3 November 2016 Admiral Marina, Malaysia
We went into Port Dickson and obtained our domestic clearance to go to Langkawi. It’s all a bit of an irritation having to go to the Port Captain, Customs and Immigration, but it only took an hour. While we were in town, we went shopping to restock up on fresh food, then caught a cab back to the boat.
After lunch, I arranged to get some diesel delivered. The marina has a fuel dock, but it hasn’t worked for years, so one of the enterprising locals gets diesel in jerry cans from a local garage and marks the fuel up from 1.90 ringgit/litre to 2.90 ringgit/litre. I bought 200 litres, which is £40 profit - not a bad little earner. However, he brings the fuel to the boat in clean containers and helps to pour it into the fuel tank, so it’s not too bad a deal.
Later in the afternoon, I put on my scuba gear and dived down under the boat to replace the propeller. It was a little tense and I mentally walked through the process a few times before I started. Dropping one of the small parts into the thick sludge on the sea bed would have been a disaster. In the event, it all went well and it only took me half an hour.
Glenys spent the afternoon helping me, interspersed with starting to wash the pile of dirty clothes that we’ve accumulated while on holiday.
4 November 2016 Admiral Marina, Malaysia
The weather was pretty miserable this morning with heavy rain and a ten knot wind from the north-west, which is where we’re heading. The forecast looks the same for the next few days, so we’re planning to leave on the 6th, when the winds will be very light. We’ll be motoring, but that’s better than having the wind on the nose.
I didn’t feel like doing any jobs, so I had an admin day, catching up on our finances and doing the dreaded annual Tax Returns. Glenys nipped to the shops and then pottered about doing some jobs.
5 November 2016 Admiral Marina, Malaysia
With a couple of days before we leave, we had a quiet day. Glenys did a few jobs and I checked that we’re ready for sea, running the engine and tidying up a little bit.
6 November 2016 Admiral Marina, Malaysia
It was another overcast day, so we lurked down below. I caught up on editing the hundreds of photos that I took in Thailand and Cambodia and getting our web site up to date before we set off on the next leg of our voyage.
7 November 2016 Admiral Marina to Pulau Pangkor, Malaysia (Day 1)
With only 140 miles for our overnight passage, we had a leisurely start and wombled out of the marina around 09:00. The wind was coming from the north-west at about 8 knots (12 knots over the deck), directly from where we wanted to go and the sea was choppy with one metre waves making our progress under power slow. Having been land bound for six weeks, we were feeling a little grumpy for the first few hours until we became acclimatised to the bouncing motion.
The rest of the day was boring - just motoring and motoring with the wind always on the nose. The evening was more of the same.
8 November 2016 Admiral Marina to Pulau Pangkor, Malaysia (Day 2)
It was a pleasant, but boring night and we arrived at Pangkor just before midday - 27 hours of remorseless motoring. We anchored at 04°12.56N 100°33.05E in 5 metres over good holding mud. After lunch, we chilled out for the afternoon and then had dinner sitting in the cockpit for the first time for months - I’d forgotten how nice it is to be at anchor.
9 November 2016 Pulau Pangkor, Malaysia
We spent the morning pottering about - I had a long needed haircut and then dropped the dinghy into the water. To my amazement, the outboard started on the third pull - not bad after such a long layoff.
Just before noon, we went ashore and hired a scooter for 30 Ringgit (£6). We only needed it for half a day and probably got over-charged, but it was so cheap that I couldn’t be bothered to haggle. The main town of the island is very small and reminded us of Tarempa in the Anambas. There are lots of small shops selling a mixture of groceries and t-shirts.
We’ve been told that Pangkor is a favourite destination for Malaysians to take a weekend break, but being a Wednesday, it was very quiet with many of the small restaurants closed. The island is famous for dried fish and dozens of shops were displaying large baskets of dried fish, shrimp and squid. Vacuum packed packets of dried slivers of fish & cuttle-fish marinated in sweet or savoury sauces were on sale everywhere. A lady in one of the shops gave us a sample of a sliver of cuttlefish in a sweet marinade, which was like fishy Biltong - not our favourite snack.
The majority of the islanders seem to be of Chinese descent and we ended up in a Chinese run Warung for lunch. There was no menu, but a lady was stir-frying using a huge wok next to the pavement. They spoke no English, so we pointed at noodles and rice and asked for one Mee Goring and one Nasi Goring, letting the lady add whatever she wanted. It was very good and cheap at £0.90 each.
