The Last Straw

Going on an upwind leg the headsail car rail tore out of the cap rail. Seriously not happy.the previous owner just restored the area in front of it with new wood (wrong kind) now it’s clear I need to redo the whole cap rail. We need hoses, new cap rail, a little fibreglass on the bottom, some other miscellaneous work. Too much too cobble together in Borneo or beyond. UG! The best choice of yards is back on the Western side of Malaysia. Back to Tioman, thru the Singapore straits, and up to Pangkor. Almost 1000 miles. So off we went. Lost another hose in the cooling system, the joining pipe between to hoses was a piece of Stainless Steel pipe cut to length but whoever did couldn’t be bothered to smooth off the burr on the edge so it ate thru the hose. Another patch fix by me and we were off. So with hand spliced data cables, patched cooling hoses, torn cap rail, etc we got ready to cross the straits. Do the tide thing, yup of course we have to do a night passage. What could go wrong? Politics! Unbeknownst to us Singapore and Malaysia have just gotten into a Law of the Sea pissing match over control in certain areas. We are Malaysian flagged so the Singaporean border police hassled us relentlessly. We were pulled over 5 times in 60 miles, and forced into using the TSS the whole way. We have no business in the TSS, we are only supposed to cross it at 90 angles to the lanes not use it. Beyond that it outright dangerous for us to be there going 5 knots. It’s like a bicyclist using the right hand lane on the Interstate highway. Of course one of the patched hoses blows off in the middle of the TSS, at which point I don’t give a crap what the Singapore authorities want we head into safe water so I can fix it. Fix in we continued until a squall hit us with sheeting rain and head on 45+ knot winds still in the TSS. The viz dropped to about 10 meters, again I don’t give a crap what they want I’m out of there. With Viz being nil and AIS being very short range they couldn’t see me anyhow. Finally we got around to the Malay Western side and by the fought a 3 knot tide upriver into Johor. Almost 3 hours in the river, running with the tide and fresh we made it out in 1. After that a fairly uneventful set of passages got us up to Pangkor. Not a lot of sleep on the legs but other than a few dodgy anchorage’s with high currents we managed. Happy to be berthed up. 🙏

Onwards to the Riau Indonesia

After saying goodbye to Kevin it was time to push on to Riau. We heard so many great things about it and it’s a natural way to get to Borneo. Unfortunately we picked a new passenger, the evil rat. This creature was determined to get us killed. First it at thru the data cables, all of navigation sensors were gone. Then it chewed into a 220 line, guess that fried it’s snout a bit as the cable chewing seemed to stop. With no depth sensor we had to rely on the navigation charts. On our arrival to the first island we picked a spot marked as 10 meters depth to anchor. BANG! Right into the bottom, not mor than 2 meters deep. Lesson learned, no more night anchoring with out a depth sensor. After a shaken nights sleep we headed off to Terempah which is the entry checkpoint for that district in Indonesia.

Everything went well and we spotted a guy with a rat in a trap. We bought 2 traps and the next night Evil went overboard in the trap.

A nice few days were had cruising around the islands.

Lovely little island surrounded by coral of unknown depth. Saw a turtle on my first dive but no depth sensor kept us away.

The local squid fisherman pull these houses on the sea by little boat dar night and the light up the sky with all their lights. During the days I was trying to get our sensors working again.

Great food and great company made it still enjoyable. Got the depth sensor working and then a section of the cap rail under the headsail track gave due to dry rot. The previous owner just painted over. That was the final straw. Time to head back to Malaysia and the Western coast boatyards to work on the boat.

Tioman…..repairs

The trip to Tioman was great. Caught a few fish.

Ate more fish for a while than I liked 😄

Got some nice diving in and certified some folks. But just when all was well trouble struck. Pulling in to the marina …. nothing no forward no reverse. A very nice local in his little dinghy towed us into a slip. YAG! The engine works…hmmm…. well is there something wrapped on the prop … nope. Not good. Look inside it’s clear the shaft doesn’t turn in forward or reverse. Time to dig in.

