by Judy Handley | Nov 20, 2009 | Malaysia, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 25, Year 5: Quiet Day with Dinosaur Squeals
Date: Friday, November 20, 2009
Weather: Heavy Rain During the Night; Cloudy Day with Rain
Location: Rebak Marina, Pulau Rebak, Langkawi, Malaysia
We had a quieter day than usual, but mid-day we connected on a Skype video call with Justin, Jo, and Ziggy and got to hear Ziggy’s pterodactyl squeals. Ziggy has two teeth now and is starting to crawl and stand up while holding on to things. And his smiles and squeals are just delightful. He provided the only sunshine on this dreary, cloudy day. Justin and Jo are going to spend the weekend and most of next week moving from Santa Fe back out into the desert to Madrid (pronounced Mad-rid, not like Madrid in Spain). With Ziggy’s new found mobility, we suggested they do a bit of child proofing as they move into the new house. We wish them luck with the move.
Today we organized more STUFF, I spent more time organizing website information, Mark put another coat of paint on the anchor, and then he turned his attention to the Air-X wind generator. When we reinstalled the wind generator after the boat was painted, we reversed some of the wiring and burned out the circuit board for the regulator. So now Mark is VERY carefully following the instructions for the installing the new regulator that is part of an upgrade kit we purchased while home in the US. Supposedly the upgrade allows us to get more amps at lower wind speeds and it should be quieter. It has a new name, theAir-Breeze instead of the Air-X. We’ll install it tomorrow and do some double testing before turning it on this time. We cannot afford to blow another regulator!
It rained so hard last night that it was sometimes hard to sleep because of the noise. It was cloudy again all day, and then started raining in the early evening. I don’t remember it being this rainy here last year at this time, but when I went back and check the logs, there are lots of references to cloudy days and sprinkles. I think the difference that we are getting torrential rain instead of sprinkles. But hopefully we’ll have a few sunny days in the next week.
by Judy Handley | Nov 19, 2009 | Malaysia, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 24, Year 5: Home for Three Weeks Today
Date: Thursday, November 19, 2009
Weather: Cloudy Day, No Rain
Location: Rebak Marina, Pulau Rebak, Langkawi, Malaysia
It is hard for me to believe that we have been back here on Windbird for three weeks, but the calendar probably doesn’t lie, and it tells me this is so. Slowly, ever so slowly, we are getting things back together and fixing those things that we break in the meantime. Today’s work included painting our main 65 pound spade anchor with an aluminum paint that looks somewhat like new galvanized steel.. I am not sure for what reason we did this, as we are sure as it will disappear after anchoring a few times, but it looks good now and our friends on Increscent Moon gave us he paint. I did more work on the website today and we attended a Bilge Swap where everyone was trying to get rid of unwanted stuff. We gave away some things, but ended up buying an almost new Sanyo Xacti HD1 digital video camera with a fantastic underwater housing. This was bought in Singapore last fall for way more than we paid for it today, but our good friends on Free Bird had decided they really just didn’t need one more camera. And since we have no current way of recording underwater, this seemed to fit the bill. We are truly trying to live within our means this year, but when we thought about not being able to record the Maldives and Red Sea underwater or get good video of a trip down the Nile River, we got soft and weakened when the opportunity knocked. We paid less for the whole package than we would pay for the cheapest underwater camera without underwater housing that we can find in Kuah, so we did it. Merry Christmas to us. And this time, the camera will be tied to Mark in some fashion so he can’t lose this one!
We went for a mid-afternoon walk up on the hard stand area. Fatty and Carolyn Goodlander’s boat, Wild Card, has been on the hard for about a week now, and as we walked past we stopped to say hello. This afternoon they were painting the bottom, but they took a few minutes to talk with us. They are headed for the Red Sea, as are we, and they suggested we get together next week to discuss our future travels when they are back in the water. Our friends Tina and Robert of Shirena will be back from Australia by then and we’re hoping we can all get together. I volunteered Shirena as the hosting boat. Nice of me since they are not here to protest!
