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All tied up in Puteri harbour, just a short swim from Singapore, after an uneventful motor from last nights anchorage.  Below is one of the many big ship anchorages around here, theres about 30 big tankers or container ships there, and there’s quite a few similar anchorages around here.

I was expecting to see skyscrapers rising into the heavens as I approached, a bit like I expect motoring up the Hudson or the East river to be like, but no, nothing, fields and forests is all I can see on Singapore. Other than the massive docks I passed. Also there is a bit of smog here, they do suffer terribly from the burning of forestry in Indonesia at this time of year I believe

I have wifi now, so I have been able to upload yesterdays pictures at last, the main ones being the openCPN screenshots, I have a problem with not getting the correct Course data into it, so my little boat is sitting there pointing North, and travelling SE sideways, most ungraceful.

The above pictures shows the ships passing up and down the straits, Singapore is in the bottom right of the pic, and the Johor straight, which is where I am is running NNE around the back of the island. The AIS data plotted on the chart was fantastic for getting past the dock entrances, I could see and work out who was going to hit me really easily, one ship was heading through the anchorage right at me, but I held my course as I was only in 5 metres of water, and there was nowhere ahead of me for him to go, he was a huge container ship, so I figured he would turn before he hit me. He actually stopped and dropped anchor. I remember being told, as a kid, that the really big tankers need a day to slow down, I don’t believe it, this guy went from 15 knots to stationary in a few minutes.

The above picture confused me, the sea changing colour so distinctly, immediately has me checking the depth sounder, but there’s no difference in depth between the clear and muddy water. must be currents or something.
On the way down I snapped this tug (no pun intended), in fact we were on a collision course, but I worked out we would just miss, which we did, but I got close enough to the tug to wave to the skipper, that’s probably too close. The towed barge is actually massive, at least the size of a football field, possibly two, and it’s carrying powdered real estate, just add estuary, and you have the basis of another unsightly block of flats.

Which brings me nicely to where I am, I think, not so long ago, this area would have been miles and miles of mango swamps / jungle. however, thanks to the invention of reinforced concrete, we have a small city here, there are high rise buildings all around, mostly still under construction. But why would you want to pick this block of flats compared with any of the other billions of developments going on along the coast here, well there’s their secret, it’s a harbour, with billionaire boats, perhaps ‘you’ could aspire to having a boat here, actually the billionaire boats haven’t arrived yet. So basically I’m in a ‘show Marina’ To me a proper harbour would have a smell of fish and diesel and some hookers hanging around, nothing like that here, just western boutique shops, a Belgium beer bar, a Superman/batman store, which has me confused, and all the other standard mall offerings. There is nowhere to get repairs to the boat done, no fuel dock, no stores of any use, like a supermarket or fruit and veg shop, just a few day trip boats for the tourists, who are the only people here as far as I can tell. I expect you can tell I’m not mad about the place, still it looks pretty, and I only wanted something to tie to for a few days while I wait for Kathy to arrive.
There we are above, Herman, who I met in Admiral Marina is just a few boats up, he hit something in the water on the way here and is worried he has bent his prop shaft, thankfully that’s a lot harder to do in this boat, but there’s certainly plenty of crap in the water here to hit. Herman saw a fridge, I saw a big old style 36″ tv, lots of the usual coconut and tree bits. I sent the go-pro camera under his boat and we couldn’t see anything on his prop, but because the marina is on a little creek here the water is very muddy, if not even stagnant. As I type, I can here his tabby cat walking around the cockpit, I assume it remembers the boat from the last Marina, as it spent a lot of time snoozing here.

This picture is for Taffy, who has been known to read this blog, I believe it’s a Solent class lifeboat from Stornaway. The Hugh William Viscount Gough. I bet there’s a great story behind how it got from the outer reaches of Scotland, to here. It makes my voyages seem trivial.
There’s also what looks like a baba 35, just a few berths along from me, but I feel like crying when I walk past it, she has been left to rot away, the staysail, is lying on the deck, destroyed by the UV I would expect, the whole boat black with dirt/soot, things are rusting away on it that I didnt even think rusted. Such a shame. I will investigate more and try to find out the history. The berth I am in, apparently had a baba 40 in it just a few days ago, I wonder who that was?