Check the pressure in the transmission should be 120 PSI, nope it’s zero. Maybe just out of fluid. Nope fluid is full and clean. Somethings not right between the engine and the shaft. Time to pull the gearbox.

This spacer must come out. Turns out it’s really hard to do.

Those bolts come from a vibration dampener that are oriented so the prop shaft has to go out about 4 inches. What happens when it goes to far? Oh you have a large hole in the boat and it sinks. 😳😳😳😳 investigate …. I have a PSS dripless shaft box. Awesome can’t push that very far. Oh wait I need 4 inches…. put a rope on it and pull. The gods are laughing moves about 1/2 inch. Well I remember from Physics pulleys help. Try one better, rig another….

7 pulleys later and 3 days of working on it. Success!

That cursed spacer is out, but wait that wasn’t what I needed to check. The gearbox has to come out.

Did I mention it’s heavy? Like 30 kilograms. Take a look at the gearbox, perfect. In fact it’s unbelievably smooth. Turns out it’s designed for a 500 HP engine not my puny 80. So what’s wrong? Dig deeper time for the tranny to go….

Oh look the damper plate that connects the engine to the tranny is stripped. Time to get a new one.

Finally on the move the August highlights very long Langkawi to Singapore legs

August finally had us departing for Tioman Island in Eastern Malaysia

We had a get going dinner of red wine and BBQ pork ribs a must in any Islamic country It was lovely easy motor sailing and sailing down to Penang. A bit stressful for me after all the work. Would everything all hold up ok? The plan was if something failed before the halfway to Penang mark was to limp back to Langkawi. Fortunately all was good. Less good as always were the fish aggravation traps that are sometimes unlit at night.

Great fun hitting one at 2 AM

Penang at night on anchor, we used the stop to get more food as always 😎the leaving Penang breakfast, the spoils of a great supermarket stop.

On the way out there’s a 25 meter clearance bridge and although we only go up 20 I stress to make sure we are well centred.

Arriving in Pankor I’m less than thrilled to find out someone didn’t check the watermaker inlet sea clock to make sure it opened and close. Result a fast haul out to replace it. 😡😡😡😡 It had been put on a task list and wasn’t done. Me steaming off to get the new part and arrange for a haul out.

But hey when you get going like this it’s hard to stay upset. Again a lovely trip down to Port Dickson long but almost effortless. Ran the Port tank for the first time on an extended run.

Admiral Marina was a great stop. We met a lovely family from Denmark taking a year off to sail cruise while the kids were still young enough. Ready to move on….nothing the engine won’t start. 🤭 What? It ran fine on the way in. Turns out the air vent line on the Port tank is blocked. This means I had to bleed the full lines to get all the air out. Getting to be quite the mechanic…sigh….

The cat in the slip next to us had found the mainsails were a great sleeping spot. Woke up one morning and she was up on ours.

coffee the elixir that fuels a boat. We make fresh ground French pressed every morning. 🤓

Malacca was a handy anchorage to avoid a long night sail, so we made an early stop and I tried my hand at fishing.

It’s called fishing not catching. My normal catch of nothing was had. That night a Sumatran storm came. Woke up feeling something was amiss, and started organising the boat. Didn’t want to bother folks over nothing so waited till it was on us to roust people. Got the anchor up just as the wind climbed over 20 knots, we were anchored with less than 2 meters under the keel so I wanted out quick. 3 lovely hours ensued of steaming along in 35+ knot winds in water that was much more shallow than I wanted to be in.

6 hours after it started we had this… the hazardous reputations here in the Malacca Straight are well deserved.

Singapore’s welcome sign facing Malaysia. A warning telling illegal border crossers that they shoot to kill. An unfortunate sign of things to come for us….

Putri Harbor time for another food shopping spree, more diesel and water and one more go at bleeding the engine. 🤨 I guess I’m getting good at this now. Next post will cover fun times to Tioman and fun with the Singapore police/navy 🤬

Planes, trains, taxis, ships, carriages, and scams.