Tonight we had a salad onboard and then went over to the Hard Dock Café for a seafood pizza for dinner. We sat with Dave and Di of Alamedas. This is the couple that we often had dinner with across the highway from the Boat Lagoon while Windbird was on the hard there. We celebrated the birth of their fourth grandchild, their first girl, early in March last year at that little restaurant. Dave is an engineer and has offered to help us with the installation of our new wind generator and that help is very welcome. When it comes to things electrical, we are a bit challenged. We discovered that our multi-meter is not working correctly this afternoon, so Dave has offered to help with that as well.
Tomorrow is Friday. We will take time to assess all that we have accomplished and what we yet have to do, and then set a departure date. We don’t want to rush too fast, but it is definitely time to get out of a marina and back out to the islands. Thailand is so beautiful and we don’t want to waste one day here when we could be out there enjoying the white sand, turquoise water, and beautiful limestone karsts rising up out of the sea.
by Judy Handley | Nov 18, 2009 | Malaysia, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 23, Year 5: Bye-Bye Shop Vac
Date: Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Weather: Rain All Day
Location: Rebak Marina, Pulau Rebak, Langkawi, Malaysia
As Mark’s mother would have said, “Saddness doth prevail.” Our wonderful little wet/dry 2.5 gallon Shop Vac that cleans out our bilge, cleans up the wonderful messes Mark makes when sanding, grinding, or drilling, and keeps the rugs in Windbird clean is no more. Mark plugged it in to clean up yet another mess and nothing happened. He worked on it and found electricity all the way to the last place he could get into in the motor, but it just won’t go. We cannot buy appliances that work on Windbird with her 110 wiring except in the US, so unless someone can fix the motor, we will be without for a very long time. There are lots of shops in Kuah where we see people repairing appliances of all sorts, so maybe we’ll be lucky. Evidently when you transit the Red Sea, there are sand storms that can cause quite a mess inside and outside of your boat, and I was depending on the Shop Vac to help take care of that problem. So hope with us that someone in Kuah can save us. Someday when I get around to writing that list of things you MUST HAVE on a cruising sailboat, a small wet/dry Shop Vac will be high on the list.
This morning we talked to Judy and Howard of Laelia on Skype. They crossed the Indian Ocean last season and now have their boat on the hard in Greece while spending time at home in the US. Howard had no sooner returned home to California than he had to have triple by-pass heart surgery, but he is fine now and ready to return to Laelia in Greece in May to continue their travels. It was so wonderful to talk to people we know and trust and hear all about their travels across the Indian Ocean, through pirate alley, and into the Red Sea. So thank you, Howard and Judy.
Boat work continued today even though the weather was dreary and rainy. I worked inside on website updates and Mark drilled a few more holes in the cockpit coaming and mast to add more hardware. He also got the hole from the aft lazarette caulked where the new LPG hose enters the inside of the boat. So we were able to cook dinner on our stove and everything went smoothly.
Tomorrow there is a cruiser swap at 11 am and then Mark will go out with Cory and Barbara on Increscent Moon to check out a problem they are having with their cutlass bearing. They think it is okay, but they want to take the boat out for test run to make sure. If all is well, they will leave for Thailand this weekend. We’re definitely here until the end of the month, but we hope to be headed north to Thailand by the first of December.
by Judy Handley | Nov 17, 2009 | Malaysia, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 22, Year 5: Cooking Once Again
Date: Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Weather: Sunny Morning with Off and On Rains All Afternoon and Evening
Location: Rebak Marina, Pulau Rebak, Langkawi, Malaysia
“Slow down, you move too fast. You got to make the morning last. Just kicking down the cobble stones (replace that with ‘ocean waves’). Looking for fun and feelin’ groovy!” Okay, I’m showing my age. I have been sitting here at my computer trying to come up with the best photos of our past two cruising seasons to put on our website homepage, and I realized that photos from some of the most fantastic parts of our trip through Indonesia have never been named and uploaded to the website. That made me think that we move too fast, and that made me start singing The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy) by Simon and Garfunkel. So as soon as I get the website updated, I’m going to halt all work and get the photos from the past two cruising seasons named and uploaded. I’ve said it before, but this time I am going to get this done.
