1 December 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Malaysia
Another run and then another day pottering about on board. Glenys finished the bimini, while I did some small jobs. In the evening, we went out for a Chinese meal with “Per Adua”, “Sea Monkey” and “Reverie”.
2 December 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Malaysia
After a late start, I removed the tachometer from the engine control panel and replaced the engine hour display. This small LCD display is notorious for becoming dimmer until it is illegible and we’ve not been able to read the engine hours since we left Ecuador nearly three years ago. Volvo’s solution is to sell you a new tachometer for over £500 and it took a lot of searching to find the £45 replacement display from a small Swedish company (www.boatstuff.se).
It was a fiddly job, but only took an hour to strip down the tacho and put it all back together. For the past three years, we have been estimating the engine hours each day and we thought that we’d done 3,727 engine hours, so I was pleasantly surprised to see that the actual hours are 3,691 - only 34 hours difference - not bad after several years of guessing. I’m relieved because it means that I’ve been done the correct amount of 200 hour engine services.
In the afternoon, Glenys went for her second eye operation. It all went okay, but she complained that it was stinging more than the other eye had done. The doctor said that she had a little bit of bleeding and had to do a little extra work to stop the blood getting into her eye.
I’ve been tasked with putting three sets of eye drops into her eyes four times a day. As I was putting in her six o’clock eye drops, I noticed a 5mm disk floating in her in her eye, which moved about as she put her head back. Was it an air bubble and her eye was leaking fluid? Or had the new artificial lens come loose? Don’t Panic Mr Mannering…
I rang the Eye Clinic, and after an anxious fifteen minute wait, they rang me back and told me that the doctor had deliberately put an air bubble in Glenys’ eye apparently to help seal off the incision and make the eye air-tight. It would have been nice if they had told us before we panicked.
3 December 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Malaysia
Glenys went for a for an eye check-up. Both eyes are healing fine and the doctor said that the air bubble in her eye would be absorbed after a few days.
Glenys went back to the boat while I went to do a few errands. I picked up our iPad from the repair centre. They’ve found that the GPS is faulty, but want to charge over £100 to fix it. We’ve had a few repairs done over the last two years and I reckon that it’s time to move on - I can buy a cheap Android phone for less than £100, which will be good enough to be a backup chart plotter.
I walked back to the marina via a couple of hardware stores. There are no big hardware stores in Penang - they are all small, mostly Chinese run shops, which are chaotic places, with narrow aisles lined with shelves packed with a jumble of things. I only managed to find a couple of things off my long list. In particular, I’m keen to get hold of some antifreeze/coolant for the generator, but the hardware stores don’t have any and neither do the petrol stations, so I’m at a loss where to buy some - it’s weird how some things are hard to get in each country.
We’ve been reading reports from cruisers who have recently crossed the Indian Ocean and there have been a number of robberies in various places with locals climbing on board yachts at night. Our strategy for handling these rascals is to prevent them getting inside the boat. We are able to lock all our hatches, but we often have the aft cabin hatch open for ventilation while we sleep - this is obviously a weakness in our protection.
With this in mind, I’ve had a set of stainless steel bars made, which I fitted to our aft hatch this afternoon. It’s a simple frame with two 10mm diameter pegs that slot into the wooden surround and two 10mm bolts that screw into holes on the other side of the surround. It looks reasonably elegant and we’ll probably just leave it in place all the time now.
Having prevented rascals entering the boat, the next stage of our defence is to set off a siren and put on all the deck lights, hoping to scare them away. If they get access to the inside of the boat, then we have two choices - let them rob us and hope they don’t beat us up; or try to defend ourselves. For defence, we have Pepper Gel spray that will shoot 12 feet and a couple of 3 million volt hand-held Tasers for close up fighting, but it’s probably best to avoid troublesome anchorages.
4 December 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Malaysia
Our mobile phone is a very old Android phone which won’t run modern applications like Uber-taxi and WhatsApp, so I thought that I’d try to install a later version of Android. Five frustrating hours later, I’d failed completely, the phone had locked up and I’d lost the will to live…
In the afternoon, I serviced our 15hp outboard, stripping down the carburettor and fitting new seals. After reassembling it all, I had the engine running sweet. Glenys had a quiet day recuperating.
