, with a live band on a big stage counting the new year in. It was odd thinking of our friends and family back home who were enjoying the afternoon (4pm) possibly thinking of their partying 8 hours later, also knowing we might get a few texts ( or WhatsApps as it turned out) around 8AM our time.
New years day was quite sedate, however one of the royal family turned up to have a little motor over to one of the islands, this was quite an ordeal, red carpet was laid out along the pontoons and a cavalcade of security personnel arrived, along with lots of armed police, and the army. Police motor launches (High speed RIBs) motored in and around the marina, inspecting the pontoons, and the boats used to transport the entourage were thoroughly searched. 
I really like Kota Kinabalu, or KK as most people call it, downtown is quite grimy, but it’s very lively, street markets everywhere, and a massive central market area that runs for a mile along the waterfront. Fresh fruit and Veg, herbs and spices, fish, meat and textiles make up the main sections, however within the fresh food bit there is another smaller, but very lively fish market, with the vendors hacking away at fish and shouting out their offers making a constant barrage of noise.
Tonight I bought a 1/2 Kilo of skipback tuna steak off these guys above, it tasted great. it’s £2.50 / kg here, back home it’s ten times that. I took some more pictures a week ago, hope you like looking at fish!
It’s fish heaven here. However, we learned of a darker side to all of this recently, some traders are alleged to go to some lengths to keep their produce looking fresh, this involves spraying the fish with hand sanitizer, using formaldehyde and other products you don’t want to be digesting. One stall was recently spotted with a dead bear sprawled across the table. I think this is illegal, but ignored in the market. I’m very glad we didn’t see that, there might have been a scene.
I spotted this raft off the main town quay a few days ago, there were a couple of kids sitting there fishing. 
A few days ago, we took a bike ride past the airport to Tajung Aru, the next cove along the coast, where the local sailing club is located. We took some old back roads I could see on google earth, to avoid the highway, as you can see below, if your not careful, the jungle will try to grab the land back in no time at all.
The beach at Aru had a great display made by the crabs
And later I managed to catch this guy casting his net in the bay
Now the serious stuff, boat jobs.
The Anchor windlass is something I have been putting off, the fact is it works to recover the Anchor & chain, and that’s its main job so why mess with it. A good question.
Well the clutch has two clutch cones, they allow me to control the speed the anchor drops at, and they need to be kept clean. I can only access one, because I need to remove a bracket on the windlass to release the gypsy to get to the second cone. I can’t remove the bracket, because the allen screws holding it on are wrecked and need to be drilled out. This is a job I hate, but I also need to remove the motor to check it and maybe clean it, and to replace the solenoid so I can use the motor in reverse.
The bigger reason for doing this is that I know if I ignore it, then it will fail at some point. I don’t know which bit will fail, but I won’t be able to fix it, because when it fails I will most likely be dragging in a big squall, heading for danger, probably at night and I will be cursing myself for not servicing the damn thing when I was lazing around in some luxury resort wondering how to kill time!
Day one had me drilling out the two reluctant Allen screws, which took an hour, followed by a very careful extraction of their stubs. This went remarkably well, but in the heat, I decided to call it a day.
Day two and I was able to remove the other very dirty cone, and extract the main axle that drives the chain gypsy and rope drum. Now of the 8 screws that hold the motor and gears in place, 7 came out, after a short fight, the 8th can’t come out because another bracket is in the way of the screw, so I tried to undo the 4 allen screws holding that bracket in, and they won’t budge. I wrecked one trying, so off to the shops to buy some new HSS bits to drill them out.
The problem here is that the screws are stainless steel and they screw into a cast aluminium alloy case, the two dissimilar metals react over time, I think the salt in the seawater and air provides an electrolyte and the corrosion joins the two parts. This is very difficult to overcome.
If you look on youtube, Lewmar has a video of a tour around their production facility in the UK, I was watching this while trying to find teardown videos for the windlass, and they actually had a shot of the man putting the very same screws into the windlas that I was trying to take out. He added a chemical to the screws, specifically to enable them to come apart, (Duralec or similar, I expect) while I was shouting at the laptop screen, “It doesn’t work”
Tomorrow we start drilling. Then I will hopefully complete the disassembly, followed by the service and re-assembly, all in time for my departure from here on the 18th
Below you can see the starboard water tank, that lives below the settee / sea berth. I had noticed big rust stains all over it, but couldn’t find the cause. However when filling up the tanks a few days ago, we saw water on the cabin sole. Further investigation revealed that the water level sensor (black thing on the far right) was leaking. I think this meant that on a full tank, or if the boat rocked a lot, water squirted out onto the tank top, then down the side. I have fixed the leak, polished the steel, and took this picture so I can remind myself what it looked like, for when I next inspect it in a few months time.
I have ordered 2 * 325w HIT Sanyo/Panasonic solar panels direct from Panasonic. They are huge, and when I get to Kudat, I will arrange to have a frame made to support them above the helm position. 650W of high efficiency (19.7% with a low temp co-ef) panels will give me a lot of power, I can’t wait to see how they work out.
Paul Collister