Work interrupted

The Malaysian Rally arrived in full force at Pangkor Island Marina - all sixty-odd of them.  This meant a busy week of activities and social events for the participants, past and present.

First off was a tour of Pangkor Island but even the lure of free cold beers couldn't entice Paul to take the day off.

We visited an old Dutch fortress, an amazing Chinese temple, had a visit to a traditional boat builder and a somewhat odoriferous wander around a fish salting/drying factory.  Then last but certainly not least, a wonderful lunch set out on a beautiful which sandy beach.  Fabulous food and fabulous setting.

James Khoo who runs the marina, never fails to amaze us with his generosity and hospitality.  When we passed through in 2013, he was equally as welcoming and this is why we chose to haul out here.  He seems to treat all the cruisers as though we were his own family.

Th next item on the agenda was a trip to the city of Ipoh.  Three luxury buses were organised to take us all to Ipoh some 80 kilometres away.  I even managed to persuade Paul to enjoy a day off.  Ipoh is one of Malaysia's larger cities and is surrounded by dozens of dramatic limestone hills , a bit like the karsts we saw in both Vietnam and Thailand. The old town section is rich with historical buildings whose architecture dates back to the British occupation.  Many have been beautifully restored and are now part of the Heritage Trail.

Ipoh developed as a result of the discovery of tin during the 20s and 30s and rapidly grew.  Prior to the 1970s, Malaysia was the largest producer with around a third of world production, but has since steadily fallen.  The mining operations in Malaysia and Indonesia have left large tracts of land devastated and the islands of Belitung and Bangka in Indonesia are all but wasteland.  Having said that though, I did once see a documentary on Banka where a team of of horticulturists have been trying to convert areas into a botanical garden which is certainly encouraging.  However, between the disastrous burning of the tropical forests to make way for the oil palms and the destruction the mining has caused, there is a mighty long way to go to right the wrong.

Tin mining (photo courtesy of internet)

Back to Ipoh; there are many limestone caves in and around the city and our first stop on the tour was to Kek Lok Tong (極樂洞;Cavern of Utmost Happiness) a spacious and beautiful cave temple which opens up on the other side to a magnificent zen garden that had previously been an old tin mine (a drop in the ocean but it's encouraging to see some effort to beautify). Next we were taken around the old town to visit some of the colonial buildings on the Heritage Trail with quite a few history lessons thrown in for good measure. Malaysia has a rich and diverse history when one considers its occupation over the years by the Dutch, the Portuguese, the British and then the Japanese.  No wonder the food is so exceptionally good here. Speaking of food, Ipoh has a vibrant food scene with a vast proliferation of hawker centres and restaurants.  We were free to wander at leisure for lunch and managed to find a terrific restaurant serving delicious curries which cost less than $2.50 per head.  The cuisine here is definitely something to write home about: between the ethnic groups of Malay, Chinese, Indian and European, they have developed some of the tastiest dishes imaginable.    The city is also well known in Malaysia for its "white coffee" where the coffee beans are roasted with palm-oil margarine and the resulting coffee is served with condensed milk.  Not being a coffee drinker myself and certainly not a connoisseur in any form, I fail to understand why anyone would want to drink insipid sickly sweet white coffee but.....to each his own.  Paul's a coffee drinker but he likes it black with no sugar and finding regular ground coffee is not an easy talk here; there are shelves upon shelves of "white coffee" but little sign of regular old ground stuff.  Indonesia has excellent coffee but it doesn't seem to be imported into its neighbour.  Back to the marina, the following night was a fabulous dinner on the lawn at the top of the marina ramps.  James, as usual, did himself proud.  Unfortunately, I had a bit of a cripple for a husband who had, as usual, spent the day working on the boat.  He had just had scaffolding placed around the port side of the hull so that he could get to the topsides and he was busy up there when he managed to fall off to land right on his back from a distance of about 2.5 metres.  I heard the crash and a scream then silence!  I managed, in my panic, to get down the ladder to find him lying on the ground badly winded and hurting with an ever increasing crowd of people surrounding him. As luck would have it, there's always a doctor on a boat and, in this instance, an orthopedic surgeon who checked him over before allowing him to move.  Reluctantly, he agreed to let Chris and Lynn from Out of the Blue II take him to a clinic to get an X-ray where no broken ribs or bones were found and no internal bleeding, just incredibly sore and getting stiffer by the moment.  This is now the fourth time he's injured his ribs since we left SA, twice were actual breaks and always on his right side! The sun rose this morning (the day after) and he was actually feeling quite perky but did agree to take the day (maybe even two) off. PICTURE GALLERY:.