Paul Collister

 

 

Just a quick post, I have a very poor 3g connection here at anchor at P. Pisang. But I got here just fine, and settled in, in time to watch the sunset, I didn’t notice the sunrise, I was busy trying to get the mainsail up, and get going. Up at 6:30 am, left at 7:30, arrived here at 6:30 pm, motored all the way as the wind dropped as soon as I left the anchorage.

I’m in a lovely spot here, again a bit rolly, but very calm and well protected. Just a short (6 hour short) motor up the Johor Strait, between Malaysia and Johor in the morning then I will be in the Marina at Puteri. I’m going to see about getting the cutless bearing replaced while I’m there, if it’s possible. It was fine all day, but it’s not right, and it worries me that it will fail catastrophically at a bad time. 

 

So today I travelled alongside the main shipping lanes of the Malacca Straits, they are separated into North bound and Southbound  lanes, called a traffic separation zone, just like a dual carriageway, except it’s all virtual, theres no barriers or lines on the sea, not like the one they have at the equator ;-), which I am now only 1.5 degrees north of. I travelled right on the edge for a while, I had hoped to be impressed, but it turns out it’s just a long procession of ships that all look much alike, chugging along. Don’t know what I was expecting. This is also the most pirated area in the world, but they don’t seem to bother with little fish like me.

So I realised, a bit too late that I should have openCPN running with the AIS targets so I could see what was going on, after a bit of flapping around I got it all to work. This is a free piece of open software that does away with the need for dedicated very expensive ‘marine’ plotters, and runs on consumer devices like tablets and laptops. Unfortunately these devices don’t work so well in bright sunshine or when doused in a big wave, but for free, and if used carefully are fantastic. I have some screen shots, but I can’t upload them and I have run out of time, if I don’t start on the squid prep now, I will lose interest, and they will go off.

Paul Colister

Today the Marina at Port Dickson is having their summer fair, and there will be boating, kayaking, and swimming in the marina, for safety ressons boats like mine aren’t allowed in or out, so I was up early and checked out at 8AM to be away before all that nonsense started.
I’m heading to Singapore, but have been advised by so many people not to take my boat there that we will be in Puteri Harbour, just across from the Island. Apparently, their’s a lot of bureaucracy and cost involved in taking your boat there. For example, you have to hire an agent to look after the formalities of checking in, and you have to hire them again to check out. this is understandable for big ships, of which Singapore has it’s share, but crazy for yachties.

In the above chart of Besar, you can see a little bit of land just NNE of me, in reality, thats an ugly looking cluster of rocks, that seem a lot closer than they really are.
It’s a difficult journey, as there is only one place to anchor safely on the way, that’s where I am now, at the Water Islands, or Pulau Besar to be precise. This is only 6 hours from Port Dixon, the next leg to Pulau Pisang, which is just a few hours off Singapore, is 10-12 hours, and I only get a 12 hour daylight window, so if I’m slow I will arrive in the dark, which won’t be fun as I din’t think it’s an easy spot to anchor in. I’m going to set my alarm for 6:30 so I can leave just before sunrise. That way I get nearly 13 hours. The forecasts are rather unreliable at the moment, not that that’s a big problem, but I can sail faster than I can motor, so if the wind is as good as forecast for the morning, 10-20 knots, I will fly along. otherwise it’s a lot of motoring.
Todays journey here was rubbish, raining for a lot of the way, grey overcast and smelly, the wind was behind, and at one point I was sailing with the headsail only, I didn’t put up the mainsail as thunderstorms are all around and if one comes close, it can create a sudden surge in the wind, but the headsail alone pushed us along at 6 knots, which was nice. But that only lasted for an hour, the rest of the time I motored, and the wind from behind was just strong enough to blow the exhaust fumes into the cockpit every now and then. I stayed between the main shipping routes and the coast. Normally I would have expected to see lots of fishing nets, but not one today. Is it because it’s Friday? I passed scores of big tankers at anchor along the coast, passing through the middle of several anchorages, and there was an awful lot of junk in the sea.
I bought fish last night at the supermarket, it was remarkably easy, I gave them money, and got a fish. I didn’t need a line, lots of reeling in and out, I didn’t get stung and best of all the boat wasn’t trashed.

Very tasty, and at just over £1, very reasonable. I also bought a stack of squid, not so cheap, but they will taste lovely with some garlic and soy sauce. It’s a shame the boats rocking so much now, otherwise I would be cooking them up.

Here are some boat pics, they look more impressive close up, but they are often very smelly when they run their engines.