5 December 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Malaysia
Glenys was feeling much better and her eye is settling down, so she pottered about doing some more sewing jobs, this time working on the sprayhood. I had another go at upgrading our mobile phone, but eventually abandoned the attempt and went back to the original version of Android - a waste of eight hours of my life.
In the afternoon, I carried on servicing the outboard, changing the spark plugs, inspecting the electrics and cleaned out the rotting sound-proofing from the hood. With the engine reassembled, I went out for a blast outside the marina and the outboard ran well at high revs. Unfortunately, when I got back to the boat, the outboard wouldn’t run at low revs.
I suspected the fuel needle valve, so I removed carburettor again and cleaned the fuel reservoir, flushing out various ports with carburettor cleaner, but it’s still hard to start and won’t run at low revs - very frustrating.
6 December 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Malaysia
I spent the morning running a few errands - mainly buying some more carburettor cleaner. The outboard was still playing up, so I removed the carburettor again and, while stripping it down, found that a ball bearing in the primer chamber had jammed in its spring. I reassembled the outboard and it runs really sweet - thank goodness.
Flushed with success, I serviced our 2.5hp outboard, which has sat on the push-pit and not been started for the last 12 months. I stripped down the carburettor, cleaned it and reassembled it; changed the spark plug and checked the electrics. The poor thing wouldn’t start, but after twenty minutes of fiddling, I managed to get it running. It runs okay at both low revs and high revs, but is a bugger to start, so I’m going to have to have another go at it tomorrow.
7 December 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Malaysia
It took me an hour to remove the carburettor and get our small outboard running properly. The carburettor was flooding with petrol, so I cleaned it all out again and adjusted the float, which seemed to do the job. I then lifted the dinghy out of the water and did a couple of small maintenance jobs.
In the afternoon, we went to Gurnsey Plaza mall to watch a movie and then did a bit of shopping. We bought a new smart phone with a modern operating system. It only cost £120 and will be good enough to act as a back-up chart plotter as well as being useful for daily tasks. We then went to a £1 store and bought a few things to give away or trade with islanders when we get cruising again - stuff like screwdrivers and a dozen wind-up torches, which were a big hit in Papua New Guinea. After clearing out our lockers a couple of weeks ago, we’re now filling them up again.
8 December 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Malaysia
I consolidated all my “To Buy” and “To Do Lists” and then we caught the bus into town. Our first stop was in Little India, where we had a slap-up curry at Sri Ananda Bahwan. Glenys wandered off to do some shopping, while I went to do interesting stuff like buying fishing gear and parts for the boat.
I found a really good fishing tackle shop on the corner of Beach St and Armenian St. They had lead weights, stainless steel leader wire and hooks, but no large rubber squid lures - these seem to another thing that’s hard to find in South-east Asia. I wandered around Georgetown, which has lots of small shops packed with stuff, including the interesting Hardware Alley, where you can buy a huge range of hand tools, but I struggled to find anything from my list. I did manage to find some engine coolant, but it was in a dodgy looking can, so I’m not sure if it’s the correct stuff.
Other cruisers have waxed lyrical about the Chemical Man, so I stopped by his shop at 22 Jalan Pintal Tali. From the outside, it’s a very non-descript place which looks more like an office than a shop, but once inside there are shelves loaded with laboratory glassware, bunsen burners and a plethora of chemicals. Mr Ong looks to be about 90 years old, but spoke excellent English and soon had his assistant preparing things from my list. I bought a litre of Ethylene Glycol (prevents wood rot), a kilogram of Sodium Metabisulphite (for pickling the water maker) and 250G of Tri Sodium Phosphate (cleans teak decks and prevents mildew). The whole lot cost £5.
9 December 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Malaysia
For the past year, I’ve noticed some dark staining on the teak around some of the wooden plugs on our teak toe rail. A few days ago, I popped off a couple of the wooden plugs and found that there was a small amount of dry, black, powdery wood inside the holes, which I could scrape out with a screwdriver.
Wood rot is unusual in teak, and there’s only a small amount, so I suspect that it’s a combination of mildew and a small amount of wood rot - basically, a fungal attack that needs to be stopped. I did some reading on the internet and found that Ethylene Glycol (as used in Antifreeze) is a cheap effective fungicide that soaks into wood very well, so I bought some yesterday from the Chemical Man.
