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
Delighted the paperwork went so smoothly. Appreciate the pics! Very droll.
Are you not tempted to test out the rigging before you head to Thailand? I guess you are in Telage so you can fill up with diesel, less dependent on the rigging 😉
Fair winds
Hope you have a stress free journey!x
Travelling to Thailand this month? Here’s what you should know. https://twitter.com/i/moments/786851900515872768