On the go again

Once we left Tioman, we stopped for a couple of days at another small Island only eight miles away where again, the water was fairly clear which allowed us to get in a bit of snorkelling.  The couple we have been travelling with for a while now, Myra and Paraic, off the Irish boat, Saol Eile, are somewhat unique in the cruising world.  He doesn't swim at all and is, in fact, terrified of the water.  She can swim a bit but can't snorkel so it was my mission to get her into the water with mask and snorkel so that, at least, she could enjoy some of the things we are in this part of the world to appreciate; the life below the surface.

Well, I won't say it was a roaring success but she persevered sufficiently to get a bit of experience breathing through the tube instead of her nose.  Unfortunately, she never quite grasped how to blow the water out of the snorkel without swallowing half the ocean but at least she's willing to give it another go.  Paul says he's determined to teach Paraic how to swim but I'm not so sure about that one.  I'm of the firm belief that you can teach an old dog new tricks but Paraic might just prove me wrong on that score.

Our next stop was back on the mainland at a town called Chukai where we were to be hosted by the local authorities. The anchorage was up a river and close up alongside a thick forested island.  It was a bit unnerving to drop anchor so close to the shore especially as it was a lee shore or, perhaps in this case, a lee forest.  However, it proved to be safe enough and had we had a longer stay, we were told we could possibly sight wild boar, monkeys, crocs and large monitor lizards in amongst the growth which was only metres away from our stern.

The town was small but boasted an excellent fruit market so we could indulge in one of my favourite fruits; mangoes.  Absolutely delicious ones too.  The day after our arrival, we were picked up for a tour which included a mini zoo which is not quite my cup of tea.  Malaysia has wild tigers and there was a magnificent specimen in a large glassed-in cage made to simulate the wild as best they could.  A gorgeous creature but how we all hated to see this poor fellow trapped so. There was also a lion and lioness, a juvenile elephant, a couple of tapirs, orangutans and other monkeys as well as some beautiful birds whose cages were far too small.  It's probably the only way most of the locals get to see these animals but.....

 

The best part of the day was a wonderful stop at a turtle breeding station.  Here they monitor the number of females each night arriving on the beach to lay their eggs.  These were then protected until such time as they've hatched and we had the privilege of releasing some new hatchlings back into the ocean.  So few actually survive but we said a little prayer for ours in the hopes that they may be the lucky ones.

Our day came to an end with a fabulous dinner of local food, some of which I'd seen many times on the plates of the locals but, having no idea what they were or what they were called, we stuck to things we could recognise.  Some of the strangest looking things were delicious so now we know!

Next stop, Pulau Kapas, a gorgeous island another overnight trip away and we had our best sail in over a year.  Conditions were perfect, decent wind with flat calm seas.  This unexpected treat caused us to arrive at our destination in the dark but it was a very easy anchorage so no problems.  

 
What a gorgeous spot.  Lovely white beaches, lots and lots of coral and clear very warm waters.  There were ten boats there so we arranged an afternoon cricket match on the beach and a pot luck dinner and BBQ.  It was the sort of day one envisages when hearing of cruising the islands.  Perfect!  But this was just an interim stopover as we were to be in Kuala Terengganu, just twelve miles away, for our next official function so it was up anchor and on our way again only two days later.

PHOTO ALBUM:

Fruits galore

A female orangutan with her "blanky"

A white-faced monkey

Go, Tomasina, GO!

All the dinner goodies

Pulau Kapas

The fielders

There were anemones everywhere

Playing catch-up

I have a passport!  What a relief that is, I can assure you.  What they didn't do, however, was send me my old one back again which meant that I didn't have the necessary entry stamp showing our arrival into Malaysia.  To solve that little problem, we took a quick trip over the causeway into Singapore where, fortunately, the Malaysian exit authorities quite happily accepted a photocopy of my old passport (for once I planned ahead) and gave me an exit stamp in my new one.  Once that was done, we entered Singapore, walked across to the exit side, exited Singapore and recrossed the causeway to re-enter Malaysia.  DONE!  All in just over an hour. My new passport now has a history as well as one and a half pages used up already.

On high tide the following morning, we left Danga Bay travelling down the Straits between Malaysia and Singapore to stop at a little island for Paul to scrape the prop and check for any major barnacle growth.  He spent about three hours cleaning Calypso's bottom in order to coax more speed out of her so that we could run the gauntlet of shipping traffic around the Singaporean coastline the next day.  We were joined by Jackster who had also been delayed for exactly the same reason and received his passport at the same time so now we just wanted to try to catch up with the rest of the group.  

This particular trip is not a relaxing one as we had to work our way along the shipping lanes and be on constant lookout for huge vessels and tugs moving across our path going in and out of the shipping yards and, believe me, there are hundreds of them.  So much for the idea that motor must give way to sail, ha!  They're much much bigger than us so who are we to argue?  

We made it around to the East Malaysian side without too much drama and dropped anchor in a nice quiet protected spot near the naval base only to set off again before sunrise to cover the next leg.  

One more stop along the way and we finally dropped anchor at Tioman Island just after six p.m. on the evening of my birthday where I thought we'd be spending an uneventful night.  Nope, our dear friends aboard Soal Eile had planned a dinner party!  A quick shower and change and we were whisked off to the Island for a fabulous meal.  Myra had even brought a chilled bottle of champagne (what a treat), a good bottle of red wine and, to top it all off, even a birthday cake!  I was truly spoiled.  As for the drinks, one has to appreciate that we're in a Muslim country where no alcohol is allowed in most establishments, but this particular restaurant owner didn't mind, thank goodness.  It was certainly a birthday to remember.  I think my last birthday cake was way back in Brazil nine years ago.

