Malaysia III Januray 23 2009

Hello everybody.Please remember we're using the satphone and don't just reply to this--Mywhinging must be working; a few of you actually have responded. Thanks.We actually might get caught up with this one, space and time permitting,but there's a lot so I might need another. Nah, didn't happen.We arrived back in Penang on Friday Dec 5, and the boat was scheduled tolaunch a week later. That was actually a few days more than they originallyestimated, but we didn't need to get to Langkawi until around the 15th,anyway. I went down to the yard on Saturday to check on the progress--theywork weekends here. Everything was pretty much getting done but the yardmanager, Mogan, asked me if I had sacrificial zincs for the sail drives.For you non sailors these zincs keep electrolysis from eating up the saildrives themselves. Now I had already, weeks ago, informed the yard theseneeded to be replaced, and it was pretty obvious from day one, just lookingat them, they needed tobe done. I had also asked the yard to let me know in advance if there wereany parts I needed to source. Okay, no real problem, I had spares--Ithought. Must have used them in Auckland--still no problem; these arestandard and any Yanmar guy will have them. To make a long story short, bythe following Thursday--2 days before launch--the only source was on Borneoand, for some reason that was going to take 2 weeks to get here. Thecaptain got cross!! Not only was all this drama unnecessary, but we neededto get to Langkawi, and it was costing me about $100/day in expenses to beout of the water. After some unpleasantness which included me having toscout out a computer capable of downloading directions to get the prop offso the zincs could be changed, we agreed they would fabricate new ones.So Saturday arrived. We got the cat. We dropped off the car. We launchedthe boat. There was still a bit of minor work to be finished includingchecking the alternator they had worked on. Not working; no problem, we'llget that done in Langkawi. Small fuel leak in the generator--fixed.Alright, we're ready to go and at daybreak Sunday--left early because we hada long way to go--off we went. There is a bridge between the mainland andPenang about 5 miles north of the yard. We have a sticky float switch onthe starboard engine, and, while we always check when the alarm goes off,normally there isn't any urgency, so when it started, I decided to waituntilwe got under the bridge which would coincide with sunup as well, so I'd havesome light. Yep, you guessed it. Opened the hatch and seawater wasforcefully spewing everywhere. Shut down the engine which was almostsubmerged and got the emergency pump out just in case. Fortunately, thebilge pump was keeping up and water inflow stopped with the engine off. Welimped back to the yard on one engine all the while trying to reach Mogan.I also started the generator since we now had nothing charging the batteries(remember the alternator we are going to fix in Langkawi). After droppinganchor, a check of the engine room revealed that the pump had failed, butthere was only about 4 inches of water left. However, the genset was spewingdiesel all over so that fix obviously didn't work. Irate would be toomild a word. We finally got hold of Mogan who sent some guys out. One ofthe cooling hoses--did I mention that part of the work order was to checkall the hoses--had burst. The diesel leak just hadn't been fixed. Anyway,everything had been soaked in seawater and diesel so they fixed the problemsand cleaned up, sort of. The guys just left at about 3 for, I thought, acheck of the bilge pump--it's not too smart to head off without a workingpump in the engine room, but they never came back. Screw it. We'releaving. Strong letter to follow to Harris, the owner, demandingreparations. Who knows what damage the saltwater caused and I noticed thehulls were not properly buffed out. Figured I could get all that done inLangkawi and would get an appropriate refund from the yard.This is probably boring you, but almost sinking is not amusing, and thisshoulddispel any ideas that this life is a piece of cake. All the way toLangkawi, we had a periodic bilge alarm going off. Being a bit sensitive bythis time, we diligently checked everything, but couldn't pin it down. Ifigured I hadn'tproperly seated the speedo impeller or something. Couldn't find anything,including the guilty engine room. Again, to shorten this up, it turns outthe holding tank on the starboard side was filling up from the outside--aleak!!!--and just seeping through the access port into the bilge. Nowwe're beyond irate as this was one of the main reasons for the haulout andwas meant to be fixed. Not only that but now the tank was filling up every12-16 hours whereas before they worked on it, it could take days or weeks.Of course, if Joey was still on board, I'd just have him pump it out and letit go until I returned to Penang in May. However, both the flow rate andthe fact that the captain was MANUALLY pumping this thing out every 12hours lead to 1)installation of an electric pump and 2)rescheduling ahaulout in January after Rose and Norman departed. Much more nastinesstranspired as you might imagine, but, to Harris' credit, there was noargument about hauling the boat for free and fixing all these problems. Asa result, we settled into Rebak Hotel Marina and waited for Rose and Normanto arrive on the 21st. There was the grand finale dinner for the rally aswell on the 20th. This was a very well done affair at the "EcoPark" withgood food and cheap drinks. It was nice to catch up with the rest of thefleet.Rebak is a 5 star resort on a small island off the coast of Langkawi, whichis a fairly large island. We went to the hotel bar for happy hour--yachtiesget a 20% discount on food and beverages--and checked out the restaurantmenu. Fairly expensive by Malaysia standards, but the Maitre d' told usthere was a breakfast buffet for RM15. Up we get the next morning and headover. One look told us we'd misunderstood--couldn't be 15, must be 50, butwe get 20% off so that's about $12 and what a spread!!! champagne, caviar,smoked