At 5am without my coffee this is as good as I get with a smile. The plane in this case turned out to be a hot air balloon. Actually turned out to be not too expensive so I just went for it. The ballooning experience was nice comparable to riding on a small scooter instead of in a car. A relaxing time rather than an adventure. The view of the Valley of the Kings was educational as you got a good look at both the tomb entrances and the holes the grave robbers used when they had houses there.

4×4 in the desert was great. A great time and worthy of another mention. Really did their best for us, and were warm honest folks. Too bad not everybody later would be the same.

For me train rides in a sleeper car is always an exotic experience I want to try. The Cairo to Luxor overnight was just great. People complain it’s expensive due to the fact the airfare is about the same. If you fly you miss so much, and you have to buy a room, food etc. The food on board was actually better than airline food. A big thumbs up. The staff were helpful and friendly.

The cabin for 2 before and during dinner was a bit cramped but pretty nice for 2 travellers .

After dinner presto change! The beds came out, clean and comfortable. Made for a great trip with you waking up to breakfast.

The public ferry in Luxor was definitely the only way to go. We instinctively choose it as our way to cross the river when we needed to. Cheap hassle free and effective.

The Scams. The horse and buggy, offering a cheap fare for a short ride to the ATM. Ok fine. The usual sob story about no work all day, ok we are in a good mood and Bella wanted to sit in one once anyway. Of course the 5 Egyptian pounds the fare was offered at became 5 British pounds at the end. After a unpleasant and contentious discussion the scammer was offered 100 Egyptian to avoid a messy confrontation. That as it turns out was not far off what it should have been according to a local security guy we asked later. It was however a sour taste. Of course the next day we got lazy moving from the hotel to the boat to Aswan and took a private boat across the river. The 10 pounds each became 20. The petty level of getting ripped off becomes annoying and spoils the mood. The good news is we booked a last minute cabin on a 5 star Nile cruise boat for 3 nights with full board for less than $200 to Aswan. The drinks and tips will probably run close to that as well. Stay tuned…..

Western Egyptian Desert

In the morning the glow from sun arrives very early. At 4 the stars begin too fade, and the air is still. As you look out on the sand you can find tracks of the nocturnal visitors. The desert fox prints just like all canine prints except mostly gently smeared in the soft sand, the stick like tracks of the beetles, and some mystery prints that only additional time and study will decipher. By sunrise the wind blows but it doesn’t howl, it’s a soft gentle feeling, feathery and light on the face. The only harshness is the sand particles hitting the exposed skin on the lower extremities. There almost no odours, there is no moisture to create or support them. The sky is entirely devoid of moisture, I can find no trace of even the wispy threads high in the sky of the highest cirrus clouds. It gives the atmosphere a shade of blue I’ve only seen on high peaks. The quiet is palpable the absence of input after years of overload causes constant ringing in the ears.

At night the with no local light pollution the stars come out even at dusk. At first you feel clouds have suddenly appeared but in fact it’s the Milky Way. What was once a common place occurrence even near cities 50 years ago is now a rare treat. Pictures don’t show the story, perhaps with something better than the cell phone it would be.

Maybe that is a great thing as it keeps the masses from descending and spoiling the effect that the emptiness has. Rain isn’t an infrequent occurrence it’s a historical event. The last rain recorded here was 12 years ago. Life is dying out, Wells that have provided water since before Roman times have run dry. Is it due to the facile and obvious explanation of global warming theory, the simple outcome of climate disruption due to the ever growing heights of the Himalayan mountains, mans disruption of the fragile ecosystem that helped rain occur or something else?

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Hard up and time for a vacation

The boat steering has issues. It’s off the hard, but it’s still hard up. Looks like a few weeks to get someone to fix it. Must be vacation time!Saudi Air to Jeddah.

First time on a plane with no alcohol. Bella and I are off to Egypt. The boat needs a few weeks of hydraulic work and I’m frazzled with waiting for it to be done and just sitting in the marina. All night flight to Cairo, no idea what to really expect on this trip.