Mark earned his keep today. He got up and immediately launched into finding a path through the boat for the new LPG fuel line. It starts in the lazarette on the aft deck and then snakes its way under the aft cabin bed, through the engine room, under the galley sink, and then back up to the stove in the galley. Everything under the sink and stove in the galley had to be removed, floor boards had to come out, and the aft cabin mattress and structure that supports it had to come off. So once again the boat was turned inside out and upside down. But this time it was a success. It took Mark all day, but he got the new fuel line run. When he tried the system, it was still not working. So he went to the little chandlery here and found a new sensor for which we paid twice as much as we should have, but it was here which meant we wouldn’t have to wait for two weeks and pay shipping charges on one from the US. Mark hooked the new sensor up and after making a few changes in wiring, he had the system up and running once again. We were happy to find that the solenoid didn’t need to be replaced as that would have cost another $100US. We didn’t use the galley stove for cooking tonight as he still has to fill the space around the new hole he had to drill in the aft lazarette to put the fuel hose through. That’s important because any leak of LPG from the tanks in the lazarette would flow through that hole into the boat. Once that hole is filled tomorrow, we will have a working galley once again. Hopefully that chapter is closed.
We’ve had two great Skype connections since writing last night’s log. We got a Skype message from Heather this morning (her evening) asking if we had 5 minutes to spare. Of course we did, and we got to have a special video Skype session with Jonah without Sam the Man dominating the space. Sam is such an entertainer that we hardly get to see Jonah when Sam is awake for a call, but Sam had gone to bed and we got to watch Jonah smile, and ‘talk’, and try to eat the video camera. It’s our hope that if we continue to make video contact with Jonah and with Ziggy that they will still recognize us when we see them next in person. It worked with Sam, so we’re hoping it will work again. Our other Skype connection was late last night with our sailing friends Ken and Jean of Renaissance 2000. They made it to Richards Bay in South Africa a few weeks ago, have done the safari thing, and are now traveling down the coast by rental car to see areas that they will soon by sailing by on their way to Cape Town. They had a great season in the Indian Ocean and are now really enjoying South Africa.
Our other connection today was person to person with Guy and Annika of Street Legal. Mark was too far down in the bilge running fuel line to come with me, so I went to see Guy and Annika to talk about the Indo Net that Guy will be running. He has a list of about thirty-five boats that are headed to the Red Sea and we will be having daily contact by HAM radio until we Salalah, Oman. Once there, we will follow the Joint Forces recommendations on communication. You aim for a low profile while transiting Pirate Alley which means that you take down your radar reflector, use only handheld VHF radios which do not transmit very far, use no lights, and it might even mean using no HAM email relaying positions as those communications can be intercepted. When leaving Salalah, we will actually be looking for a bad weather window. Pirates don’t work very well in strong winds and heavy seas, so our best shot is to hope for moderately bad weather and go for it. That is certainly a switch.
by Judy Handley | Nov 16, 2009 | Malaysia, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 21, Year 5: Trip to Kuah
Date: Monday, November 16, 2009
Weather: Same Pattern–Hot, Sunny Morning with Rains Beginning Midday
Location: Rebak Marina, Pulau Rebak, Langkawi, Malaysia
We stepped onto the Rebak ferry to the main island at 8:45 this morning. Cory and Barbara of Increscent Moon were with us and we shared the cost of renting a car for the day. I always feel like we are spending so much money when we rent a car, but actually it only costs us about $15US plus $3 in fuel for the day, and divided by two that is only $9US. But still you are driven to accomplish as much as you can in the time you have. So we did our comparison shopping for LPG (liquid propane gas) line, went to the wet market to buy fresh fruit and veggies, went to the warehouse to buy the cheapest beer and wine in town, went to get some of our Thailand information copied for Cory and Barbara, got new passport photos taken, did some grocery shopping, and on and on. It is amazing how much you can do in one six hour day. We even had time to stop by Telega Harbor on our way back to the Rebak ferry to show Cory and Barbara the boat cover Bud and Nita of Passage had made in Thailand last year. Cory and Barbara are planning to have a cover made for Increscent Moon and we were most impressed by the Stamoid cover Bud and Nita had made while in the Boat Lagoon last winter. The Stamoid logo is “We’ve got you covered.” But there is a problem. The polyester covered material does not breathe and therefore after only nine months, Bud and Nita’s beautiful cover is covered with mildew on the inside. The Thai workmanship is superb, but Cory and Barbara will have to figure out what material to use.