We visited the Chinese temple, which like most Chinese Buddhist temples is very colourful. The temple is located at the bottom of a steep sided hill and they’ve built a miniature “Great Wall of China” up the side of the hill. There’s a footpath with steps which meanders up the hill in between the wall and we spent a pleasant 30 minutes wandering about.
We circumnavigated the island, which is very pretty with verdant rain forest. On the way, Glenys insisted that we visit the local fish drying factory, which was basically a shop full of dried fish, where she bought some dried shrimp, dried fish slices and a packet of foul-looking, dried spicy fish snack.
10 November 2016 Pulau Pangkor to Jerejak Island, Penang
With 75 miles to sail to Penang, we left at the crack of dawn. There wasn’t any wind of course, so we motored hard to try to maintain a 6 knot average all day. It was very, very boring - we saw a few fishing boats and that was about all.
As the day progressed, the wind picked up from the north-west, which was on the nose, but good enough to fill our mainsail and give us some forward power. With a favourable current for most of the day, we made good time and were able to make it all the way to Jerejak Island, where we anchored at 05°19.06N 100°18.49E in 8 metres of water. Ten minutes after we’d anchored it was dark.
11 November 2016 Jerejak Island, Malaysia
Neither of us could be bothered to do anything, so we had a quiet day on board doing research into our Indian Ocean Crossing. Glenys focused on Sri Lanka where we are expecting to do a few weeks land travel. I spent all day researching anchorages and regulations for the Andaman Islands which will be our first stop in January.
12 November 2016 Jerejak Island, Malaysia
We had another research day. Glenys continued studying Sri Lanka, while I continued with the Andaman Islands, which are owned by India and look very interesting. The indigenous people are a race of pygmys called the Andamanese and until the end of the eighteenth century, they had never met western man and lived a peaceful hunter/gatherer existence.
There are now only 450 Andamanese remaining in the archipelago and the government restricts access to their lands, so contact with tourists is strictly forbidden. There's one tribe called the Sentinelese, who live on an isolated island and shun all contact with outsiders - whenever a government boat approaches the island it's met with a volley of arrows...
Consequently, there is a lot of bureaucracy surrounding cruising in this area - all boats must submit an itinerary of anchorages, which is approved by the port captain. There’s also a requirement for every boat to radio their position twice a day. It should be an interesting trip.
13 November 2016 Jerejak Island to Straits Quay Marina, Malaysia
We were up early to catch the favourable tide to Straits Quay Marina. Unfortunately, when we arrived, the marina was completely full and we had to hang around outside waiting for our berth to become vacant. It’s always a tense experience entering the marina because it’s very shallow at the entrance - about 0m at low tide. We entered on a 2.5m tide and found that the shallowest point was just inside the marina walls, but we saw nothing less than 2.6 metres.
Once ensconced in our berth, we switched on the air-conditioning and, apart from a short excursion to the local Tesco supermarket, we stayed on board. We invited Chris and Nancy from “Amulet” for a sun-downer and caught up on their adventures for the past couple of months.
14 November 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Malaysia
In preparation for our Indian Ocean Crossing, we have a long list of maintenance jobs to complete on the boat, but we’ve come to Penang to get maintenance on our bodies. We’ve booked to see a dentist later this week and, while we’re here, we decided to have some medical check-ups done at the nearby Seventh Adventist Hospital.
Glenys tried to see a Dermatologist and an Eye Specialist, but she couldn’t get an appointment until tomorrow, so she went shopping at the nearby Gurney Plaza Mall. I’ve had numbness and tingling in my toes for the past year, so I went to see a Neurologist. He thinks that I have a trapped nerve in my lower back, so he sent me for an MRI scan. Amazingly, they could fit me in straight away, so within fifteen minutes, I was inside the noisy machine - I’ll get the results tomorrow.
15 November 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Malaysia
I returned to the hospital to get the results of my MRI scan and it turns out that I’ve got a bulging disk in my lower back, which is pressing on the nerves in the spinal cord. It’s all to do with my very poor posture – too many years sat at a laptop. It’s not a catastrophic problem, but very annoying because the disk won’t ever regain its shape and if I don’t sort out my posture, then it will get worse and I’ll end up with Sciatica – pain in the legs…
So I went to see a physiotherapist, who gave me some exercises to strengthen the muscles in between my shoulder blades and reverse my rounded-shoulder/head-forward posture. I spent the rest of the day on the internet, reading up on what to do about my condition.