I removed half a dozen of the worst affected plugs, dug out any rot that I could find and then flooded the holes & surrounding wood with Ethylene Glycol. I let it soak in for a few hours then soaked up the surplus. I’ll let it dry out over the next couple of days and then put in new teak plugs with epoxy.
We’ve had some persistent leaks from some of our portholes, which I tracked down to a leak in a 2mm wide gap in the opening window frame. I “fixed” the problem a few months ago by simply sticking masking tape over the gap, which has worked well, but it was time to sort the problem properly. I removed the dried-on masking tape, removed the old sealant from the gap and re-sealed with marine silicone sealant.
It was so hot that I couldn’t sit on the bare deck, but had to put a thick towel down to protect me from the heat, so after lunch, I decided to do a few jobs down below. I topped up the coolant in the generator and tried to start it, but no joy.
This was strange - the generator had run fine a month ago and all I’d done was to replace the exhaust elbow and replace the seal on the fresh water header tank. Diesel engines are rather simple things all they need is air and fuel to run and I hadn’t touched either of those areas. The next few hours were hell, checking the fuel system and all of the various safety sensors on the generator - everything seemed to be working, but it wouldn’t start. Suspecting back pressure on the exhaust system, I even removed the sea water outlet pipe from the exhaust elbow, but all to no avail.
At half past five, I gave up and opened a cold beer.
10 December 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Malaysia
Glenys went to the Eye Clinic for a check-up and both eyes are stabilising well, so we can now finally escape Straits Quay marina and head up to Langkawi, where we’re booked to haul-out on the 21st December. Unfortunately, the tides are very low at the moment and we can’t get out of the shallow entrance until the 13th at the earliest.
I didn’t sleep well, worrying about the generator. After breakfast, I dragged out Nigel Calder’s Boat Maintenance book, read up on diesel engines and came up with a plan. I removed the air intake filter and disconnected the exhaust from the exhaust elbow to make sure that there was no blockage on the air going into and out of the engine. I also double checked the fuel system.
Now that I had the generator engine in its simplest configuration, I pressed the start button and it sprung to life! Thank God! It must be something to do with the exhaust or air inlet. After the exhaust fumes had cleared from the engine room, I replaced the exhaust hose - it started okay. I replaced the sea water outlet pipe onto the exhaust elbow - it started okay. I replaced the air filter - it started. Now that the generator was all reassembled, I ran it for ten minutes with no problems.
Worryingly, I don’t really know what was preventing it from starting yesterday. I strongly suspect that when I removed the old exhaust elbow, sea water has flooded the exhaust muffler, so the exhaust system was partially blocked and the back pressure was stopping it working. Having started the engine without the exhaust attached, when I re-attached it, the engine started quickly enough to blow the exhaust clear - who knows. At least it’s running now.
I tidied up and spent the afternoon doing some admin. Over the past two days, I’ve spent several hours researching how our generator works, so I wrote up some notes for myself, which I’ve put on our website. It’s very dry and technical, but if you’re interested, see Fault Finding a Generator.
11 December 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Malaysia
Meilia from “Per Ardua” (along with two of her children, Sam and Aila) picked us up from the marina and took us to the Arulmigu Balathandayuthapani Temple. It’s a large Hindu temple dedicated to the god called Murugan. There are over 500 steps to climb to get to the seven-storey, 20 metre tall temple, which is apparently the largest Lord Murugan temple outside India.
We were lucky to arrive for the mid-day puja (ritual) with the priest anointing various idols accompanied by music played on traditional instruments - a nadaswaram (a kind of flute) and thavil (a drum). About 100 people, mostly Tamils, were present for the ceremony and were blessed by the priest.
To continue the Indian theme, Meilia took us into Georgetown, where we had a traditional Thali meal in Little India. It was a nice relaxing Sunday.
12 December 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Malaysia
I had a lazy morning messing about in the comfort of the air-conditioning. The weather forecast is showing 10-15 knot winds from the north-west over the next three days, which will make our 70 mile trip to Langkawi very unpleasant, so we’re trapped here in Straits Quay marina for another three days. The plan is to head 25 miles to a small island to the north of here, where we’ll anchor for the night and then have a 45 mile trip up to Langkawi on Friday 16th.