Finally a picture of me modelling my latest headgear, I like the way the light shows up the pattern, never noticed that before. I’m wearing the lifejacket as the boat was rocking so much with the swell left over from a night of strong thunderstorms.

Paul Collister

 

The diver came today and had a look, he  took some pictures for me and basically, the bearing lining has failed, at least near the prop end of the bearing. I had him cut away a ring or rubber that was protruding out the rear of the bearing. I’m going to have to get the bearing replaced, but where is the question, and when. I can’t get it done before Singapore, and from Singapore I won’t use it until I reach Hong Kong. I don’t want to wait until Japan to get the work done, as it will be very expensive there. Perhaps I can stop at Taiwan on the way, the boat was made there, but I expect the warranty might have expired. At least there should be facilities there that are not too expensive. I will research more today.
Yesterday I drove into Port Dickson to sort out my port clearance problem. Everything was fine, I just needed to make a small payment to the harbour master, the exact amount depending on whether I needed a receipt or not, and coming to a very nice round 50 ringgit, about £10. Now some people might have a name for this Ad Hoc form of charging, but I don’t mind at all, in the UK I could easily have met a jobsworth behind the counter who would refuse to stamp my papers until I had returned to the previous port. Some countries might have you go through an elaborate process to correct my error. This way is quick and simple, and not that expensive really. It might even be the official way for all I know. I was pleased, then I moved to customs, they were confused as I should have gone through customs on leaving Langkawi, as well as the harbour master, but as the HM had cleared me, they did too, and didn’t have any charges to apply. The customs office was staffed by women only when I visited, and I realised I have only ever had to pay Ad Hoc fees to men in both Malaysia and Thailand.
Once cleared in, and also cleared out, in anticipation of my imminent departure, I headed on down the coast in my rented car to the city of Malacca. The route took me through miles and miles of palm tree plantations.

I visited the famous Mosque thereand walked the length of Jonkers lane, a touristy street full of shops selling stuff I hate. I did find a nice antique shop and had a great chat with the owner and his mate about the merits of Manchester United, Arsenal  and Liverpool FC, a subject that often comes up when they learn I am from Liverpool. Man U, as they are known worldwide have an awesome reach as a team/brand. I have yet to visit a place that didn’t have an Man U fan there, and that includes remote Afghanistan. However in these conversation I am always bluffing it as I no little about football, these guys were very impressed that my brother, who does know stuff, has had a season ticket (or two) for Anfield for most of his life, and rarely misses a home game.
Heading back I called into Aeon and Tesco, two huge hypermarkets, that look much the same as they do anywhere. Then I took the motorway back. Now I know I’m a visitor in this country, and I don’t speak the language, but I do hate it when you come to leave the motorway, and there’s a fee to pay, and only machines that take smart cards you have to buy before you get on the motorway. I didn’t have a clue. Nothing in English, even the Icons they use are undecipherable, also why did everyone choose my lane when I hit the Tollgate and then proceed to honk their horns. To cut a long story short, I finally worked out the women who was screaming ‘Boh Cah’ at me over and over very loudly (see its not just us brits who shout louder in english to be understood better when abroad). She was saying borrow card, so I had to give the man in the car behind me RM3.2 in cash and he lent me his card so I could open the barrier, then I gave the card to the lady who let him through and gave him his card back. There was some further complication as his card was new and he was waving a RM20 note at me, I thought for a moment I could make a profit here. Still it all worked out in the end, except for the fact that back at the marina the only trolley was locked up and the office shut, so I had to carry most of the shopping to the boat by hand.

 

Diver below, using a snazzy portable dive kit.

The extracted bit of extruded/exposed bearing

At least I can see the prop shaft now and know there’s nothing binding on the outside

Paul Collister

I was able to take some better pics of the prop shaft. I can’t be sure, but it looks like some of the cutless bearing nitrile rubber lining might have escaped out of the end.

To explain the anatomy of a sailboat stern gear, I better show some pictures.

This is my prop shaft/bearing/prop arrangement, in happier days. The prop shaft leaves the boat and goes straight into the propellor, with just a little gap, of maybe 5mm, which you can make out to the right of the brass propellor.

