Archive for June, 2010
Newsletter Number 38
Friday, June 25th, 2010
They say that living a life full of adventure and uncertainty keeps the mind young and the body fit – but just occasionally events do challenge our faith in that dubious adage. We cope with most things with reasonable equanimity, resignation and a firm belief that everything will be well tomorrow. Things like narrowly avoiding arrest by Singaporean marines for straying into the restricted military waters off Changi naval base – or suffering a night of violent surging and rolling in Malacca marina with lines breaking all round and bleary eyed cruisers stumbling around fixing everybody up. Or weaving our way through a maze of shipping, fishing boats, barges under tow etc off port Klang in the middle of the night. Or even minor things like encountering a 2m monitor lizard far underground in a restricted passage or finding a cat under the table in a beach bar. All these things we manage without much of a to do – but just occasionally we do get challenged and such events almost invariably involve feelings of vulnerability and isolation when our home appears to be under threat. And so it was when we arrived in the Endau river for a quick haul out to replace a worn cutlass bearing on our P bracket.
We anchor off a sandy beach in the river with the 5 knot flood setting the anchor nicely. I row ashore and weave my way through soft sand and garbage to the boat yard where an enormous steel trolley is having welded eyes attached and uprights to support our hull. All very basic but strong – the only problem is the centre gap appears too narrow to support our 2 m keel. The yard employs workers from all over SE Asia and so communication is a bit of an issue but a piece of chalk turns up and a rusty steel beam and we soon reach an apparent understanding of the problem. Lunch time comes around and all the boys troop off to their shed for a break out of the sun and I row back out to Three Ships. Shortly after 2 a phone call indicates that all is ready and we should proceed into the slip. A strong cross current proves interesting but we make it on to the submerged trolley in one go impressing the audience on the coast guard vessel moored adjacent. Winches whine into action and steel cables draw taut. Gradually Three Ships inches up the railway towards the dusty yard. Then, a pause, lots of shouting and a man with primitive dive gear disappears below the murky water. More shouting and the arrival of balks of timber, steel supports, more timber, much discussion in 4 different languages, more timber etc etc. – until after about an hour we emerge high and dry, but not quite level. The additional steel support for our keel appears to have been wooden and broke once the 12 ton weight of Three Ships came to bear. Anyway, things don’t look too good for a while, especially since a crack has appeared between the hull and keel . So jacks are deployed and more wood and wedges and eventually just prior to beer time we are only about 10 degrees off level and there we remain for our time ashore.
Over the next two days we sweat to remove the rudder and drive shaft and replace the cutlass bearing. The ever creative welders make a 2 inch socket with bar and lever and we tighten up the leading keel bolt shim the crack and seal the whole with 3M 5200 – all good. Then we find that the next two days are a public holiday and so no re launch until Monday. Happily we’ve been joined in the yard by friends on catamaran Miss Jody who are in for some hull strengthening after another poorly chocked haul out had cracked their keels and so we are in good company. And then an unexpected event. Mr Ng the Chinese managing director of the yard regards us not only as his clients but also as his guests, so he invites us to his family’s restaurant for a meal. He picks us all up in his BMW at 7 and whisks us off for a meal which turns out to be more of a 9 course feast with as much wine or beer as we can drink – which wasn’t that much as we were all pretty bushed. And then 2 nights later he does the same again – grouper in sweet and sour sauce, fried squid, lobster, barbecued pork, rojak chicken, hot and sour fish, king prawns and bokchoy, boiled rice and iced melon to finish – pretty nice to say the least.
So Monday arrives and we are launched no problem except, when we start the engine and move off the trolley the vibration is worse than ever – this is where the firm belief that everything will be right tomorrow comes under a bit of pressure but there’s no option so we anchor for a night of little sleep and major speculation about what the problem might be. Shaft and engine alignment come out top so next morning Mr Ng sends his foreman out with tools and assistant and they spend the whole day working on the problem – we don’t say much, just wait. Then it’s finished and we go for a sea trial and guess what – its perfect just in time for beer. So then we have a happy night, pay Mr Ng the equivalent of £220 for everything including the haul out, 5 days on the hard and the engineer’s time to fix the shaft alignment – and he’s given us the two best Chinese meals we’ve ever tasted – beat that for value.
Anyway you might like a bit more information about other things we’ve done since our last newsletter. Well the west coast of Malaysia is pretty dull from a cruising point of view until you reach Langkawi way up north. The coast is shallow, the water dull green with nil visibility and the traffic constant especially around key port of Klang and Singapore.
Return visits to the historic towns of Malacca and Penang make up for a lot and should not be missed, the local food is varied and excellent and shopping away from ‘malls’ is a delight. A ride in one of Malacca’s colourful trishaws is a must along with a visit to the pirates graveyard and an evening boat trip up the river is entertaining and informative. Langkawi offers really nice cruising ground with lots of sheltered , spectacular anchorages only a few miles apart – it’s also a duty free zone so booze is cheap. The cable car and sky walk are well worth the ride and we enjoyed the odd barbecue on its secluded beaches.
A description of one of the anchorages mentioned an interesting cave, so naturally we had to have a look. It sported about an hour’s worth of explorable passage ending in a large complex chamber with good formations and a bat colony – and then of course there was the monitor lizard which we found about 30 minutes in hiding in a bit of a crevice. I called Fi to bring the camera just as Mr Lizard decided to exit and they passed each other at a bit of a narrow spot – but neither seemed to suffer anything other than a few missed beats.
On the way south we called at Penang, Lumut and Malacca where the rather inadequate sea defence resulted in an exciting night for all and finally we ended up back in at Puteri marina – where we left Three Ships for our last visit home. We collected our mail including new passports and were greeted as long lost friends – so we stayed a week. Then we headed back around Singapore island where our little indiscretion occurred setting off the loudest and most persistent sirens we have ever heard and causing the navy to tow a boom across the entrance to the base. We were approached at speed by uniformed men who told us we had to stop turn and follow them immediately as we were under sail this was a little hard. In the end after we stated that we could only follow this if they would let us anchor for the night as darkness was fast approaching, they talked into radios and said they would escort us from the military zone – this involved them escorting us 20m to the other side of the buoy we had inadvertently gone the wrong side of and so didn’t take long! We encountered a huge oil tanker with the hole the size of a truck in its side – actually it was the size and shape of the bow of another ship that had t- boned it and spilled 2000 tons of light crude in the process. So the water wasn’t that clean.
Singapore didn’t actually impress us that much – it’s even more bureaucratic than Australia and seemingly paranoid about security what with 8 F16s circling the island every night, helicopter gunships hovering over the fence for hours on end and police boats patrolling every half mile or so – not a very impressive carbon footprint. At least one cruiser we know had fairly major mechanical problems while in Singaporean waters and the assistance they received from the authorities was nil – fortunately fellow cruisers offered a tow back into Malaysian waters and all ended well.
So now we’re back in cruising mode. We sailed to Tioman Island 30 miles offshore yesterday June 9th and now for the first time in 4 months we’re back in clear blue water with coral gardens and white sand beaches. Happy times are here again. A few more islands to visit on this coast and then we make the crossing to Borneo. We’re looking forward to having the family Hewett on board in August, Dan and Ros in September and Joey and Vikki in Thailand over Christmas.
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