In the afternoon, I helped Glenys put the sprayhood back on and then went up the mast to do a few small jobs and checked the rigging, which all looks okay. I’ll check it again before we set off from Phuket for the Andaman Islands in January.
I put epoxy and teak plugs into the holes in the toe rail and then fitted an extension to the viewfinder on my underwater camera housing. I had the stainless steel parts made back in Port Dickson and it’s worked well - I can now see the LCD screen of my camera very clearly, so I can’t wait to get back snorkelling and diving again. Unfortunately, I’ll have to wait until after Christmas when we leave Langkawi, before we’ll have clear water again.
13 December 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Malaysia
With only 11 shopping days to Christmas, I braved the Gurney Plaza Mall and bought a few presents for Glenys. Rather than buying each other expensive things that aren’t really wanted, we’ve been giving ourselves a low budget and buying fun little things. This year, we’d given ourselves a budget of 50 Ringgit each (£10), but I got a little carried away and spent 70 Ringgit, but I think I’ll be forgiven.
Only two more nights and we’ll be free of this place.
14 December 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Malaysia
Our last day in Straits Quay Marina - the weather forecast looks okay for tomorrow and we'll have a 2.5 metre tide just after midday. I went for my final run and then pottered about for the rest of the day, doing some jobs and a beer run to the supermarket. Glenys slaved away over a hot sewing machine, making a new cover for our Life Sling, replacing the original which has disintegrated after five years of tropical sun.
In the evening, we went to the local food court with “Sea Monkey” and “Conrad”.
15 December 2016 Straits Quay Marina to Pulau Bidan, Malaysia
High tide wasn’t until 14:00, so I ran some errands in the morning. I’m in the process of buying some spare parts for our dive regulators and the scuba company can’t take a credit card over the phone, so I had to walk to a bank and deposit the cash in their bank account - all very quaint, but inconvenient. Back at the boat, Glenys had tidied up and we were ready to go.
We left an hour before high tide and had no problems with the depth - the shallowest part was in the marina, where I cut the corner next to the sea wall. We then had a dull, four hour motor to Pulau Bidan where we anchored out of the persistent swell, on the east side at 5°44.77N 100°17.44E in 5 metres of water. It’s a very pleasant looking island with two beaches and coconut trees swaying in the breeze.
We had a very relaxed evening, eating dinner in the cockpit, gazing at the peaceful anchorage in the moonlight - much better than being stuck in a marina.
16 December 2016 Pulau Bidan to The Gorge, Langkawi
It wasn’t a peaceful night. I was awoken just after midnight by newly acquired mosquito bites on my hands and arms, so I had to get out of bed; treat the bites; spray on some insect repellent; find and switch on our electric mosquito coil; and place the mosquito net in the hatch over our bed.
I had three hours restless sleep (trying not to scratch my bites) before I was woken by waves slapping on the hull. Dragging myself into the cockpit, I found that the wind had veered 180 degrees, picked up to 12 knots from the east, creating 2 foot wind waves and put us on a lee shore. However, the anchor was holding and we were still in 5 metres of water, so I went back to bed.
A couple of hours later, I was woken again by a strange jerky motion. Back in the cockpit, I found that the wind had veered to the south east and we were now in 2.4 metres of water. We hadn’t dragged, but the wind shift had swung us over a shallow, uncharted sand bank. The tide was falling and with another 0.8 metres to go, we’d soon be aground. Don’t panic…
I shouted for Glenys, started the engine and we motored further out to a depth of eight metres and dropped the anchor at 05°44.82N 100°17.51°E. (Later, looking at the Navionics chart, someone has put update on the chart showing a drying rock, just to the north of where we anchored, although we saw no sign of it when we left the anchorage. Nevertheless, it might be prudent to anchor a little further south at 05°44.75N 100°17.53°E.)
Being six o’clock, we couldn’t be bothered to go back to bed and had a nice cup of tea waiting for the sun to come up. We left at the crack of dawn, and motor sailed for nine hours, all the way to The Gorge in Langkawi, anchoring at 06°11.48N 099°47.21E in 9 metres of water. It’s a very impressive anchorage with sheer limestone cliffs and sea eagles soaring above looking for food.