The thing that most concerns me is that when we’re at sea, I spend all my waking hours sat in the cockpit with my head bent down, reading a book, while my whole body bounces up and down bending my lower spine and probably making the injury worse. I either need to modify our cockpit seats to have lumbar support or buy a surgical corset…
Glenys went to see a dermatologist and had several sun-damaged spots zapped with liquid nitrogen. She also went to see an optical surgeon because her vision has been getting worse over the past six months. Unfortunately, she’s been told that she has cataracts in both eyes, so she’s now trying to decide whether to leave the operation until we get to South Africa in December 2017 or get the surgery done here in Malaysia before we sail across the Indian Ocean next year.
Perhaps this long distance sailing in the tropics is starting to destroy our bodies.
16 November 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Malaysia
It was an overcast morning, so a good time to go up the mast. The sheave where the genoa halyard exits the mast was faulty and I’d bought a replacement while back in England last June. It’s a relatively simple job - drill out two pop rivets, slide the old sheave box out, run the halyard through the new box, slide into place and fix with two new pop rivets.
Unfortunately, the top of the fore-stay is six inches above the sheave box, so it’s impossible to get at the pop rivets. So, we had to drop the genoa, slacken the back stay, disconnect the fore-stay at the bottom and swing it out of the way. That only took an hour, by which time the clouds had gone and we were working in the beating sun.
I removed the two pop rivets with only one swearing event when I broke a twist drill in the hole - fortunately, I was able to get the drill out without too much hassle. I tried to slide the sheave box out, but it was jamming. After a trip back down the mast to get my long crow bar, I was still unable to lever the sheave box out. I could just see that the pin through the middle of the pulley was out of place and sticking though the side of the sheave box.
After several trips up and down the steps on our 60 foot mast (a good work out), I drilled out a 20mm * 6mm slot in the mast at the side of the sheave box which, after a bit of filing, gave me enough space to wiggle the loose sheave pin and pull the sheave box out. Phew! I tidied up the slot in the mast by filing round corners to relieve any stress points, and slid the new sheave box in place. The two pop rivets were easy enough to install and the job was done.
It took another hour to replace the forestay and the genoa; and then half an hour to stow away all the tools & spare parts that I’d dragged out during the job. By four o’clock, the job was finished and I was dehydrated and exhausted. Glenys spent the day assisting me up and down the mast, interspersed with rushing off every hour to do the laundry.
17 November 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Malaysia
Today was a dentist day. It’s relatively cheap to get dental work done in Malaysia - about a third of the cost in Europe, so we planned on having as much work done as possible. Glenys had some serious root canal work done here in May and the dentist had put on a temporary crown which has lasted well. She had the mould taken for a new crown, which will be fitted next week.
I had a cracked molar, which needed a lot of drilling, so that a crown can be fitted next week. It was mega-sensitive, so I had to have two big injections - whimp! We were both feeling sorry for ourselves in the afternoon.
18 November 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Malaysia
We chilled out in the morning, pottering about and then went to see Doctor Strange at the cinema. It was a very high tech cinema, but the tickets were very cheap compared to the UK - £2.40 each, reduced to £1.80 because we claimed old age pensioners rates.
The GPS has not been working on our iPad, so I dropped it into a repair centre a few days ago. They have allegedly done tests on it, but the GPS still doesn’t work. The “Location Services” works fine when the iPad is connected to wi-fi, so the GPS appears to work, but when wi-fi is disconnected the GPS doesn’t work. Unfortunately, the repair centre people can’t wrap their heads around the concept of not having a Wi-fi or mobile data connection and are convinced that there’s nothing wrong with the iPad. It’s so frustrating.
19 November 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Malaysia
For the past two years, we’ve been accumulating more and more stuff on-board. This has been exacerbated by us holding onto clothes, bits of rope, old diving masks, fishing gear and houseware in the anticipation of giving it to some needy islanders like we did in Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea. South-east Asia is a fairly wealth region and the culture is not the same as the Pacific, so we’ve not been giving anything away.
We spent all day going through lockers and being ruthless. By the end of the day, we had binned lots of stuff and had three large bags full of clothes and stuff, which we’re going to take to a charity shop. It feels good to be less cluttered.
20 November 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Malaysia
I bought some new running shoes the other day and went for a run before breakfast, which nearly killed me (although the shoes were great). We spent the rest of the day continuing with our locker clearance project. It’s amazing what we’re finding - a tent that we bought in the USA four years ago and have never used; an old car stereo that I replaced nine months ago; two pairs of large diving fins - out it all goes… We gathered another three big bin liners of stuff and the Salvation Army are going to collect it next week.