The hole at the back of the boat that the prop shaft sticks out of, is actually a tube called the log, and the back part of the boat that the tube is fitted in, is called the deadwood. Now the prop shaft passes through the log with a lot of clearance, but at the very end of the log, a bearing is fitted into the log, or in fact into a special bearing holder as you can see below in a very similar boat. Here the bearing holder, which probably has a name too, has the bearing fitted

Below is a typical bearing, and very similar to the one I have.

So in my case the fishing line wrapped around the prop shaft in the 5mm gap, and may have forced it’s way into the bearing, cutting the black rubber lining. Looking at the picture below you can see what looks like rubber sticking out, but I can’t be sure. 

It may be that the whole rubber lining has parted company with its brass shell, in which case that would explain why I hear a noise at low revs, the noise of the rubber rubbing against the brass as it revolves with the prop shaft. I think at the higher revs, it must be staying still. If it is spinning in its case it will burn up eventually as there is no coolant for that side of the rubber. Once this bearing starts to fail, I will get a lot of vibration, and it has done more than half a million revolutions since I cleared the line, so it had plenty of time to complain. Possibly just the end of the bearing is damaged, and there’s plenty left inside to do the job.
Today I made contact with the local, Mr Fixit, Pani, he brought 150 ltrs of fuel down to the boat for me and filled the tank. I used 180 ltrs in 31 hours of motoring, I think this is about 5.8 ltr/hour, or just over 1.5 gallon/hour, which seems a lot to me, I did have my foot on the floor for a lot of the time, and I was making between 7-8 knots most of the journey, anyway. Pani, Tel 01235-73096 can sort anything, and for about £12 a diver will appear tomorrow and have a good look at the prop for me, hopefully cut away whatever is still there, and take some better pictures. After that, I fear a haulout, and a new bearing, which requires the prop shaft to come out, which is a biggish job. I’ve gone right off fishing.

I’m meeting Kathy a week on Saturday at Kuala Lumpur Airport, to bring her back to the boat. KL Airport, is less than an hour from here by car, but I will be down at Singapore by then, so will be flying back up here. For a sailboat, I’m certainly running up my carbon footprint. Still, we have a 12 day sail to Hong Kong in May, followed by a 20 day sail to Japan May/June and finally a 30-40 day sail to the Vancouver Island / Seattle area in July/August. We wont be able to motor on those trips, not at 6ltr/hour, we only carry 2 days fuel.

Tomorrow, Im going to visit the harbour master at Port Dickson to beg forgiveness for not getting the check out paperwork from Langkawi. Then I will do some shopping in the old historic town of Melaka.

So while I prepare the boat and do little jobs I’m just going to have to continue to rough it here at Admiral Marina, Port Dickson.

Paul Collister

I’m in the Marina, tied up, cleaned, watered, shaved, checked in, and chilled.
When I woke, It took a while to find the little Island I was meant to have anchored off last night in the dark, then I spotted it, it’s just a few bushes  on a sand bank really. It’s there in the pic, if you look closely

Still everything was very calm and smooth, and nothing anywhere near me to worry about. The trip down to the marina was only 5 miles, so about an hour

On leaving the port, which is mainly a Gas/Oil port, with a huge power station, I saw this supertanker unloading, I assume.

It’s swinging on the large buoy in front, but from the buoy are two huge black pipes that come around the bow, along the port side and onto the deck. The buoy is connected to an underwater pipeline. Clever these big ship/buoy people.

So it was a simple entry to the marina, I had planned that the wind was going to blow me onto the pontoon, in a very cool manner, but when I pulled up, just about a metre off the pontoon, the wind was astern, instead of on the side, so I had to throw a rope ashore. All very easy really. I had been worried that the boat would behave differently with the new prop when I was doing all my usual shenanigans with, ahead/astern/ahead, wheel hard over, astern, ahead etc etc. However, I just glided in, a little astern and job done. Still with no current, hardly any wind, and a wide berth, it would be bad if I had made a mess of it.

The marina office needs my clearing out papers from Langkawi which I don’t have, but the guy said he will talk with his boss and sort something out. I do hope so.

Theres a little shopping area just outside the marina with restaurants as well, and the marina has a restaurant and pool, so I have all I need here. I can also hire a car and explore the area a little and do a big shop. I have checked in for 5 days, it’s about £12 / day here, very reasonable.

I probably won’t blog now until I’m ready to leave and have a plan.

