REST DAYS

TURTLE ROCK ANCHORAGE, PANGKOR ISLAND

We sit right under the small box mid screen where the notation is E 100° 33' 04. No we're not in the picture but that is our location. See now Mel you won't even have to cut and paste.

°°We arrived here on Sunday the 27 th and will depart tomorrow morning for Penang Island approximately 70 miles to the northwest. After traveling six days in a row,it has been a nice break!

Sunday afternoon we launched our dinghy and provided transportation to Mark and Heather, of "Ajax" who have been traveling with us, to go to shore for a dinner out. It was Heather's birthday. After six days moving it was nice to stop and go to shore.

It was so relaxing we decided to make it a two day layover. Monday after a few early boat jobs it was off to shore to visit Pangkor town on the other side of the island. Taxi fare for the four of us for the short three mile trip was 10RM or about $3.30 US. Pangkor town has lots of small tourist shops along with local style markets for fruits and veggies. The girls were able to find some fresh produce and the guys located some "boat" stuff at some of the small hardware stores. Mark found hose clamps that he had paid $18 NZ for $15 RM,a saving of about $10 US. Are you confused yet? Lunch was at a local spot and then a taxi back to where we had left our dinghy.  Since the water here is quite nice, 85° and fairly clear, ten foot of visibility, we had a nice float in the afternoon.

Today, the 29 th, we have been busy catching up on lots of little ongoing boat jobs. Kathy did the "big" one of scrubbing the water line. We are now rid of the green slime and mud that had accumulated over the seven months in Danga Bay.

Tomorrow, we're off at 0445 for the seventy mile trip to Penang island. We'll also spend a couple of days there to secure our long term visa for Thailand. It will then be off to our last stop in Malaysia, Langkawi.

THE MIDDLE OF ????

ANCHORED 03°38.173'N 100°58.169'E

Another travel day making about 45 miles. We are anchored in a bay off a fishing village at the above location. Those of you with google earth can enter those coordinates to see exactly where.

Last night after I had updated things we had several hours of very heavy rain with lots of accompanying thunder and lightening. The bonus was we were able to fill our water tanks along with a couple of gallons put into jugs for drinking water.

Another 0645 departure with this location as our hoped for stop. On arrival it looked OK, so down went the anchor. It was a strict motor today with no wind. No big ship traffic today but lots of fishing boats. The fishermen continue to go buy either on their way in or out. They always come very close to wave and smile. Some pull out their cell phone and take our photo.

S/V Ajax who have been traveling with us had a mechanical difficulty today, a leaking seal on their engines raw water pump, so they were happy it was our normal 45+/- mile day. We too had a problem. Another tear in our ancient main sail. We're staring to think there is more sticky back repair material on the sail than sail cloth. The good news is we are in the process of ordering a new one. Hopefully this one will last a few more months.

Tomorrow is another day with the same general plan. Our intended anchorage is Turtle Rock at the south end of Pangkor Island. Depending on arrival time we hope to launch dink and go a Chinese restaurant ashore that we have visited before. Kathy is ready for a night off from cooking.

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

DAY FOUR

 PORT KLANG 02° 59' 30" N  101° 19' 40"

Today was our fourth underway covering about 40 miles from our anchorage last night near a power plant just north of Port Dickson. Tonight we are anchored across from the cruise ship terminal in the middle of a very busy industrial port.

Once again today was a motor, though yesterday we did have some nice wind on the beam and actually got to sail a bit.

Arriving here in Port Klang was thrilling as you need to dodge the shipping traffic moving around. We were fortunate and had a favorable current and at times were making 9 knots  while under power. This is an anchorage we have not used before but it seems OK.

Tomorrow we exit the north channel of Port  Klang and our plan is to make about 45 miles and find an anchorage spot. It's about 85 miles to Pangkor Island and an anchorage we are familiar with, that's just to far for one day. We have been told it's possible to get close to shore in a depth you are comfortable with and anchor. Tomorrow night that's our plan.

AT LAST

Palau Basar 02°06'37" N 102°20'27"

We finally departed Danga Bay Marina on Tuesday 22 Nov. We left with the tide at 0700 and had an uneventful 40 mile motor sail to Palau Pisang. Tuesday was a Malaysian holiday, we were told the Sultans birthday and made for less traffic as we crossed the entry channel for the cargo ships coming to port. Usually you need to wait at one of the channel markers and then like crossing a freeway make a mad dash between incoming and outgoing ships. We had no ships moving and later as we proceeded up the Malacca straits not many fishing boats to contend with either.

Today was a long 67 miles to the anchorage here at Palau Basar. We awoke at 0400 and were underway about 0450. We managed to get the anchor down and settled at 1740. The trip along the west coast of Malaysia is busy with the north and southbound shipping traffic in the Malacca straits and the local fishing fleet with their gill nets set everywhere. The route is also subject to lots of tidal current. It's either with or against you so our speed varied from 4 knots to 7 knots. As normal here the wind was from on the nose to a very close reach so Miss Perky was in service all day. We had winds from 5 to 25 knots.

Weather permitting we will continue to move daily toward toward the island of Penang where we will stop for a couple of days to secure our visa's for Thailand. Then on to Langkawi our last stop in Malaysia, before making our way to Thailand.