In anticipation of being anchored in very remote places next year, with no fresh vegetables, Glenys has been experimenting with growing seeds hydroponically. She’s started off with growing Mung Beans to make beans sprouts and has had success with a method using a coarse sieve, which produces good bean sprouts without spindly roots, in just a couple of days. She’s going to branch out into Micro-greens, so I’m hoping to have fresh cilantro sprinkled on my freshly caught fish, when we’re sitting in the isolated atoll in Chagos.
21 November 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Malaysia
I went with Glenys to the International Specialist Eye Clinic where she had her eyes checked and measured for her cataract operations. It all went well and they have ordered the new lenses that will be placed in her eye. These can be manufactured in a couple of days, so she’s booked in for the first operation on the 25th November and the second one will be the following week. The procedure will cost around £800 per eye, which Glenys assures me is a bargain.
After leaving Glenys at the Eye Clinic, I caught the bus into Georgetown - the public bus system in Penang is cheap and very efficient. I visited Pen Marine, which is the only chandlers in town, wanting to buy some Marine Sanitary hose to replace the hose on the front heads. They didn’t have any, but the manager Eric, kindly drove me to a nearby hardware shop to have a look at some reinforced PVC pipe. It wasn’t robust enough for me, so I later sent Eric a link to a website showing the spec of the hose and he’s ordered some from Australia.
I have a good feeling that Penn Marine will be able to find specialist marine parts, which gives me confidence to tackle some of the big jobs that I’ve been storing up. When I got back to the boat, I started work on a water leak on our hot water tank. I’ve been dreading this job because I suspected that the stainless steel tank had a leak around one of the pipes. This would mean removing the tank and either getting it repaired or more likely having to buy a new one.
The tank is in an awkward position, fixed to the roof at the back of the engine compartment, so I had to lie across the engine and the generator, which didn’t do my back any good. After a little bit of tentative investigation, I found that the leak was coming from around the electric heating element. An hour later, I had removed the element and to my great relief found that there was no corrosion and the leak was simply around the seal. I cleaned it all up and applied some Loctite thread sealant with a little bit of hemp fibre - job done, apart from tidying up the wiring.
22 November 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Malaysia
We took down the bimini, so that Glenys could do some much needed maintenance. She made the bimini in New Zealand two years ago and unfortunately, the edging tape that she used wasn’t very resistant to strong sun and has disintegrated. She spent most of the day unpicking the damn stuff.
I spent the morning finishing off the water heater. I replaced the thermostat, but broke off the earth stud which had corroded after being dripped on for 12 months. It took me an hour to rewire and attach the earth to another point on the boiler. I then spent the rest of the morning knocking rust off the steel support and vibration mounting for the generator, which was directly below the dripping hot water tank and had corroded badly. I plan to coat them with Hammerite paint.
In the afternoon, I removed the engine sea water pump, which has been leaking. When we were back in the UK, I bought a new Speedseal plate, so it should have been a simple job to clean up the pump and replace the plate, but one of the mounting bolts had rusted and I couldn’t shift it. I tried spraying the thread with Liquid Wrench and then heating the bolt, but eventually I stripped the head of the bolt, so a spanner was useless.
I cut a slot in the bolt head and tried an impact driver, which didn’t work either , so eventually I dug out my Dremel and used a cutting disk to grind off the head of the bolt. After a three hour struggle and plenty of bruises on my hands, I got the damn thing off; tidied up and cracked open a cold beer.
23 November 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Malaysia
We had another dentist appointment - we both had crowns fitted and Glenys also had a leaking filling repaired. Afterwards, she sloped off to do some shopping by herself, while I went back to the boat and cleaned up the sea water pump, fitting the new Speedseal cover.
I then started sorting through the many spare parts that I’ve accumulated over the years. I tried to be ruthless, but every time that I held some part in my hand, I thought “Is there a vague possibility that I might need this in an isolated atoll in the middle of the Indian Ocean?” Unfortunately, in most cases, the answer was “Yes” and the part went back in the locker, so did the old worn out Speedseal cover that I’d just replaced - just in case…
24 November 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Malaysia
Having removed all of the rotten edging tape yesterday, Glenys spent most of the day slaving over a hot sewing machine doing various patching and reinforcing jobs on the bimini. I had a lazy day doing some admin and researching a set of exercises that I can do every morning to help me sort out my posture and strengthen my back.