Salting fish

Drying squid

Lunch on the beach

Dried fish

Inside the entrance to the temple

Looking out over the gardens

The old railway station

Many buildings are painted with murals

 

Mural representing the tin mines

Scenes around the old town:

Concubine Alley

Pamplemousse for sale

Life on the Hard

As we continue our life up on the hard, Paul is really getting stuck into all the outside jobs in preparing the bottom part of the hull for the new anti-fouling paint.  

In this photo, he's making "oops" repairs to the stern section of the keel which I managed to knock off by backing up into a reef one day (got a few in the front of the keel too).  It's not the first time and I'm sure it won't be the last.  Any cruiser who says they've never kissed the bottom is either not telling the truth or simply hasn't been anywhere.  Well, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

He's fibreglassed, epoxied, faired, ground and sanded all the dings - a clean, smooth-bottomed boat is a must for maintaining good speeds.  With the heat and humidity running at incredibly high levels each day, it's somewhat draining but he just keeps at it.

We've also taken this opportunity to have our overly rusty chain and anchor taken away to be de-rusted and galvanised but in laying it out for collection, he managed to drop the anchor on his bare big toe then immediately the next day, dropped a huge log on the exact same one.  Ouch!  No rest for the wicked though, he pushes on.

 
Meanwhile, I have it easy in comparison.  I run around in our little Noddy car getting bits and pieces and have been re-organising cupboards and lockers that I packed up in too much of a hurry back in Jepara.  

It's mango season at the moment so here's me making my mango chutney to bottle - there can never be too much mango chutney aboard Calypso.

After a year in Indonesia where we could not get any wine, we have found a shop here that sells a few varieties of Australian wine (sorry SA but desperate times etc....) so we've been able to indulge a little which is a major highlight.  They even sell ham and bacon!  Mind you, it's all kept in a small glassed off room at the back of the store which even has special shopping baskets for non-halal items (don't dare mix them up!) and signs everywhere to state that no Muslims are allowed to be served.  I'm happy; bacon! wine! what's not to be happy about?

This marina is one of the stops for the Sail Malaysia Rally which is on the go right now.  When we pulled in a couple of weeks ago, there were very few sailboats.  What a different scene now.  It's chock-a-block with even a few anchored outside the entrance.  We've been invited to all the social functions which is great as there are even a few boats that we've met previously.  It's always nice to meet new cruisers but wonderful to bump into old friends too.

Last week vs.....                                                                         this week.....

We've had quite a lot of heavy rains so, at long last, we've managed to rid ourselves of all the layers of thick brown teak dust we acquired back in Java.  Even the halyards are looking respectable again.  I'm told, however, that we left there none too soon as they've experienced a few storms of late.  Our experience of stormy conditions there is something we'd rather not repeat.

Deepavali celebrations

Happy Deepavali

 

How lucky could we be!  We have just experienced extraordinary hospitality by an Indian family to help celebrate their festival of Deepavali or Diwali; a celebration of good over evil which, to Hindus, is as important to them as Christmas is to Christians.  It also marks the start of a new financial year for Indian businesses of which Malaysia has many despite being a mere 7% of the population.

We had met an Indian gentleman, Mohan, who, amongst a myriad of others things, hired out cars.  He had been recommended to us by a fellow cruiser.  We are never normally so extravagant that we would rent a car but discovered that just collecting fuel ourselves would constitute a saving of nearly half the cost of hiring one in addition to offering us invaluable access to supply shops and supermarkets during our stay on the hard.  Thus decided, this extremely bubbly chap offered us a little 'Noddy' car for a very reasonable price and then proceeded to invite us and two other boats to his family's home for lunch to celebrate Deepavali.  We gladly accepted.

 

What a lovely home and how incredibly welcoming they all were.  And the food; an outstanding array of curries and other Indian treats were laid out for anyone entering their home for a visit and there appeared to be non-stop visitors dropping by throughout the day.

A fabulous experience.

Lifted out

After several days of complete lassitude where we took a bit of break from 'boat jobs', we got the call to enter the Sealift contraption that would pull us out of the water.  

Unlike a sling lift which we'd used on previous occasions, this is a long device with inflated pontoons that slides into the water.  You then steer the boat in between the pontoons which hug the keel, raises up hydraulically, and then drives up the ramp with you neatly squished in there.  All this is done remotely be a chap standing at the side playing with the controls.  Quite ingenious really.  

After a good power wash, we were rather pleasantly surprised at how good the hull looked.  We'd been expecting a dreadful sight after having not hauled out for five years so it appears that Paul's constant scraping has really paid dividends.

Now the work begins!