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Bright and Shiney Light

DANGA BAY 01° 28' 20.22" N 103° 43' 26.4"

OK, to you followers of the blog you may or most likely won't notice a position change but we're still here in Danga Bay marina. No we did not change slips but my "old" lifeguard buddy Mel Tubbs brought to my attention that I had made an error, possibly only the third of my life but I'll admit it. So if you use "google earth" and zoom in it shows the marina but their photo was taken at a time when we were not here.

There is now a shinning bright light light at the end of the tunnel. We will be moving shortly.

Today was very busy. First the portlights were finished. I got started working on another patch for our well used dinghy. Kathy helped with the clean-up of the bedding compound on the portlights and did her daily laundry. Remember she has no washing machine and laundry is done in a bucket then wrung out by hand and dried by "Mother Nature".

 As we're ready to leave it was time to clean the bottom of the boat. The good news, I have dove in worse conditions in my past life working for the Sheriff's Harbor patrol, but not many. Visibility was about ten inches and on getting out of the water I was covered with sea lice, thank God for a lycra skin suit. We do have some otters that live here in the area and at least I had no face to face expierences today. Having been here and not moving we had quite a large growth on the bottom. If in California I might have had to file an environmental impact statement but there are some nice things about emerging third world countries.

The next couple of days will be busy but soon we'll actually be "cruising" again.

LIGHT

DANGA BAY  01° 23' N  103° 43' E

There is LIGHT at the end of the tunnel!!

The varnish and paint brushes have been cleaned and put away. The roller for the new non-skid too.

We're still using lots of blue tape as today was spent working on portlight  leaks

                                 

Today was "eggs to lay and chickens to hatch" as Don Stewart would say. We are into the local rainy season, work needs to be finished by about 3 pm as that's when the cats and dogs normally start falling out of the sky in the form of raindrops. 

This morning at 0830 after getting a few more things re-installed in the cockpit it was back to taking portlights apart to solve the leaking problem. Water dripping onto the electrical panel is never a good thing. We have also suffered some discoloration of interior wood. Frames were pulled off and old bedding compound removed. As usual several screws broke off causing more drilling and filling. Lots of epoxy was injected. Finally about 2 pm temporary plastic was put on. As you would expect there was no rain today.

There is still another day of applying epoxy to go then the frames can be re-installed and hopefully that will end the leakage in that area. Also that only leaves 10 more portlights to redo.

Today I kept Kathy busy assisting me mixing epoxy, the last several days she has been busy loading up the computer with music to be played through our IPOD.

There is still a bunch to finish up with before we can get underway north but there is definitely LIGHT!!

KEEPING BUSY

DANGA BAY  01° 23 N  103°43 E

No we're not planning on dying here in Danga Bay but I have thought of establishing a retirement village for senile sailors.

We're still busy with the work that has been deferred for quite some time but we are moving along. We even

now once again like a boat. The anchor rollers and other hardware back in place. Those anchor's look to have never been used since they have been re-galvinized. The other projects are coming together too.






Kathy is trying to finish her varnish project but first more repair work to the cabin sole. Through the years the underlying plywood has become a bit rotten. Once again it's the epoxy injection trick. Thinned epoxy is smeared along the cracks, allowed to penetrate through and after drying the floor is solid again. Next sanding and varnish.

Kathy has also been busy with some exterior work. No we do not plan on bringing the outside trim back to varnish. Gray teak is just fine but after several years of scrubbing it's time to do a bit of sanding to even out the grain and test out the new sander.

Previous blogs have lately dealt with our outside deck and cabintop painting, along with a leaking portlight. Water leaks have not been the only leak lately. Our auxillary engine, "Miss Perky" has also had some issues too. Shortly after changing out the oil and transmission fluid lines I began to notice more then normal oil in the bilge. Now "Miss Perky" is a tractor engine made by Perkins and they have always been known to leak a bit of oil but not as much as what was showing up in the bilge. Since this began after the installation of the new oil lines that was my first clue. I kept looking but was unable to discover the cause.

After a through bilge cleaning and then placing oil absorbant pads in a number of locations "Miss Perky" was started and let to idle. Lying atop the engine I finally managed to see a slight drip of oil coming from the base of one of the oil lines. It was not a loose connection but rather a buggered fitting

                                                                                       

The dimple in the top of the cone caused a bad seal. The next step was trying to remove the fitting. It would not budge. So the entire assembly had to be taken off before I managed to get the fitting out and a new one installed.

                                                                                                      

This was my work area. Hey compared to lots of other boats this is very roomey. It took a bit of time but no more oil leakage.

A SQUALL APPROACHING

RAIN

Remember that I said we had fixed one of the leaking portlights, well with the dogs and cats once again falling from the sky another has begun leaking. I guess I'll always have something to keep busy.

KATHY keeping in touch with HOME







YES, I'm ALIVE



As I normally start my day at 6 am with coffee and a check of the internet for news and sports then begin on the boat projects about 8, after lunch it's siesta time. The floor always makes my back feel better, the BEER helps too..

Today was the first coat of finish paint in the cockpit, it's white but somewhat resembles having been applied by a wisk broom. No worries tomorrow it will be sanded and with luck the next coat will be better. Soon we hope to be on the move again and out enjoying this crazy cruising lifestyle.