17 December 2016 The Gorge to Pulau Singa Besar, Langkawi
It was a lovely peaceful night. The Gorge is one of our favourite anchorages in Langkawi, isolated and, even better, the sun doesn’t get high enough to hit the boat until ten o’clock, so it stays nice and cool. Unfortunately, by ten o’clock, the tourist operations are on the go and packs of jet skis come screaming through the anchorage. You can hear them from about half a mile away and they come over the horizon like the “Smokers” in the old movie “Waterworld”.
After two packs of jet skis had rocked us, we upped anchor and motored though the impressive limestone islands to Pulau Singa Besar where we anchored in 5 metres at 06°13.60N 099°44.83E. This is a large open bay with lots of room and a favourite amongst cruisers for a beach barbeque.
Our main reason for coming here was to have calm water and enough depth for me to scrape the barnacles off the bottom of the keel. We haul out on the 21st and it’s always hard to get at the bottom of the keel when the boat is resting on it. I ran the dive compressor, filled a tank and jumped into the water.
The visibility was about one foot and there was a strong current, so it was a bit of a mission to scrape off the big clumps of barnacles. The rate of growth is prodigious in these Malaysian marinas that we’ve been staying in. It took me 20 minutes of groping and feeling my way along the keel, but I think that I’ve done a good enough job to slap some antifoul paint on.
In the evening, we invited Hugh and Brenda from “Scotia” for dinner. After a few drinks and a fabulous curry, we dragged out the guitars and ukulele and had a great jam session. It’s been months and months since we last played with someone else. Brenda picks a mean folk song, so I’m motivated to learn more finger picking rhythms like The Boxer and Let Her Go.
18 December 2016 Pulau Singa Besar to Telaga Bay, Langkawi
After breakfast (and two paracetamol for my hangover), I pottered about doing a couple of jobs. I pickled our water-maker a few months ago and had removed the two pre-filters. My plan was to get the water-maker going again to test it before I give it a big service. When I tried to replace the two filters I found that one of the large o-rings on a filter case was missing, so I spent an hour searching the bilge and my spares cupboards, but couldn’t find the o-ring or a replacement.
This was a bit of a disaster because Langkawi is not renowned for boat spares. A short dinghy trip across to “Scotia” solved my problem. After a decade of cruising, Hugh has built up an impressive spares collection and a big bag of o-rings yielded the exact one I wanted. I nearly kissed him…
With the water-maker re-assembled, we motor-sailed a few miles out to sea to some slightly cleaner water and ran the water-maker for an hour, which worked fine. One hour later, we were anchored in the peaceful Telaga Bay at 06°21.71N 099°40.77E in 2.8 metres of water. I jumped in the dinghy and zipped ashore to the marina office where I was able to book a car for tomorrow, so that we can do some pre-Christmas provisioning - i.e. buy booze.
19 December 2016 Telaga Bay, Langkawi
We picked up our hire car - only £10 for the day. The car belongs to one of the marina staff, who make a bit of money on the side by lending their cars out to cruisers. No forms, no hassle and no insurance… Our first stop was at the Chinese supermarket in Matsirat, where we started to stock up on tins and long life supplies ready for our trip across the Indian Ocean.
Langkawi is a “Duty free” island and last year you could buy as much booze as you wanted at very cheap prices with no questions asked. Unfortunately, there has been a considerable amount of smuggling, with duty free alcohol being sold in other parts of Malaysia, so the government has clamped down.
Now there’s a customs officer in every “duty free” store and they have a computer system where they record your passport number when you buy liquor, wine or beer. Also, there’s a monthly limit of only 3 cases of beer and 5 litres of wine or spirits. This is a total disaster to our provisioning plans - we were hoping to stock up with enough booze to last us across the Indian Ocean.
We decided to buy mostly rum and gin, with a single 3 litre box of wine for Christmas. The personal allowance is per calendar month, so we’ll have another allowance on the 1st January, so it looks like we’ll be delaying our departure from Malaysia until the 2nd January.
After lunch in Kuah Town, we bought some more groceries and then went to get some US dollars and some Indian Rupees. The money changer is in a real dodgy place, up some narrow stairs and along a deserted corridor, but they are a very friendly family of Indians (sat behind study iron bars). We bought $1,000 USD, which we’ll carry as emergency money to use in any places where there isn’t an ATM (or it won’t work…) We also bought £20 worth of Indian Rupees ready for our trip to the Andamans in January.
