1 May 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Penang
We had yet another day on board. We’re just waiting for Glenys to get her dental work done and with all this hanging around, we’re starting to get cabin fever. I consolidated some of my research on the Anambas islands into one document and made a little bit more progress by contacting Bryan, a guy who lives in Singapore and runs a website called amazinganambas.com.
Brian visits the islands every couple of months and is trying to promote the Anambas as a tourist destination, so he’s given me a few contacts there. Unfortunately, the islanders don’t use email very often, so it’ll be hard to contact them, but at least I’ve got a few people to talk to when we get to the main town of Tarempa.
I removed the seal from one of our leaking port holes and replaced it with a new piece that I’ve been carrying around for years. It was a mission to clean out the silicone sealant from a tiny L-shaped groove and, in all, it took me a couple of hours of messing about to get the new seal fitted. Unfortunately, the cross-section profile of the new rubber seal is different to the old one and I could barely close the window, putting great stress on the hinges and closing handles.
I contacted Lewmar in the UK and they tell me that the port-lights are so old that they no longer have the old profile seal, but the one that I have should be okay. They say it will be tight initially, but after 1-2 weeks closed, the seal should compress. I’m not convinced.
2 May 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Penang
The cabin fever finally got to us and we caught a couple of buses to Penang Hill for a tourist day out. Penang Hill is one of the top tourist attractions in Penang with over 1.3 million visitors each year. It’s basically a hill over-looking Georgetown, which was a cool retreat for the British colonists from the heat of the lowlands and threat of malaria. In the late 1700’s, many bungalows were built on the summit of Penang Hill for government servants and army and a funicular railway was built in the 1920’s.
There were hundreds of people milling about at the base station for the funicular railway, surprisingly most of them seemed to be Malaysian families out for the day. After the brief ride in the railway, we found ourselves in a set of paths, leading to the old colonial bungalows, scattered around the hill. We wandered around the touristy area of the top station, past hawkers selling jewellery and henna tattoos. There’s a very small hotel, a Hindu temple and a mosque.
We had a bite to eat at a café - I’ve decided that I don’t like the local, Penang version of Laksa, which I believe has a mackerel fish stock base and is much more fishy than the other type of Laksa that we’ve tried. After lunch, we went for a walk around some of the paths on top of the hill and were pleased to spot a Dusky Leaf Monkey and a Black Giant Squirrel. The old bungalows are still occupied, but getting to them must be a mission on the very narrow tracks.
After riding down on the train, we caught a bus to the Kek Lok Si Chinese temple, which is very impressive.
The Kek Lok Si Temple ("Temple of Supreme Bliss" or "Temple of Sukhavati" or "Jile Si") is a Buddhist temple situated in Air Itam in Penang facing the sea and commanding an impressive view, and is one of the best known temples on the island. It is said to be the largest Buddhist temple in Malaysia. It is also an important pilgrimage centre for Buddhists from Hong Kong, the Philippines, Singapore and other countries in Southeast Asia.
This entire complex of temples was built over a period from 1890 to 1930, an inspirational initiative of Beow Lean, the Abbot. The main draw in the complex is the striking seven-storey Pagoda of Rama VI (Pagoda of Ten Thousand Buddhas) with 10,000 alabaster and bronze statues of Buddha, and the 30.2 metres (99 ft) tall bronze statue of Kuan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy.
It was interesting to see the differences between the Chinese Buddhas and the temples that we’d seen in Myanmar. I was fascinated to see the swastika symbol on most of the Buddhas. This symbol was infamously used by the Nazis in the Second World War, but for thousands of years prior to that has been a religious symbol meaning “auspiciousness”.
Visitors are allowed to climb up the many stairs of the pagoda, which interestingly, is constructed in three different architectural styles - Chinese at the bottom, Thai in the middle and Burmese at the top. We had a good day out.
3 May 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Penang
We’re still waiting for Glenys’s next dentist appointment, so we lurked around for another day, playing guitar and ukuele and doing research on places to visit over the next year. I consolidated all my research about the Anambas into a document and spent a few hours on Google earth looking at possible anchorages. I worked out a rough plan for our six week visit to the islands and added the probable anchorages to my document. Hopefully everything will work out fine.
