OUR COMPASS AN UNUSUAL REPAIR

Anchored 05° 36.8N 115° 37.42E

For the last several days we have been anchored in the above location. We left Labuan after a big shopping day for duty free items, beer, wine and rum. We continued our move northeast and anchored at Pulau Tiga or survivor island as it hosted the 2001 "Survivor" TV show. We visited the resort where the production crew stayed and were hopeful to spend a few days there enjoying the clear waters and perhaps a jungle walk. Alas, the weather gods had something else in mind, a strong southwesterly blew up and after a sleepless night rocking and rolling about on a lee shore we moved to our present location. This has been a calm and secure anchorage and we have managed to relax and complete a few projects.

 For several months now we have had a problem with our compass. It had lost it's fluid and though it did work was not what it should be. The first thing was to find out what the correct fluid was, some use oil and others a petroleum based one. We found ours needed kerosene.  Even in this modern age of GPS and electronic charts we want to have the tried and reliable of old. A properly working compass, paper charts etc. Having nothing to lose, out came the compass from it's mounting to see what was causing the fluid to disappear.

                                   Ah hah! A crack was located in the dome, so apart it came.

 Disassembled we found a plastic dome with a four inch crack. So how can as Kathy calls me "Mister Fix-it" repair this. I looked through my various epoxies and settled on the all purpose Marine-tex. The cracked area was sanded, cleaned and then Marine-tex applied.

TAPED OFF AND READY FOR EPOXY

SEALED, WE HOPE!!

 The dome is sealed and ready for re-assembly. Oh No! on further inspection at the bottom of the compass is a rubber diaphram that has a tear in it. So now what "Mister fix-it"!!!

A SMALL HOLE IN THE DIAPHRAM



I JUST KEEP TAKING THINGS APART



 Epoxies are great for repair of metals, plastics etc. but what to use on rubber that needs to remain elastic. My answer was to use a product called 3bond, a liquid rubber based gasket material.

 I last used this on the rear oil seal of the engine. I applied several coats and after letting it cure overnight gave it a test by soaking it in kerosene. The kerosene seemed to have no affect so the whole compass was re-assembled and filled with fluid. One slight problem was we did not have enough kerosene,

So the compass has been re-installed and as tomorrow we are moving again to Kota Kinabalu we hope to find more kerosene to eliminate the "bubble".

This was not what I would reccomend as a "do-it-yourself' fix but here where there are no professionals to do these sorts of things we just try to do what we can.

MIRI, PROJECTS and MORE

Anchored Labuan Is. Malaysia 05° 16.4N 115° 14.3E

As we headed on to Miri we made our way through the Piloh River. From the photo of our route you can see the many waypoints as we wound our way.

The river has lots of varied traffic from high speed passenger ferry's to small fishing vessels. This was a fast transit as we had a favorable current both the evening we entered the river and the next day to complete our trip.

The next days were once again motor boat trips. We're not sure if it is ever possible to sail along this coast. As we moved toward Miri we did enjoy some nice sunsets.

THE MARINA ENTRANCE

Once secure in the marina we visited with friends from past anchorages and were told not to worry about checking in with the marina office as they did not really care. This seems to be prevelant in lots of these Malaysian marinas. As we were still having difficulties with our anchor windlass that was our first priority. Again the anchor and chain rode were just dropped off the bow into the marina mud so I could remove the motor to see about a repair. As with lots of yachtie places there was a special taxi guy, Simon, who specialized in yachtie service's. After getting the motor removed it was off to the rewind shop. The repair shop said they could not rewind the motor but did take it apart AGAIN and clean things up. The difference was that this time whatever they did seemed to fix the problem.

As usual we had several other things that needed attention. The refrigeration systems needed a bit of gas. I also wanted top investigate what was still the problem with the watermaker. On checking the watermaker it was operating just fine. I have no idea the problem was but as long as it was now working I was happy.

In the yard next to the marina are two old America's cup boats. These were Australian boats from back when they held the cup in Fremantle during their late 80's. How they ended up here is unknown.

We spent a week and a half in Miri and it was a very nice stop. The provisioning was good as we found avocados for the first time in many a moon along with finding a butcher who sold pork products, as you see out of the trunk of his car.

Getting pork in a Muslim country is not easy. Another great thing at Miri was on Friday nights there was a yachtie munchie and cocktail get together. We have not seen to many like it since leaving Mexico back in 2006.

With repairs made and restocked with fresh food we headed off to the island of Labuan. Labuan is another "duty free" spot where  we could restock our alcoholic libations.

This was another three day motor boat trip past the country of Brunai.. The first night we spent up a river and the second at what is known asd Jerudong marina. This is the Sultan of Brunai's private marina but though we are not welcome ashore there is not a problem in stopping for the night.

From this google earth photo it looks to be quite a complex including a golf course. We had been told to anchor out between the island and breakwater, which we did, and there were no worries.

Today we continued along the coast of Borneo to the island of Labuan, seen above. This is a very busy port. We are anchored about the yellow pin. We only plan to stay a day or two to restock the beer, wine and rum before continuing on toward the Philippines