One of my admin jobs was to start organising a cruising permit to the remote Chagos archipelago, which we will be visiting in June next year. The islands are part of the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) and there are very strict rules imposed by the UK government - it can take months to get the necessary clearance.
BIOT are very concerned about the pristine environment in the atolls, so one of the regulations is that we have to have third party liability insurance which covers the removal of a wrecked yacht should we get into trouble. Unfortunately, our hull insurance expires in April next year, so I’ve had to renegotiate the insurance, cancel the existing policy and start a new policy in December.
We had a similar problem with our health insurance because BIOT wants us to have medical evacuation insurance cover and again our DAN travel insurance policy runs out in April. We’ve managed to renew ahead of time, so we’re now insured until April 2018, but I now have the relevant insurance certificates, so I can apply for the cruising permit - it’s not easy this cruising stuff.
In the evening, we went out for a fish and chip dinner with Mike and Rosie from “Shakti”.
25 November 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Malaysia
We pottered around in the morning, doing a few jobs. Glenys worked on the bimini and I spent a couple of hours cleaning up the engine, wire brushing various bolts & rusty spots, which I then painted with green Hammerite.
In the afternoon, we caught a bus to the Eye Clinic where Glenys had the lens removed from her left eye and a new artificial lens slipped in. We were hanging about for 1½ hours, but the actual operation only took 15 minutes. They used various eye drops and gave her some Valium before the operation, after which she looked very spooky - moving around in slow motion with one wildly dilated eye.
After the operation, Glenys felt tired and a little bilious - no doubt from the medication and the shock of the operation, but a taxi soon delivered us back home, where we had a quiet night.
26 November 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Malaysia
After an early breakfast, we went back to the Eye Clinic, where they checked Glenys’ eye. It all seems to have gone well, so she’s booked another appointment in a week’s time to get the second eye done. We’ll then have to wait a further week for another check-up before we can get moving again.
We didn’t get back to the boat until lunchtime, so I’d lost the will to do any work on the boat. I just did a few small jobs on the engine and then played guitar for a couple of hours - I’m struggling to play “Postcards from Paraguay”, which is a little complicated and very fast. Glenys has been told not to do any exertion at all, so she spent the afternoon chilling out.
27 November 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Malaysia
We had another day on-board, pottering about and doing a few jobs - I’m starting to get marina fever and want to get out of here, but I’ve just got to accept that we’ll be here for at least another two weeks.
I had another day in the engine room. The electric water heater wasn’t working, which I traced to a faulty thermostat. I took it apart and managed to get it working again - I dropped the unit when I repaired the water leak in the water tank and a small plastic part had jammed. I then replaced the sea water pump on the engine and ran the engine for ten minutes - no water leak any more.
The Sail Malaysia Rally arrived today with over 20 boats who have come up through Indonesia this year, so we went to their evening gathering and scammed a few beers. After the inevitable speeches, we all traipsed off to some nearby hawker stands for some cheap food.
28 November 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Malaysia
Glenys felt strong enough to do some more sewing work on the bimini, while I had yet another day in the engine room, this time working on the generator. We had a small water leak in the coolant header tank, which needed sorting out. After draining the water system, I unbolted the top plate and found that the gasket was a home-made job which wasn’t worth saving.
I spent a couple of hours cleaning up the sealing surfaces and started to make a gasket - then the day was over.
29 November 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Malaysia
In an effort to get fitter and correct my posture, I’ve been going for a run first thing in the morning and then doing strengthening exercises - hoping of course to develop a six-pack stomach. By the time that I’d cooled down and showered this morning, it was ten o’clock, so I spent the rest of the morning doing some admin - booking a marina in Marissa in Sri Lanka and sending off our application for a Mooring Permit for Chagos.
After lunch, we wandered off to the cinema, where we watched a movie, scoffed a big bag of Maltesers and a bottle of Coca Cola. On the way back to the boat, we stopped off and bought a take-away pizza, which was consumed with great relish with some cold beers. The only six pack that my body recognises is one of beer…
30 November 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Malaysia
Glenys worked on the bimini and, what a surprise, I had another day in the engine room - oh joy! I finished making the gasket for the generator coolant header tank and fitted it using some gasket sealant. I then replaced the exhaust elbow on the generator, which had developed a couple of small holes. Meanwhile Glenys did some more work on the bimini - she’s only allowed to do an hour’s work at a time until her eye is better.
We have hardly stepped off the boat all day, so it feels like we’re in a time warp.