Paul Collister

I decided to leave at 10:30 this morning and try to get a web page built first, that I had promised to do this week. I had estimated the journey to port Dickson from Port Klang would be 6 hours, not the 10 it took. So I ended up arriving in the dark. The pilot suggested anchoring next to a small island in the bay, which is what I have done, except it’s too dark to see the island. I can’t wait till the morning to see where I am.

The route below shows I hugged the coast most of the way. There’s lots of ships around here, not many moving, but also lots of fishing nets.

Getting out of Klang was fun, I kept close to the mangroves on the way out, but at some point I had to cross the main channel as I was going south at the end. Lot’s of ships coming and going, but I sneaked behind a gigantic container ship and all was fine. I took some good pictures on the way out.

Once out of the river I was into an anchorage with about 25 big boats, tankers, lpg ships, bulk carriers and container ships. all sitting there looking a little sorry for themselves. It’s odd motoring past these huge ships when they are motionless and looking deserted. At the mouth of the river there were a load of dredgers/land planting ships

The coast here is very low lying, no hills or mountains in sight. I think we are roughly level with the Kualar Lumpur Main Airport.

No wind and a very flat sea, but that made the fishing nets easier to spot. The fishermen still come out to me to guide me around their nets. However there was so much debris in the water, I kept mistaking it for net markers.
I have mentioned before, the tides are crazy here, they rush in, and rush out, but the rushing out is mostly just more rushing in, so as the tides fell this morning I got 2.5 knots of current against me, slowing me down loads, but 6 hours later when it should have flipped and I would be racing along, the tide was still against me. It was only for half an hour that we were faster than our speed thru water. Consequently, we didn’t get here till dark. 

This is port Dickson in the distance, the tall white tower is the power station

And this is the pier and cranes for unloading the ships that bring the fuel for the station

It was just hitting sunset as I arrived at the edge of the bay, by the time I was inside it was quite dark, I had to look hard for the nets, the first one, a fishing boat guided me to the end of the floats, the second was to long and by the time I saw it I couldn’t be bothered backtracking to find the end. As I approached it, lots of concerned fishermen shone their torches at me from the end of the nets lines, maybe 500 mtrs away. I just slipped over the nets with no effect, which was nice.

Then I anchored near an invisible island, its on the GPS chart-plotter, but I can’t see it. It all seems very safe and calm here, tomorrow it’s just an hour or two to the marina, so I will have an easy morning, then head over. Time to go shopping, I’m out of eggs.

Paul Collister

 

 

 

Well, take off 2 knots for a favourable current, still good considering I’m keeping the revs down. I think I got away with it, however, somethings not quite right still, I can hear a squealing at low revs from the prop shaft, there must be some line inside the bearing. But given that the prop shaft did about 442,804 (approx) revolutions today I think if something bad was going to happen, I would have known about it. I expect the worst that will happen is the prop shaft gets scarred and the bearing gets damaged. As soon as I can I will get a proper look at it, near some clearer water.

But first, last night’s mini trauma. One of the positive aspects of being disabled at the roadstead, was that it was safe there, the anchor was dug in very well, and I had a lot of scope out, for the depth, so even if the weather had got bad, things would have been fine. So just before the sun set I was alarmed to see the Garmin GPS telling me we had drifted 200ft, towards the shore. we still had a long way to go, so I let out some more chain, and backed down on it. The anchor was stuck solid in the mud. I assumed that when I was testing the prop shaft, I had driven forward and back, while at anchor, only a boats length or so, but that must have upset the anchor, seemed unlikely, but no big deal anyway.
Skip forward a few hours to 22:00 ish and I notice on the GPS we are drifting again, 400ft this time and in a bee line to the shore. The shore looks closer too, but still a long way away. I’m very confused, I look on the other GPS chart plotter, the iPad and it says we haven’t moved, but it has a lower resolution, so not as easy to tell small distances, but it would show 400ft all right. So this is one of those decisions I hate, conflicting evidence! You want to go with the GPS that makes life easy, but you can’t ignore the one that’s screaming danger approaches. So I decide to play safe, and pull the anchor up and motor off into the deep blue and reset the anchor. I haven’t had to reset the anchor in the dark on my own before, so that made it a worthwhile exercise in itself, holding the torch with one hand, the deck-wash spray with the other, and activating the windlass with the foot switch, just needed some cymbals on my back and I’d be sorted.
Up it came, and back at the helm I motored away from the shore, and guess what, the Garmin had me continuing to the shore at the same rate as before. The iPad showed me motoring away from my original anchored spot, I expect the iPad was wondering what the heck I was up to. Power cycling the Garmin, and guess what, it put me back at the original spot, plus the bit I had motored. I would never had expected this from the Garmin, maybe the iPad. I keep the Garmin running 24/7 as it struggles to acquire satellites sometimes, and as a software engineer, I’m putting my money on memory fragmentation/memory management problems in their software. A very informative exercise in all. Have they got a name for this age yet, like the “industrial age”, the “IT age”, well I think it should be called the “turn it off then back on age”, as we seen to have to do far too much of that.