Arrived and got to the hotel, the view is everything. Hanging on the balcony is great. Waking up to the pyramids with no one around them is really hard to describe.

Of course it’s a must to do the traditional tourist stuff.

Getting to know the food and what’s good is a key ingredient for this trip…

Bella got to find out how tricky making Egyptian flat bread really was.

Museum day

Unfortunately the stuff you want to take pics of the most is off limits. Enough of the culture tour. Next up Lawrence of Egypt! Watch as he try’s to captain a ship of the desert thru the White desert of Western Egypt.

It’s still hard …..

Nothing is more sad than a boat on the hard. No mast, no rigging. is it even a boat? Still the bottom job got done.The marina / boatyard the boat is in is on a resort island with a resort and nothing else. If you want something you have to take a ferry to the main island. A big hassle.

So in fixing the thru holes I grabbed this shot of where the hull is thin. It’s only 5/8″ thick glass here. Not like modern boats that you can almost see through.

Between Ko Lipe and Langkawi we had to sail as the engine kept overheating. I’d go down and fiddle with it it would run for a while and then overheat again. So one of the first tasks was figuring out what went wrong. It was obviously in the cooling system so I stripped off the whole system including the sea/fresh water ex-changer. No one thing was wrong, a whole lot of things! Amazing it worked as well as it did.  An example of how great the old American engines really were. Thanks Ford. Unfortunately several parts needed replacing including a new water reservoir that had to be shipped in from the US DHL Expre$$.

One of the planned upgrades is the replacement of the internal electrical system. The old battery charger was a cheap Chinese car battery charger. With new battery technologies it would degrade them by about 2/3 of their life. So that had to go. Especially since I was adding 4 new batteries to the house bank at $900 each. Upgrading the solar system required a new charger for that. So much dead wire and old stuff left in place as maybe backups. All gone. Days and days of tearing stuff out running new wirs.

Another big item to do was adding a new freezer. The boat had a insulated space for one but needed more electrical capacity and a compressor to do it. The new compressor being installed. It’s great now it’s working, the future will include Ice Cubes for my gin and tonic woohooo!!!

The boat came with a traditional hand pump head. Course the pump would leak a bit of seawater on your hand as you pumped. Ok it’s a little yuck. Got a strong request from the female crew to have a modern push button head. Cost difference wasn’t that great so in it went. Of course it needs electrical to drive the pumps, oh fun more wiring…

The big and rude shock in the boat was the bowsprit being shot. Everyone missed it in the inspections. When it came off for repair the stainless guy wouldn’t touch it. A new one! Oh joy. I do love surprises. The base is done. The crew did awesome work going down to the guys shop and spending days polishing the thing to help get it done faster. Hopefully there will be a lot more good news in the next posting.

 

On the hard….

No water, no mast, no engine, sitting on stands…..is it still really a boat? 2 weeks ahead of a lot of deferred maintenance and repairs. The not so joyful part of sailing. The crew are restless, they want to sail not work on the boat, hmmmmm me too :_) The mast is almost rebuilt, the rudder extension had to be stripped and sanded for the primer to stick correctly, and the corroded stainless steal in the bowsprit is being replaced. Soon in goes the new freezer, the new solar panels, the new batteries, the new wind generator, the new solid state electrical switch panel, and the new electronic instrument package including forward looking sonar scanner. excited to get it done, less excited to do it 😛

Done, done,done….

First the boat….sigh I own it! It’s not a boat it’s a ship.

I’m still getting used to moving it about, but have anchored, moored, and docked it without any damage or harm to people or property so it’s all good. Will put it up on the hard in a while to refit the structural bits in the boat and update some others. The Sailing school has come to an end. Woohooo!!! Oh did I mentioned I passed my exams? Double Woohoo!!!! All I need now for the commercial endorsement is a week long STCW cert course. A lot is happening over here that I’m not yet going into, but stay tuned lots of changes upcoming I hope.

Just wouldn’t be fair though to not show you sunrise yesterday in the harbor I was anchored in.