20 December 2016 Telaga Bay to Rebak Marina, Langkawi
It threw it down last night and it drizzled all morning with low cloud hanging gloomily over the anchorage (Gloomily? Is that a real word?) Anyway, it was grey and dismal. We were intending to go to the fuel dock and fill up with diesel, but by noon, the rain was still falling and we gave up. Glenys brightened my day by producing grilled bacon and tomato butties with brown sauce - Muslims really don’t know what they’re missing.
(As an aside, a few weeks ago, Glenys chatted to a Malaysian nurse at the eye clinic, who was wearing a Hijab scarf, but was able to say, in a northern accent, “I could murder a bacon butty”. Apparently, some English guy had taught her to say this and she thought it was very funny.)
After lunch, we motored in the rain to Rebak Marina, ready to haul out tomorrow. Glenys’ eye surgeon has banned her from doing any physical labour for a month, so I’ve contacted Sea Spray Marine Services, who are providing a labourer for tomorrow to do the wet sanding to prepare the hull, so that I can paint on the anti-fouling.
In the evening, we went to a jam session with a few of the local marina residents, which was good fun with a combination of ukuleles and guitars, but the thick clouds of evil, black mosquitos drove us away at sunset.
21 December 2016 Rebak Marina, Langkawi
There was a fair bit of hanging about this morning, while we waited to be hauled out, but by lunchtime we’d been pressure-washed and plonked down on the hard. We’re only planning to be out of the water for a week, so they’ve given us a prime place near the showers and, more importantly, the bar.
Our labourer arrived in the afternoon to start scraping the hull. I was hoping that it would be a quick job, but the International Interswift 5800 anti-foul paint that we put on in Phuket nine months ago is terrible. We’ve got loads of barnacles and, once the hull dried out, the paint started to craze and is flaking off. Mark from Seaspray Services had a look and says that it’s a very bad base for the next coat of paint and ought to be stripped off.
This means a lot more preparation work, but I agreed to go ahead. It took our man 3 hours to do 1/8th of the hull, so he might not be finished tomorrow, which would delay everything and I might have to work on Christmas Eve and Boxing Day.
On a positive note, I removed the old propeller and fitted the new one. It was a bit of a fiddle because the keyway on the propeller is a slightly different size to the keyway on the shaft, so it took a couple of hours to file a step on the new key and fit it.
22 December 2016 Rebak Marina, Langkawi
The main reason that I’ve changed the propeller is that, after 16 years, it’s suffering from galvanic corrosion - the zinc in the bronze alloy is leeching out, slowly turning the propeller to copper, which is much more brittle. I’ve been keeping an eye on it for the past three years, but I can’t tell whether it getting worse or what’s causing it.
It’s possible that there are stray electrical currents around the hull of the boat, which are causing electrolysis, in which case the bronze seacocks may be subject to galvanic corrosion as well. This was churning through my subconscious mind last night and I woke at 04:00 worrying about it. The worst case scenario is that some (or all) of my 17 underwater seacocks are turning to brittle copper and that they’ll start to snap off leaving a big hole in the hull. If this happens in a remote part of the Indian Ocean, it will be a bit of a problem.
After breakfast, I grabbed my small angle grinder and ground the paint off all of the sea cock skin fittings. To my great relief, they are all nice, shiny yellowy bronze, apart from the front heads outlet, which is showing some red copper patches, but that’s probably due to the acidity levels in the effluent coming out of the seacock. I’m a much happier bear now.
I spent the rest of the morning helping out with the hull preparation work, mostly doing the fiddly parts around the propeller, the bow thruster and the rudder. I also spent a couple of hours brushing hydrochloric acid onto the paint stripe on our waterline to eat away the small barnacles and hard calcium deposits that we’ve acquired from staying too long in marinas.
In afternoon, I disconnected the rudder cables and checked that the rudder moves freely. There are salt deposits around the rudder shaft seal indicating slight weeping of sea water past the lip seals and the middle bearings. It’s not that bad and the rudder moves freely using a little finger, so the bearings are all okay. I reconnected the steering cables and re-tensioned them all. I’m happy that our rudder and steering is in a fit state to do an ocean crossing.