So today I was up at seven, and left before eight. I’m out of bananas, so I had a cheese butty for breakfast instead, just two more nights, then I can get ashore and restock. I headed towards Port Klang, the prop made some squealing noises, but as I increases the revs, they stopped, there is no vibration, so I’m assuming I can get away with it for now. I made great progress.
I was on constant lookout for fishing nets, of which there where many, I had read last night that these surface nets with closely spaced white floats are ok to drive over, but I wasn’t going to risk it, the very thought of another prop wrap! However as I working my was around one net, a big fast fishing boat came screaming towards me, I thought, to push me away from his net, but he was on his way somewhere else, but he motored right over the net, so that gave me confidence. At the next net I went right over it, with a marker float 20ft either side of me. I dropped the revs and go into neutral just before I pass over it, but I don’t think that’s really needed. Later I had to dodge a guy laying these nets, he was doing about 5 knots as the net streamed over the side of his boat, I could see the white marker buoys on about 10 ft of line, so I guess thats how far down the net would be.

I was planning to stop before port Klang at P.Angsa, but the spot was full of fishing boats, so I pushed on into the port itself. Port Klang is very industrial, and is on the river Klang, this is the main River from Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, some 20km from here. All of the rubbish and waste (sewage etc) from the big city used to flow down here, but that’s been cleared up now, it’s mostly organic debris floating past me now.  There’s an anchorage marked on the chart, but the only boat there is a shipwrecked half sunken coaster. I anchored just along from him. The biggest tide I have seen so far in Malaysia or Thailand has had a range of 3 metres, normally more like 2, so I was shocked to find here it is 5 metres, I anchored in 9, but there is a shallower patch near me, which I hope I don’t swing onto at low water, or I will be aground. The current flows very fast here too. On one side of the river, where I am, it’s lovely mangroves, and I can hear the usual wildlife kicking off as the sun went down, on the other side it’s like Rotterdam docks, miles of container ships and other cargo ships. A cruise liner just passed too.

Tomorrow I will leave early, and head down towards Port Dickson, I will anchor somewhere along the way, and the following day, pop into Admiral Marina for some R&R, I might do a day trip into the town of Malacca itself. The Malacca straits are getting much narrower now, It wouldn’t take long to cross to Indonesia from here.

Paul Collister

That’s a quote made famous by an Irish man I think.
Yes it looks like I’m back in business, cooking with gas, flying the kite …. enough!

Up early this morning, I had not just a plan, but a plan B, a plan C and other ideas. My main thing was to be methodical. So I decided to wait for a slow current, difficult as we are close to spring tides, bright sunshine, and to have everything I need, working just right. I fixed up my breathing apparatus, if that’s not a bit too grand a term for an old bit of hose gaffa taped onto a snorkel

Next, I gathered together the tools for the job!

This is my anti-Jellyfish outfit, bloody hot, given it’s 35+ outside, at least the waters a little cooler.

and finally, into the water

Just so you know what Im working on, in the picture below, between the black hull, and the brass propeller, you can just make out a 1 1/2″ prop shaft. this turns, the hull doesn’t, so the fishing line or rope gets wrapped around the shaft and fills the whole gap up, compressing itself as it goes, until it’s all compacted in and forced against the front and back edges. It can even get drawn into the bearing the prop shaft sticks out of, This is called the cutless bearing, because it causes the prop shaft to be cut less, not cutlass which people call it as it sounds more nautical.
When I first dived the gap was full and the line was also wrapped all around the prop and the blades. Now we are just down to the gap.

Sadly when I first dived at about 11am, after 2 hours of tortuous spreadsheet based work, for my paying job with the wind turbines, the visibility was atrocious. So I sent the camera down, this time I swam down and held it at length to see what I was up against. I could feel the mess, but couldn’t see it. This video shows the problem.