salmon, custom egg, etc., etc., etc. Awesome service as well.Worth every sen (Malaysia penny). There's also another cheaper yachtierestaurant and bar down at the marina proper and we managed to eat there afew times.Our friends on Freebird were at the Langkawi Yacht club on the main islandand friends of theirs had lent them a car so we hooked up and explored themaintown of Kuah. This is a duty free island so we started to rebuild ourprovisions ofalcohol. Talk about a kid in a candy store. We hadn't seen prices likethis since Tortola and, in some cases, never before. Case of beer $10,booze, all liters. Stoly $6, JD $15, wine $5 or $6/bottle. We had somefun.Back on the dock, an older South African guy stopped by, recognizingRendezvous as a Voyage boat. He was in the process of selling his boat andheading home, and we invited him on board for a beer or two. Later on, hiswife joined us and we got some valuable info from them. First, the numberofthe cheap car guy at the ferry dock--$12 a day. They also had the secretnumber of the Friday produce guy's girl friend who takes one's pork orders.That's right folks, this is a highly Muslim country, and ham and bacon, notto mention pork chops, are not easy to come by. The Friday produce guy wasgreat, and you take the ferry over at 9 and he comes about an hour laterwithall sorts of cheeses, meats (but you get your pork products separately,wrapped in newspaper and brown bagged), veggies and fish. The quality isquite good, but it ain't cheap.The Sunday after the finale dinner, Rose and Norman arrived, bringing a mostvaluable Christmas turkey. We didn't get one in Penang due to logistics,but, foolishly, believed we could get one in Langkawi. Everyone has turkey,right. Wrong. The Muslims strike again, but we outfoxed them by asking N &R to pick one up in KL. Thanks guys. R & N arrived early, somehow gettingaprivate ferry ride right to our dock. A few beers later, my memory is alittle foggy being so tardy with this letter, we went to the hotel bar forhappy hour. Not sure where we ate dinner. Next day it was off to Kuah,again,in Langkawi in a cheap rental for provisioning. The plan was to stickaround Rebak for Christmas, cruise the following week and return for NewYear's Eve. We loaded up on cheap booze and wine and groceries. The girlsmanaged to dent the wine supply pretty good the first few nights so we hadtosacrifice and make another trip to town to buy more. Rose is nowcomplaining that the cabin where she keeps her stuff has no room for it dueto all the booze.Okay, so the breakfast we had was so good, with free champagne, we decidedtodo the Christmas brunch at the hotel and talked a bunch of other boats intodoingit as well. Okay, so what do we do with the turkey. Fortunately, my socialconsultant, Norman, who is of German heritage, suggested we do it like theGerman's and have our Christmas dinner on Christmas eve. We did, and it wasquite nice. Did our presents then as well. Christmas morning, we invitedthe guys from Scot Free II over for champagne and a viewing of Love Actuallywhich we consider the modern replacement for It's a Wonderful Life. (brunchwasn't 'til 11:30) We strongly suggest you see it if you haven't alreadyand, even thought there is just a bit of rough language and skin, it is oneof the ultimate feel good movies. Rose has seen it 6 times and still cries.Even the boys got a bit teary!!! The food that morning was a bitdisappointing. While the brunch was good, there was no champagne, nocaviar, no smoked salmon, although the chef brought some out for Rose afterwe whinged. We didn't think they'd do breakfast Christmas day due to thebrunch, and expected allthe goodies at the brunch. Nope. All the good stuff was at breakfast, butwe did get some champagne anyway. Besides the turkey, the other change inplan was to head off to Penang for New Year's. The crew decided thiswithout the captain's knowledge, and the only problem was R & N's presentfrom us was a massage at the hotel, so how could they do that if we left.The problem was solved when they took them on Christmas day. Anyway,despite the subpar--only based on our expectations--brunch, and the massageissue and the mutiny about where to spend New Year's Eve, we had a greatChristmas.The next day, as you know, was Friday, and we weren't going far, so we madea quick run in to the Friday produce man and took off for a large bay(Tenga) just a few miles from Rebak but on the main island of Langkawi. Wehad walked around there when we had the car, but were pleasantly surprisedby the great beach, good anchorage and numerous very reasonably priced beachbars and restaurants. Turns out this is the main resort area in Langkawi.Somewhere about this time, my main GPS started showing a date in August2028, even though all other aspects seemed to work. Of course, with a wrongdate, the position shown is going to be off as the software relies onsatellite triangulation and satellite position depends on the date. To make along story short, after numerous emails, and calls to the local Raytheonguys here in Malaysia over a period of several weeks, it turns out thegovernment launched a new satellite which is incompatible with my receiver,and it needs to be replaced. Here in Asia, they want the equivalent of$500, but Raytheon has a trade-in deal in the US and you can get it for$200. Naturally, they won't ship it here and want the old unit back first.After some groveling, I got them to agree waive the return and am shippingto Lizzie. In the meantime we'll be using the good old 11 year old Garmin12, handheld and a new USB mouse-sized GPS, we picked up in OZ.We spent the next couple of days at Tenga, and, for our last night inLangkawi, moved further south so the trip back to Penang would be ofmanagable length. Had the usual massages, cocktails and great food.With that, I'll leave you here with the teaser that the trip back to Penangwas hair raising with another close call for sinking. I am stillunbelievably behind as it is Jan 20th as I write this and much has happened.As the boat is once again out of the water, perhaps, I will be able to catchup in the next couple of days.Cheers,Tim & Rose