4 May 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Penang
Having sat around for weeks, I’m feeling very blobby and trapped, so I went for a run before breakfast. It was okay, but I still have an annoying ache and tightness in my chest between my shoulder blades, which makes it difficult to breathe deeply. This has been lingering for over three months now, since I pulled a muscle in Phuket and the physiotherapy that I had hasn’t seemed to make much difference. Perhaps it’s something more serious.
Glenys went to see the specialist dentist at the Adventist Hospital, to get a peg put in her tooth before she can have a crown fitted. Unfortunately, the dentist refused to do any work because her blood pressure was too high at 170/95. This came as a real shock to Glenys because her blood pressure is normally very stable at 125/80.
The dentist told Glenys to go to see a doctor in the hospital and she spent the rest of the day hanging around the hospital, getting some blood tests done and then seeing a doctor, who has prescribed some tablets to lower her blood pressure and told her to come back next Monday (9th). Not only is this change in her health a bit worrying, it also means that she can’t get the work done on her tooth until the 10th, which won’t leave enough time to get a crown fitted and for us to sail 240 miles south to Admiral Bay Marina before our flight leaves for the on the 18th May. It’s turned into a logistical nightmare.
5 May 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Penang
After our shock about Glenys’ blood pressure, I woke up worrying about the tightness in my chest. In the dark of night, things get exaggerated. I’ve been taking medication for high blood pressure for decades. Had I had some kind of stroke? Was it Angina? I decided to go for a check-up.
I caught the bus to the Adventist Hospital, which is a couple of miles away from Strait Quay Marina. They were very efficient - within fifteen minutes, I was registered and they were sticking a needle into my arm to extract blood for a full set of blood tests. I then had to hang around for two hours waiting for the test results.
In the heart centre, they used an ultrasound scanner to check my heart, which seemed normal. They then wired me up to an ECG machine and put me on a treadmill to run for ten minutes to get my heart rate up to 160 bpm. My blood pressure before and after the exercise was within limits.
After a bit more waiting around, I saw a doctor, who said that I didn’t have any signs of cancer, my heart size was normal and my ECG under stress was fine. My cholesterol was slightly high and my liver was slightly inflamed slightly - too much cheese and alcohol - no great surprise there. Basically, I’m as fit as a fiddle and the doctor thinks that the pain in my back is just some pulled muscles - I need to exercise and stretch. That’s a relief.
Back at the boat, Glenys had managed to persuade the dentist to “fast-track” the fitting of her crown. She’s booked to see the doctor on the 9th; the specialist dentist on the 10th; the normal dentist to get the crown impression on the 11th; and will get the proper crown fitted on the 12th. We’ll then just have enough time to sail 240 miles; have a couple of days to get the boat ready to leave; and fly out on the 18th - not quite the leisurely home-going that we’d originally planned.
6 May 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Penang
Rather than another day sitting about waiting, we caught a bus to the Penang National Park, which is a short 30 minute ride from Straits Quay Marina. We set off on a nice, well-kept trail, which follows the coast and is mostly in the shade in thick forest. The trail is 4.7 kilometres past a couple of beaches and up to a lighthouse on the north-west tip of Penang.
Despite the shade, it was damn hot, but we had plenty of water. After hour, Glenys was suffering with the same symptoms that she had on our last hike - lack of energy, a little nausea and a little dizziness. We stopped for several rests and had a long break at Monkey Beach, which is a popular place for tourists, where we were able to buy an isotonic drink.
While wandering about the fringes of the beach we came across a mangrove swamp and in one of the pools suddenly spotted something skimming across the water. This turned out to be a Giant Mud Skipper. I found this information on the internet:
These fish are able to live both in water and on land, walking around on their pectorial fins . They are able to extract oxygen from their skin for a large part of their oxygen processing. Mudskippers must always keep their mouths and skin moist, since the oxygen needs to diffuse with water before they can absorb it. They are completely amphibious fish, uniquely adapted to inter-tidal habitats, unlike most fish in such habitats, which survive the retreat of the tide by hiding under wet seaweed or in tidal pools. Mudskippers are quite active when out of water, feeding and interacting with one another, for example to defend their territories.
We decided to press on further up the steeper trail to the lighthouse, but after ten minutes, Glenys felt so bad that we had to turn around. This was more than simple dehydration, because we’d been careful to drink lots of fluids and eat often. After eating our sandwiches at Monkey Beach (where we saw a few Long-tailed Macaques), we headed back, but Glenys was feeling very nauseous, so after 30 minutes, we took a lift on a passing tourist-boat back to the National Park Centre.
