Archive for April, 2010
Newsletter Number 37
Friday, April 30th, 2010
The other side of cruising!
We cannot believe that it has been 6 months since the last news letter and even with the Christmas card update that puts us a little behind with news. Suffice to say we had a wonderful four months in the UK , with one of the highlights having all six grandchildren in the house with us at once.
It was really good to see Ceri, Paul, Indy, Finn and Willow, who we had not seen for two years, and to meet 2 year old Poppy but a shame it was only for a short time as they then headed off for a new life in New Zealand where they are now settled in Christchurch.
Our arrival was only two days after that of grandchild number six, Theo, but Mum Amy Dad Marc and big brother Owen had all coped well without us and it was great to get to spend time with them all. I even enjoyed freezing dunkings in the local pool with Owen who seemed to find an hour far too short even though his Nana was shivering.
It did take us a little time to adjust to the 25 degree diference in temperature! We spent plenty of time with Dan and he was kind enough to take us in when our own house was left in a mess by the recently departed tenants. Ros was there too for the holiday and her course in Manchester seemed to be going well.
We helped Mum and Dad move house and had them and sister Penny and family to stay over Christmas and brother Rob and family for my birthday in February. We had visits from several lots of friends and fitted in trips to Mid Wales, the South West, the Lakes and the South East to visit more, so time passed at a rate of knots. At home our social life was superb and the snow in the hills lasted from December to our departure in March.
We managed plenty of days in the hills to enjoy the wonderful winter conditions with Dan and with friends and even managing to get young nieces and nephews to the summit of the Glyders in superb winter conditions. Getting back to the boat was a shock to the system in 35deg C and 85% humidity but we were soon back into the life of cruising although it must be said it was of the type normally left out of newsletters.
The first activity was cleaning up after “Mr Rat” who had been an unwelcome guest in our absence. Marina staff had already evicted him via a cage trap but he made his mark by shredding loo rolls, chewing cushion foam and gnawing the odd hole in the woodwork.
Thankfully he was caught before he started on the wiring, but washing everything in sight just in case he had crawled over it took some time. Luckily there were two boats in the Marina Cool Bananas (NZ) and Wanderlust (Japan)that we knew and friends Toshi, Sayuri Daryl and Laurel kept us sane by entertaining us in the evenings and joining us on a day trip to Singapore to celebrate the end of the clean up.
We then left Puteri Marina in company with catamaran Cool Bananas and sailed up the west coast of the Malay Peninsula to Melaka. It is a very historic town full of colonial buildings and pirates grave yards set between the odd modern office block and hotel. We met up briefly here and saw the sights with our friends Dave and Liz on S/V Allaban who then headed south on the first leg of their cruise to Japan via the Philippines – it was a sad ‘goodbye for now’ after cruising on and off with them since the Galapagos in 2005 but we are sure our paths will cross again.
Next was Penang where Martyn and Lynda from S/V Great Sensation who we had not seen for more than four years introduced us to wonderful restaurants serving a wide mix of foods from a very diverse population at rather good prices.
That was to be the end of the holiday for a while as we were called by Phitak Shipyard near Satun in SW Thailand to say they could give us a haul out in two days time. Such opportunities seem scarce at the moment so we headed off to Langkawi Island to check out of Malaysia and collect 24 gallons of paint for cruising friends already in the yard.
The 25 mile crossing and trip up the muddy river concentrated the mind somewhat with numerous fish traps, depths down to 90cm below the keel at times and large fast fishing boats reluctant to share the channel, so it was a relief to anchor by the yard.
Next day we were hauled on a railed slipway amid much Thai shouting and men swimming around fitting foam pads and diving using a mask attached to a compressed air pipe to locate us on the trolley. We were settled next to a huge fishing boat with a propeller taller than me and life in the yard began. The up side was that everyone was really friendly and despite the language barrier fishermen were quick to help whenever they saw the need and one descended a ladder like lightning to lend and set up a bottle jack as were trying to refit the rudder by winching it up on ropes.
Men sanding by hand and painting were charged out at £10 a day, polishing and machine sanding at £15 a day, and having our stainless steel rudder encapsulated in glass faired and primed was about £80 including materials. So we were able to leave work below the waterline to them and concentrate on interior fixing and fiddling ourselves.
Lunches were taken each day at ‘Toms’ a local cafe 50m from the yard where servings of stir fried fish, squid, prawns or chicken with rice or noodles and fresh veg together with mango smoothies cost £2 for the two of us. At the end of the day a beer in front of the yard shop cost 60pence and a local man pushed in a trolley with a hotplate at 7pm daily serving Rotis which were doughy pancakes cooked with an egg cracked on them and served with drizzles of condensed milk for 40pence each.
We even got a call from Amy on the mobile which felt rather surreal in this tiny bit of rural Thailand but certainly raised morale. However there was a down side too; only two people in the yard spoke English, temperatures rose to 38 degrees daily and humidity often reached 95%, there was a constant cloud of dust settling on everything. Every other day the skies darkened and by mid afternoon torrential rain lashed through the yard. Lightening flashed and after one enormous crash we heard that the shed had been struck, taking out the fridge on the nearest yacht – we luckily escaped.
Up to 15 huge wooden fishing boats were sanded daily, the same boats were then painted by Mayanmar women balancing on narrow planks being followed by the fishermen scraping and recaulking the seams, many turned around in 2-3 days with the paint still being brushed on as they were launched. There were smaller fishing boats too being lovingly painted and sign written freehand by their crews and about 5 cruising yachts too.
The yard was patrolled by friendly dogs whose only purpose in life seemed to be to get people to give them scraps to supplement the huge bowls of rice which they cheerfully shared with the huge rat population each evening. You will perhaps not be surprised then to hear that just before launch day we were woken to the sound of the kettle rattling on the stove and upon investigating came face to face with a rat in the galley.
There were no traps available and so we had to leave with an unwelcome guest who had come aboard via a hose hanging from the deck. We emailed ahead and had friends meet us back in Langkawi with two traps as further nights of shared accommodation were not high on the agenda!
The cunning little devil ate dried fish without getting squashed in said trap so next morning we tramped the streets of Kuah visiting hardware stores until we found a cage trap and a big lump of dried fish. Back aboard we set the bait and left it alone expecting to return from a meal ashore to a caged rat. It was not to be but on checking next morning I reported a seemingly calm convict happily eating fish in its cell.
The skipper took this news calmly rolling over in bed for a little more sleep so after sidling round the trap a few times I plucked up the courage to pick up the trap tie it to a line and unceremoniously drop it over the side. I left retrieval to a freshly breakfasted skipper and felt no remorse which surprised me as I am usually squeemish about squashing anything other than a mosquito.
So true cruising resumed and we continue to sweat through several sets of clothes a day thankfully easily washed each night in the gallons of rain collected from the almost nightly thunderstorms. The down side of this being that two boats were hit by lightning two days ago and one lost £10000 worth of electronic equipment and is now in the yard filling small bullet like holes below the waterline where the lightning exited through his chain plates and down through the hull.
We write this from the other end of the cruising spectrum having spent three nights in Rebak marina where marina residents are welcome to share resort guests swimming pools, gym, restaurants, bars and even a spa where they get a 20% discount from resort guests price lists and pay only £9 a night for a berth!
Back to the hook tomorrow before heading south to retrieve some packages at Puteri and then head up the east coast and across to the north coast of Borneo where we are to meet family and friends joining us for their holidays – more welcome guests to be sure!
You can now find our position by looking at our new website.
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