Hello all.
Well, since our arrival in Langkawi, there really hasn't been anything to report. The
marina is quite full and some other friends have arrived back. I'm not
quite sure what they'll do when another 60 boats or so arrive on the Sail
Malaysia Rally at the end of the month. Incidentally, the Sail Indonesia
Rally was free this year after the debacle checking in for the group last
year so something like 130 boats signed up. Most of them go on to the
Malaysia rally to get up the Malacca straits. While our friends on Scot
Free II have decided to stay another year, there must be at least 40 or 50
boats heading off to the Red Sea starting at the end of the year when the
Monsoon (trade winds) are right. The usual suspects are already organizing Radio nets and convoys for Pirate Alley.
Our plan and the conventional wisdom is to make landfall in Oman and then
sail down the coast of Yemen to enter the Red Sea. I expect there will be
several "flotillas" arranged for further security, but we understand this is
not a problem close to shore. Almost everyone is starting from Phuket and
some are going directly to the Maldives, just southeast of India. We are
planning to go to the Andaman Islands on the way and then call in at Cochin
on the SE coast of India, before making the further 200 mile passage down to
the Maldives. I'm pretty sure we'll go in tandem with at least one other
cat, Freebird, and their friends, The Southern Cross, may also come along.
One of the veterans here tipped us off to locally manufactured cigarettes
(you need ciggies and coke and whisky for bribes) so we picked up 5 cartons
for 13 ringgit apiece--that's about $3.00 for a carton of ten packs. That's
like 1960's pricing.
So, even if you're not interested, because I have nothing much to report, I
thought I would chronicle a typical day here. Keep in mind this is not just
a marina, but mainly a 4 star, maybe 5, resort. The captain rises early and
does email and things like this letter awaiting Rose, the admiral, to get up
around 8. Coffee and breakfast follows, but Rose has sworn off coffee and
eats a couple of pieces of rye toast spread with banana with her tea. Yuk, but it's
supposed to help her affliction. If we're not going into town, I'll do some
boat work. Most recently we've refinished the cockpit table and fixed a
slightly warped leaf. A bit of reading, lunch, then Rose goes to the beach.
They also have a pool, all this for $300/month (I'm going to hate to leave).
Sometimes I go too, and I also just chill out and read or sometimes, rarely,
do some more work. Hey, it gets hot here in the afternoon. I usually find
time for a nap.
Okay, so I wrote the foregoing a month ago and haven't sent it. I was going to bore you some more with stories about the Halloween party, the new wood grating for the cockpit well, repairing the coffee pot, movies on the hard drive, Mr. Din, the car man's problems, massages, etc., etc., etc. However, now I have something interesting to report. On the way from Langkawi to Penang last week where we were going to haul the boat, add a coat of bottom paint and get some general service in preparation for our departure to the Red Sea, we managed to encounter a near miss with a lightning bolt. I know it was a near miss as I was hit once before. The static charge seems to have blown only circuit board type stuff, like the regulators, radar--which I had just replaced on the mast, autopilot brain, etc. etc. No human damage. However, this is requiring a refit of the whole boat including batteries which were getting a bit old anyway and inverter and autopilot course computer and I still don't know what else. Yesterday the 12 volt refrigeration went. A guy might come to look today. Tomorrow is some kind of holiday. And just try to get a serviceman here. I've alerted all the guys in Phuket who are saving time for me, but we need to get basically sorted out here before we can leave. Complicating matters is we're trying to get all the replacements into Langkawi which is duty, and hassle, free whereas Thailand in a nightmare for imports. Also the battery guy here who has AGMs at a reasonable price doesn't have them in yet--next week; yeah, right. Checking with contacts in Thailand to see if I can source them there at an acceptable cost. This, alone, is about two grand!!!! Insurance would cover this, but I'm on the cusp of the combination of deductible and the 20% no-claim discount so I'm eating all the expense. On the brighter side, I'll basically have all new electronics, and every other Ray Marine instrument had already failed so it is likely I'd be replacing the "brain" soon anyway. The batteries were already 4 years old and one had failed so I had a jury rigged system anyway as you can't get 6 volt gel cells anywhere in SE Asia.
So the boat is a pit; we're limping along on electrics and are heading to Phuket ASAP for the holidays. Oh, we really loved hand steering from Penang up here. Haven't done that since the autopilot crapped out in 1999 on the way from St Martin to Tortola. Fortunately, seas were calm and the wind right yesterday. Rose almost mutinied but found out it wasn't too bad. Hah, that's what he thinks !Rose.
The latest Rose report from seeing the specialist in Penang: The doc wanted a limited MRI of some of her joints because the pain hasn't been matching the arthritis, and the blood tests have shown good improvement in the rheumatism. Sure enough, there is only minor damage from arthritis, although they found a bone spur in her shoulder. SO--Rose is on different stuff now. She has one set of pills for the rheumatoid arthritis and another for what they call Fibromyalgia which goes with the other and causes undo sensitivity to pain. Of course, the benefits don't kick in for 3 weeks so we're just hoping this finally does it. Rose will fly back to Penang Jan. 2nd for a final visit and checkup with the doc before our departure.
Ok. That's it. I'm having a fit of depression as I hate when things break and now everything has broken and I can't get the parts or the people to fix it for at least over the weekend. The one bright spot is the electric freezer still works so we have ice!!!!
Cheers and happy holidays from both of us.
Tim & Rose