OK, so we've now caught up and are thrilled to see crystal clear waters after the positively disgusting stuff of Danga Bay.  We couldn't wait to get out for a snorkel which proved to be better than expected.  Lovely colourful fish, healthy coral and even a turtle or two all very visible in such gorgeous clear, warm seas.  Things are definitely looking up.

Myra pouring the champers to enjoy with a great spread of local fare along with  great company.

My birthday cake.  Myra had such a laugh watching them with the writing.  She knew they would run out of space long before they even started the word "birthday" so, no problem, just leave out the "h" and  it'll fit in (sort of).

Passport woes & lighning strikes

All the rally participants, bar one, have bid us farewell and moved off eastwards.  And here we sit waiting and waiting for my passport. Believe me, it's not the most comfortable feeling in the world to be in a strange, non English-speaking country, without a passport.  For everything you do here, one needs to show a passport, even for things as simple as getting a sim card for a phone and for sending things via courier (not easy when the passport is in the pack which is being couriered though).  Fortunately, they seem OK with a photocopy in most instances.

The other boat still around is here for exactly the same reasons.  Like me, his passport was full so he applied for a new one but, lucky for him, his wife was flying back to the UK so managed to post everything from there.  He's now got notification that the documents have been dispatched (7 weeks later).  I'm not that lucky.  Despite the fact that the courier company states that they received and signed for the last of my papers, HM Passport Office claim that they have not received it and today is a bank holiday there so I just have to wait some more.  They've had the original documentation since 25th March but only started processing it on the 20th April and I can expect to wait another 4 to 6 weeks after that!  However, they claim most renewals take approximately four weeks.  I'm beginning to have nightmares about what it looks like on the inside of a Malaysian prison.  

If, by some miracle, I can get the whole situation resolved within the next two weeks, we may just be able to catch up for the latter part of the rally but we'll miss out on all the east Malaysian islands prior to Borneo which is such a pity.  If it doesn't come by then, we'll miss out altogether.

We desperately want to get out of here as one of the frightening things about this part of the world is the lightning storms at this time of the year.  They really are terrifying.  The boat behind us received an indirect hit last week and lost a good percentage of their electronics and the boat beside us lost his radar.  If we were to get a hit, we would definitely be up the creek without a paddle as there is no way we would ever be able to replace all the electronics and wiring in our boat.  We now permanently keep our PC's, chart plotter, handheld GPS, etc in our oven and all the little items such as cameras, phones, GPS mouse, etc in a huge tin biscuit box which I purchased for this sole purpose.  It won't stop a major loss if we were to endure a direct hit but may just prevent damage else-wise.  We'd always heard that the Singaporean waters were bad for lightning and there's no disputing that.

On the positive side (there always has to be a positive side), we've managed to get a host of niggly little jobs done and some larger ones as well. And, if we have to wait much longer, we'll meet up with Peter from Troutbridge again when he returns from the UK.  

All in all, I was devastated when we first realised that we would be left behind but I've come to terms with it and count our lucky stars that it's not because of an illness or something gone horribly wrong the Calypso.  I truly hope our next blog entry will be from some beautiful islands surrounded by clear waters and coral reefs.  In the meantime, we wait.



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Lazy days & turqoise waters? Not always!

Like new again

 
Just in case any of you think that all we ever do is laze around on white sandy beaches, dipping our bodies into tepid turquoise seas and sipping on cocktails decorated with little coloured umbrellas, think again!  Life on the ocean waves can be a tad tedious at times.

Paul and I have been at various jobs non-stop since we arrived back in Danga Bay.  After spending a full morning flushing out the bilges, scrubbing, brushing and generally exhausting ourselves in this oppressive heat, I decided to take note of what everyone else was doing on their boats.  And lo and behold, they were also all scrubbing, painting, fixing and working like the proverbial beavers.   The old adage of "cruising is just fixing your boat in exotic ports" is definitely a case of 'truer words were never spoken'. 

Paul tagging

We never normally stay in marinas; it's just not in our budget to do so.  However, here in Danga Bay, the marina is about to be pulled down, the rates are very inexpensive and there is literally nowhere to anchor anyway.  So we took the opportunity to use copious amounts of their water to flush and wash down everything imaginable.  Also, it was a golden opportunity to end for end the anchor chain and remark it all, not a job that's possible when it's being used to hold you in place in an anchorage.  Paul spent two days out in that heat sewing little tags to mark it at five metre intervals so he doesn't have to guess how much chain is out each time.  The old tags finally wore away.  A great job, one of many, finally done!

And as for the clear, turquoise waters.  Ha, not even a hint of blue.  This water is positively revolting and there's a constant repellant odour not to mention the more than unpleasant appearance.  

We hear things will improve on the eastern side.  

We're waiting for the currents to change direction at the appropriate times so we can make it past the Singaporean port control limits within daylight hours.  It's totally taboo to anchor anywhere there and it would be a bit hair-raising to traverse those waters at night so we need to know that we can cover the distance during the day.  Only by having the current with us all the way will that be possible.  There are literally hundreds of monstrous tankers, tugs, container ships, ferries, tour boats, fishing boats, you name it, out there and, guess what?  They all go faster than us!

 EVERYONE AT WORK:

Francine washing

Francois fixing

Myra sewing

Jan chasing mold

Paraic fixing, Myra fitting

  

Power washing

Our not so inviting marina waters