Glenys had a refreshing shower and changed her clothes, but still looked decidedly dodgy, with pale lips and she still felt nauseous and dizzy. We caught the bus back to the boat, where we measured her blood pressure, which was disturbingly low at 80/60. After another shower and a nap for an hour, her blood pressure had returned to a more acceptable 120/80. Phew!
We did some research on the internet, and we think that, with the low blood pressure and some dehydration, she had the classic symptoms of shock. There must be some underlying problem, so she’s going to get some more tests done before her appointment with the doctor on Monday 9th. Unfortunately, being Seventh Day Adventists, the hospital is closed on Saturday, which is their Sabbath, so she’ll rest tomorrow and go on Sunday 8th.
7 May 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Penang
We had a very quiet day, pottering about and monitoring Glenys’ blood pressure every few hours. Just before breakfast, it was low at 101/67, so she didn’t take the prescribed high blood pressure tablet. By mid-morning, it was at a more normal 110/70 and stayed that way for the rest of the day. It’s all a bit worrying.
8 May2016 Straits Quay Marina, Penang
Glenys headed off to the hospital first thing in the morning and I got on with a few jobs. I’ve been very lazy and have been avoiding attempting to repair the front toilet after it stopped working while Steve and Jacqui were on board five weeks ago.
I suspected that the pipes had become furred up, but when I tried to remove them I couldn’t budge any of them. I’ll have to cut them off and replace with new reinforced pipe, but I won’t be able to get any pipe until we get to Singapore, so the job was stopped. I started to reassemble the toilet and noticed that the Joker Valve was inverted. I reverted it, rebuilt the toilet and, lo and behold, the toilet now works - brilliant.
Glenys came back mid-afternoon, and her tests were all okay. The doctor told her not to take any more blood pressure tablets and thinks that the tablets were the reason why she nearly passed out on the hike. They have no idea why her blood pressure was so high at the dentist - perhaps she just gets stressed up by dentists...
9 May 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Penang
We had another admin day. Next January, we’re planning to go to the Andaman Islands, which are 500 miles west of Thailand, and belong to India. So we’ve got to get Indian tourist visas. Unfortunately, because we are British citizens, we are only able to apply for a visa in the UK and it’s a right palaver.
I spent three hours filling in two on-line visa applications. The visa applications have been outsourced and the process is tedious. Having made our on-line applications, we have to print out the forms and take them in person to a visa processing centre in Birmingham. It’s going to cost £108 each to apply, which, of course, is kept even if our application is unsuccessful.
In the afternoon, Glenys went off to the dentist. We measured her blood pressure before she left, which was 110/71 -perfect. By the time the dentist took her blood pressure again it was 154/99, so she obviously hates dentists. The dentist worked on her for an hour preparing the tooth for a crown, which went well, so we might actually escape the marina on the 11th.
We had cracking thunderstorm tonight that lasted for a couple of hours. Over the past few days, the clouds have been building up in the afternoon and the lightning starts with a vengeance after six o’clock. This doesn’t bode well for our trip down the coast.
10 May 2016 Straits Quay Marina, Penang
Glenys went off to the dentist again. He took an impression for a crown, which she’ll have it fitted tomorrow. I spent day pottering about on-board, buying things on-line to be delivered to our son Craig in the UK.
11 May 2016 Straits Quay Marina to Pulau Rimau, Penang
We spent the morning getting ready to leave in the afternoon and some more damn admin. Glenys rushed off at half past two, had her crown fitted and was back at the boat by four o’clock. At five minutes past four, we were motoring out of the marina.
The entrance to the marina is a nightmare. Despite having a 2.6 metre tide, the depth still dropped down to 2.2m - that’s just 200mm under the keel. I guess we were off-line, but goodness knows where the deep channel is.
We motored against a fairly strong 15 knot south wind, passed under the two bridges and anchored at Pulau Rimau at 05°15.03N 100°16.33E in 7 metres of water. It seems to be very good holding and we’re tucked out of the wind in a shallow bay. The small island looks nice, but has packs of wild dogs roaming the scruffy beaches and howling as the sun went down.