I then checked all of the 17 seacocks to make sure that they open and close freely. I had one seacock which was jammed - the generator exhaust water outlet. There’s signs of the salt crystals around the spindle of the seacock, so I cleaned it up and sprayed it inside and outside with Liquid Wrench. Ten minutes later, I was able to carefully move the handle back and forward until it was moving freely.
We retired to the bar for our evening meal - the green Thai Curry was very good, but so hot that it made me cry.
23 December 2016 Rebak Marina, Langkawi
I was up at the crack of dawn and washed down the hull with some car wash solution - the guys at Sea Spray recommended doing it to wash off the fine layer of dust. I spent the rest of the morning preparing for painting, masking off the water line and the bow thruster seals. This time, I’ve bought 15 litres of Jotun Seaforce 90, which I used in New Zealand and gave me good results.
After lunch, Glenys and I donned our gloves and started to paint the hull. I did the fiddly bits around the propeller, the rudder and the bow thruster, while Glenys used a roller to paint the smooth parts of the hull. It all went fairly well and we were finished in 2½ hours. I then spent 30 minutes cleaning up - I should have bought more trays and rollers.
In the evening, we went to a jam session at the hotel’s beach bar, which was fun.
24 December 2016 Rebak Marina, Langkawi
It was another early start, putting on the second coat of anti-foul paint. We used 12 litres for the two coats and had 3 litres left, so we went around the water line and the leading edges of the hull where we get the highest level of wear.
By lunch-time, I was a man of leisure again - all the jobs done until after Christmas. I’ve asked the yard to move the stands on the 26th, so that I can paint the patches of hull under the stand pads and then we’ll launch on the 27th - a day early - yahoo!
Glenys retired to the pool in the afternoon and I had a quiet afternoon on board, reading and catching up on our website. In the early evening, we watched “Love Actually” with a glass of port and a mince pie to get us in the Christmas mood - the best Christmas movie ever.
25 December 2016 Rebak Marina, Langkawi
Our favourite Christmas breakfast is scrambled egg on toast with smoked salmon; unfortunately, we had neither smoked salmon nor bread, so Glenys went Mexican and rustled up Huevos Rancheros on wheat tortillas - very tasty.
We had a quiet morning opening our presents and singing along to Christmas songs, then at midday, we went to “Viannica” for Christmas dinner. Graham and Hilary had also invited Roy and Irene from “Peggy West”, so it was a fun affair. Graham cooked up a duck and a chicken along with nine types of vegetables, which was impressive from a yacht’s small galley.
It was a steady-away session, drinking beer, wine and rum all day. We managed to stagger back to Alba before 23:00 - a great Christmas Day.
26 December 2016 Rebak Marina, Langkawi
After our marathon drinking session yesterday, I was feeling a little dull this morning, but forced myself into action when the boat started rocking gently as the yard guys moved the supporting stands. My first job was to scrape and sand the old antifoul from the spots that were hidden by the stands. I then painted three coats of antifoul on the patches during the rest of the morning.
I tightened the propeller nut, fixed it in place with a knock-over tab and fitted the zinc anode. The new propeller looks good. I then fitted the bow thruster propellers - I’ve been a bit too enthusiastic with the anti-foul paint in the tunnel and the propeller blades are catching slightly. I’ll just wait until we launch and the paint softens up before running the bow thrusters.
With all my chores done, the afternoon was a lazy affair, playing guitar and chilling out by the pool. We had a quiet meal by ourselves in the Hard Dock Café.
27 December 2016 Rebak Marina, Langkawi
Glenys was up early and caught a flight back to Penang where she will get the final check-up for her eyes.
The travel lift arrived just after nine o’clock, hoisted Alba up and the yard guys removed the stands. I then had an hour to sand and paint the two small patches where the keel had been standing on wooden blocks. I managed to get three coats of antifoul on, so as long as I don’t go aground (again…), we should be good for two years.
We were back in the water and into a marina berth by eleven o’clock. It’s nice to be afloat again. I had a lazy afternoon, pottering about and then joined “Peggy West” on “Viannica” for evening drinky-poos and nibbles.
28 December 2016 Rebak Marina, Langkawi
At last night’s drinking session, I bemoaned that I have zinc loss on my old propeller and don’t know what is causing it. Fortunately, Graeme from “Viannica” is an ex-navy engine and electronics guru; and Roy from “Peggy West” has a galvanic probe (silver half-cell) which attaches to a multi-meter. I borrowed the galvanic probe and Graeme came over to have a look at my readings.