Thee are some more stills above. I made three trips under the boat today, and by the end I had removed all of the line. There may be some inside the cutless bearing, but there’s nothing I can do about that now. I have run the engine in forward and reverse, and it’s fine, I was able to turn the prop with my hands underwater, and I think it’s free. I think it turns easier in the boatyard, but it’s hard to compare when your gasping for breath, and dodging jellyfish 😉

Two fishing boats called by today while I was in the water, one large boat, and he looked like he would help if I asked, but by then I was on a roller. In fact I was already thinking about the style of advert I might place in the local gazette, “Prop Shaft repairs unlimited” there’s definitely an opportunity round here 😉

The other thing I practised today was breathing with next to no air. Tim and I had a chat about how atmospheric pressure works and how deep I could go with the hose pipe. Not very deep it seems. This is very interesting, but I found I could get my head about 2 ft under water, which gave me just enough room to reach the prop, but breathing was hard. What surprised me was the slightest effort in using the knife or hacksaw exhausted me, and I couldn’t breathe. I usually panic at this point and launch myself upwards. I only learnt to swim ten years ago, and this scenario used to be nightmarish for me. But I found that I could adapt if I went very slowly, so as  soon as the lack of air started to affect me, I would slow down, or stop and wait a bit then start again. This helped massively, because before I had been exhausting myself going up and down, and doing very little cutting. it helped that it was very calm today and I had completely forgotten about the Jellyfish

I have a fly on board, I believe he has been with me since Penang, he seems to want to spend more time with me, he’s probably lonely, as we are now several hundred miles from his home, and he (could be a she) hasn’t had a chance to get to land yet. All the moths and mosquitos have long left, it’s very pleasant being offshore away from all of these creatures.

It’s too late to depart today, so I will be up early and away to the south. Thanks for the support and suggestions and I look forward to receiving the ROV on my birthday, should anyone win the pools and feels generous.

Paul Collister

Just a quick note to say that today’s attempt at removing the fishing line from the prop failed. It started well, but then my legs were stung by a jellyfish, I left the water pronto, and after a half hour, the stinging had stopped. I don’t have my wetsuit here, in fact my whole wardrobe is basically shorts and t-shirts, with some light trousers for more formal occasions, or when we go out in a mossy rich area. So I donned a pair of dirty old trousers and some socks that were last worn in Manchester and went back in. The visibility was awful, and I couldn’t see the prop at all, but I could feel the fishing line all bunched up on it, so I hacked away with various sharp implements until out of nowhere, a jelly fish swam into my face and decided to ‘have a go’. I started flailing around to get it away, which resulted in my arms as well as my face getting stung. I ended up on the wrong side of the boat for getting back on board, no ladder or ropes, but I had often wondered if I could easily haul myself back up using the wind steering frame bolted to the back of the boat. Guess what, I was up and over the back of the boat in seconds.
Then the pain kicked in, I can honestly say, that has to be the most painful thing I have ever experienced. It took about two hours to get the pain under control, and as I write this now, 10 hours later, and quite a bit of codine, paracetamol and Ibuprofen consumed, the pain is finally subsiding.
I didn’t think I would go back in the water ever again earlier, but I’m now working on how to construct a jellyfish safe suit with whats on the boat.

I took this GoPro picture of the prop to see how I got on, and the misty ethereal shape running up and down, is actually alive, and probably good for a sting too.

I contacted a local Marina manager for advise, he told me I was too far away for them to come out and help, and that I should try the coastguard. So I flagged down a passing fisherman this afternoon. He didn’t speak English, but seemed to understand my gestures and indicated he might be able to help. There are lots of fishing boats in the area, one of them must have a guy with scuba gear? Anyway a few hours later a fast fishing boat came screaming towards me,  they pulled up alongside, and I thought this looked promising, I asked if they had come to help, but they said no, they had come to see if I had any beer for them. Most odd, I told them I didn’t and they raced away laughing.
So I’m just about to cook dinner and retire, hopefully tomorrow will start off better. I have 12 eggs, so at three eggs an omelette, I’m cool for 4 days. although I think the mushroom filling is only good for another day.
If the wind picks up, it’s mostly about 5 knts through the day, I will set sail to the south and see how far I can get. I don’t fancy having to negotiate the nets with no motor backup, or having to anchor in a random place when night falls.
It seems it’s not all idyllic beaches and sunsets after all 😉

Paul Collister