12 May 2016 Pulau Rimai to Pulau Pangkor
Our alarm went off at 06:00, we didn’t have enough light to leave until 06:45 - normally, I don’t mind sailing in the dark, but there are so many fishing boats and nets around that it would be foolhardy to leave in poor light.
It was a long 70 mile day. The wind we had was on the nose, so we motor-sailed for 12 hours. It’s a dismal stretch of coast, with nothing of interest apart from the hundreds of fishing boats. We had quite a variety of small boats - some laying long nets that we had to skirt around and others trawling in large fleets.
The other thing that we had to avoid was large patches of rubbish in the water - logs, plastic bottles, crates, rope, etc. When we were about 5 miles from our destination, the revs on the engine suddenly dropped for a few seconds and then picked up again. Our boat speed dropped by a knot, so we knew that we’d picked up something on the propeller. As we were only an hour away from the anchorage, we just kept on going.
We dropped the anchor at Pulau Pankor at 04°12.57N 100°33.00E in 6 metres of water and I immediately went into the water armed with a bread knife. I found a big ball of netting around the propeller, but it only took a few minutes to cut it off.
We used to have a rope cutter fitted to the propeller shaft, but I removed it in New Zealand because it was worn out. In our first four years of cruising, with the rope cutter fitted, we never had any problems with entangling things on the prop. Since leaving New Zealand we’ve now had two incidents. I’m going to bit the bullet and buy new parts for the rope cutter even though it will cost over £300.
13 May 2016 Pulau Pangkor to Pulau Angsa
This is a lovely settled anchorage, but we had no time to hang about and were on our way at the crack of dawn. We had another boring day of motoring. It’s so mind numbing that we set up two hourly watches, so that we could do other things. I spent a few hours sitting at my laptop trying to learn all about jazz chords on the guitar - very complicated stuff…
We arrived at the anchorage off Pulau Angsa and anchored at 03°10.84N 101°13.01E in 10 metres of water on good holding mud. I’ve said this before, but this a rubbish anchorage - it’s behind two small islands five miles off-shore and very exposed from most directions. However, it’s the only show in town if we want to move quickly and not sail at night, so we went to bed praying for settled weather.
14 May 2016 Pulau Angsa to Admiral Marina
It was actually a very quiet pleasant night. We upped anchor and left before the sun came up. The first hour was spent dodging rows and rows of fishing nets set up across our route. The tide was against us and I wanted to stay in shallower water where the current would be weaker, but that where the fisher men were laying their nets, so we headed out and stayed in the shipping lane.
Our route took us through Port Klang, which is the closest major port to Kuala Lumpar and it’s very busy. There are miles of container ship docks with their alien looking cranes, efficiently lifting containers on and off the ships. The ships are refuelled by tankers that pull alongside and are dwarfed by the huge container ships.
It was very boring for the remaining 45 miles, so we carried on with our two hour watches and, being so close to the coast we had a reasonable 3G internet connection, so I spent my off watches down below on my laptop.
Fortunately, we had a good current with us and we made good time to Admiral Marina, arriving at around five o’clock.
15 May 2016 Admiral Marina, Malaysia
Being a Sunday, with only three sleeps to go before we fly to the UK, we couldn’t be bothered to do anything, so we stayed on the boat and chilled out.
16 May 2016 Admiral Marina, Malaysia
I felt a bit more motivated this morning, so I started doing an oil service on the engine and generator. My first job was to check the impeller in the sea water pump on the engine, which should have been a quick five minute job. Unfortunately, one of the screws holding the cover snapped off leaving a short 3mm long stub. My five minute job turned into two hours because I had to remove the whole pump assembly.
I managed to get the old screw out, but when I was replacing the pump, I broke the corner off the guard that fits over the water pump belt. After fifteen minutes of messing about, I was able to fit the pump without the guard, but you can bet a new Volvo guard will cost £100.
The rest of the service went okay. I even removed the piece of 3mm string that has been holding the starter motor onto the generator for the past three years. I put this string on because the retained nuts for the starter motor are loose and, to fix it, I need to remove the generator and replace a flange. The bit of string has worked well because the play in the starter motor has remained at 1.2mm. I replaced the piece of string…
17 May 2016 Admiral Marina, Malaysia
I ran out of engine oil yesterday, so I walked down to a garage on the main road to buy some more and then finished off the oil service.