We dropped the Galvanic Probe into the water and attached it to the positive terminal on my multi-meter. I connected the negative lead directly to a negative terminal on the ship’s batteries. With everything switched off and the mains disconnected, I had 200mV - all my skin fittings are bronze, so anything between 500mV and 700 mV is acceptable. (The low reading probably indicates that I don’t have enough zincs on the boat, but there’s nowhere else to put them.)
We then switched on various equipment - fridges, instruments, chart plotter, radar, water pump, but they all seemed okay at around 200-220mV. I plugged in the mains power, which also made very little difference, even when the air-conditioner was running. Then, I switched on the power to my laptop and saw the voltage rise to 620mV. It’s within acceptable limits, but there’s obviously some kind of earth leakage from the 12V computer power supply.
Graeme said that he thought we were okay and had a look at the old propeller, commenting that he’d seen worse and suspected that we were getting zinc loss in the propeller simply because the propeller was 16 years old. I will try to get a galvanic probe and investigate the computer supply circuit when I’ve got a bit more time.
Glenys returned in the early evening and said that everything is okay with her eyes. The optician gave her a prescription for glasses which is +0.75 & +1.5, which is much, much better that the minus 14 prescription she had before the operation.
We invited “Peggy West” and “Viannica” over for cocktails and then we all retired to the Hard Dock Café for an evening meal.
29 December 2016 Rebak Marina, Langkawi
After paying a huge bill, we checked out of the marina and motored into deeper water, where we hove-to for an hour to run (and test) the water-maker. We then sailed into Telaga marina, filled up with diesel, booked a hire car for tomorrow and finally anchored at 14:00.
We chilled out for the rest of the afternoon. “Sea Monkey” and “Conrad” turned up in the evening, so they came over to say hello and stayed for a beer.
30 December 2016 Rebak Marina, Langkawi
It was a shop-till-you-drop day. We picked up the hire car and drove to Matsirat, where unfortunately, the big supermarket was closed - don’t try to do anything on a Friday in a Muslim country…
Actually, the day didn’t turn out too bad - many of the shops were closed, but the wet market and the supermarket at the Cinema Mall were open, so we were able to stock up on the things that we wanted.
We’ve been prevaricating when we should leave Langkawi, mostly because we were keen to buy some cheap wine and we’ve already used our December duty-free allowance. Fortunately, “Sea Monkey” told us about a small shop in Kuah, where booze could be bought without any questions asked. The lady had been cleaned out by a rush of cruisers going to buy alcohol, but we were able to buy her last ten bottles of wine and three cases of beer.
With a bit of alcohol on-board, we decided that we could leave Langkawi without having to wait a few days more for our January allowance. We cleared out at the Ferry Terminal which was easy - apart from the fact that Friday lunch time is extended until 15:00 because the men have to go to the mosque to pray. However, we were finished by 16:00 and after a quick run back to the marina, we were back on the boat by 17:00. With full tanks of water and fuel, beer in the fridge and restocked with food, we leave Malaysia tomorrow.
31 December 2016 Rebak Marina to Ko Lipe, Thailand
Until we get to Phuket and buy a SIM card, we won’t be able to access the Internet, so we didn’t get away until 10:00 because I was messing about doing final emails and getting a GRIB file to act as the forecast for the next week.
We motored for half an hour, then the wind picked up and we sailed all the way to within ½ mile of the anchorage. For most of the passage we had 15 knots of wind and were going along at 7 knots most of the time - it’s nice to have a clean bottom.
By mid-afternoon, we were anchored off Ko Adang at 06°31.87N 099°16.91E in 16 metres of water close to the reef. I went snorkelling for an hour which was brilliant, but after a three month lay-off, I’ve forgotten how to use my underwater camera. I took 80 photographs and 78 were complete rubbish, although I was rather pleased with a macro shot of some coral.
It started raining in the evening, but we had a nice, quiet New Year’s Eve, drinking wine and reminiscing, looking at the photographs of this year. Despite the fact that we’ve only sailed 2,350 miles, we’ve managed to pack in a trip to Myanmar; replaced the teak deck; flew to the UK; spent two months in the remote Anambas Islands; and did some land travel in Malaysia, Thailand and Cambodia.