We arrived back in Rebak marina before 5:00 pm, stored away food we brought home, and went for a walk on the docks. We went to check on Shirena which is something we do every day or two while Robert and Tina are back home in Australia. We went to visit Judy and Dave on Freebird while we were out and checked in with Guy and Annika on Street Legal. Guy is running the radio net for those of us headed across the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea. We got an email from him when we got today saying that he was in Rebak Marina for a day before heading to Thailand, so we wanted to make sure we caught him. We made arrangements to talk with him in the morning before he leaves and then we came home to Windbird. The afternoon rains come and go, and today they extended on into the evening. So we walked home in the rain. It is now 10:00 pm here and it is still raining. The rain is great for the rice fields, but I’m looking forward to heading north to Thailand were the rains will cease. It is only a short distance away, but there is a definite line of demarcation between Malaysia and Thailand where the weather systems change.
We had a couple of successes today. We found the butane canisters for our little camp stove so I can cook and we found heavy duty fuel hose to replace the copper tubing that currently goes from our outside propane locker to our stove in the galley. Tomorrow we will begin to run the new fuel hose and then figure out how to start testing the system. We can get a new solenoid in Kuah but if the problem is really the sensor, we will have to order that and wait the two to three weeks here to receive it from the US. Our daughter wrote this morning to say that we are probably going to have to fix our Thanksgiving dinner on the grill and she is right about that. BUT at this point we don’t even have a way to use the grill independent of the entire system. I know we can work that out and we’ll do that in the next week. But I don’t think we can bake pumpkin pie on the grill, or is that possible . . .
by Judy Handley | Nov 15, 2009 | Malaysia, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 20, Year 5: Just a Day in the Life
Date: Sunday, November 15, 2009
Weather: Hot, Sunny Morning with Rains Beginning Midday . . . Again
Location: Rebak Marina, Pulau Rebak, Langkawi, Malaysia
Today was a typical day in a cruiser’s life. Mark did blue jobs and I worked on pink jobs. Pink jobs today were computer based. I spent the day searching through a year’s worth of emails to try and find all of the emails from friends who transited the Indian Ocean last year and I worked on building the new homepage for our website. Blue jobs included getting the staysail sheets run back to the cockpit with new hardware that had to be attached to the cockpit coaming. That included installing pad eyes on the deck that hold the blocks that the lines pass through. Because we have only two winches on each side of the cockpit and more jobs than the two winches can handle, we needed to find a way to lock off the lines on something other than one of the winches while they are being used for something else, so we installed cam cleats on the side of the coaming. This required taking down parts of the ceiling in the main and aft cabins. We are only half way done, so the inside of the boat is once again in disrepair.
We had dinner on Increscent Moon with Cory and Barbara tonight. They have a Tayana 42 one year younger than ours and it was great fun to compare the differences inside. They will be going to town with us tomorrow and they might be headed Thailand at the same time as us. So we have lots of things in common. But for now we will focus on tomorrow’s trip. The main purpose of the trip is to deal with our stove issue. We have to find out what supplies we can buy in Kuah and then order those that are not locally available. And we need to find either butane gas for our current camp stove or find a new camp stove that will allow us to cook until the main stove repairs are completed. Since some parts are probably going to have to be ordered from the US, we might find ourselves without a stove to cook Thanksgiving dinner. That will be an interesting project. So goes the life of a cruiser . . . more problems to solve, more work to be done, and more shopping for the needed parts, all to be done in exotic locations. So no complaints here.
I have to add one addition to last night’s log. After posting the log, we talked to our daughter Heather and got to see Sam in action. Those six stitches in his forehead are certainly not slowing him down. He did a complete performance for us wearing different hats from his dress-up box. He was a fireman, a policeman, Nemo, a pirate, and Superman. He ended his performance by saying, “Oma, Granddad, come home, stay here.” It was very obvious that he knows how to pull our heartstrings.