We spent the rest of the day chilling out and waiting to leave tomorrow.
18 May 2016 Admiral Marina to United Kingdom
The day dragged on remorselessly waiting to leave for the airport. Finally six o’clock arrived and we lugged our heavy bags to the taxi. We were at the airport by 19:00 and even though our flight wasn’t until 23:00, we were able to check our bags in. A traditional pre-flight Big Mac and Fries consumed another hour and it wasn’t long until we were boarding the aircraft.
The flight was 13 hours, but it wasn’t too bad. We had a couple of small bottles of wine with dinner (at midnight), then a movie and slept for 4 hours. Watched another two movies, had breakfast at 03:00 and arrived in London Heathrow at 05:00 UK time.
We caught a courtesy bus to the car hire place, where we found out that the UK government has introduced an on-line driving license check, which all hire companies now use. Apparently, because we have UK driving licenses, we were supposed to have pre-registered on the government web site to obtain a reference number to give to the hire company. Fortunately, the guy at the hire company was on the ball and, after I gave him my National Insurance number, he was able to go on-line and get the reference number - it’s bureaucracy gone mad.
We arrive at our son Brett’s house at 07:30 to find them having a day off work to welcome us.
19 May to 14 June 2016 United Kingdom
We had a great time in the UK, staying for 4 weeks to visit family and friends. The first weekend was spent with our two sons (Brett & Craig) and their girlfriends (Tash and Kristen). Brett and Tash were getting married in a couple of weeks, so they were both excited. We went out for a night in Reading town to celebrate my up-coming 60th birthday, which was fun.
While our sons went off to work during the week, we took a short flight to Brittany in France to see Mike and Rona, two old friends, where we had a pleasant three days walking and chilling out in the lovely countryside around St Malo.
Back in UK went to stay in the New Forest with Glenys’s brother Gareth and wife Claire. They had got married a week before we arrived. They’d done it in secret and we only found out a couple of days before we visited them. It was great to catch up.
On the way up to Lancashire, we stopped off at the Indian Visa processing centre in Smethwick, Birmingham - an appropriate place for it because the local population is 80% Sikh. The process was not as smooth as we’d hoped. About four weeks ago, I’d struggled to apply for dual entry Indian Visas using a horrible on-line system. Unfortunately, we were told that it’s very difficult to get dual entry visas without a fixed itinerary and travel tickets, which we don’t have.
The lady behind the counter suggested that we reapply (on-line) for multiple entry visas which, for some bizarre reason have less stringent requirements. We’d need to print out the completed applications and the only way that we could do this was to go to the local library. Using a computer from the 1990’s, it took a couple of hours to fill-in the forms and print them out again. We then had to have new photographs taken because ours were the wrong size, but after that the process was relatively straight forward. A week later, we had our passports back with 12 month, multiple entry visas.
A long drive took us up to Accrington in Lancashire to see my mother and some of my brothers & sisters (Gillian, Andy and Tony). They’d bought me a cake for my 60th Birthday and we had a slap up meal with that northern delicacy of Pudding, Chips and Peas with Gravy. While we were in the area, we spent a night with our old friends Jim & Kath, who are cruisers that we met in the Caribbean four years ago.
Another long drive took us up to Scotland where we stayed with some climbing friends - Andy and Annie. They’ve recently bought a traditional house on the edge of Loch Leven in a stunning location and are going to be running it as a Bed and Breakfast (check them out at http://pierhouse-glencoe.scot/).
On my 60th birthday, Andy and I climbed Aonach Eagach Ridge. It was a long, 8-hour day, but the weather was fabulous and the views from the ridge were stunning. We even bagged a couple of Munros on the way (Meall Dearg & Sgorr nam Fiannaidh). It was a great way to spend my 60th Birthday…
Tired but happy, we travelled back down south to go to Brett and Tash’s wedding, stopping in at Accrington to see my mum again and Congleton to see my sister, Carol.
The wedding was held in a small “country retreat” near Stevenage and it was a fabulous day. Glenys loved dressing up in a posh frock and I felt uncomfortable in a suit with a collar and tie. Tash looked beautiful in a fairy-tail white dress and Brett looked happy and relaxed. It was a great finale to our trip and, two days later, we were on our way back to Malaysia.