Friday, December 20, 2013

Has it really been a year?


We are currently 6ft up in the air on a hardstand, in a boatyard on the historic island of Penang, West Malaysia.  We’ve been here almost 6 weeks now giving Pelangi a bit of face lift; adding some new stuff, upgrading some old stuff and getting her ready for our 2014 sailing adventures.  We bumped into some old friends of ours last week, Sheila and Michael off SY Kantala, who wanted to know why we’d taken them off our mailing list.  I knew I hadn’t written a blog entry for a while, but a whole year ago?  When I checked, my last posting was 18th December last year, and we’d just made a rather arduous sail against the wind to make it to Puerto Galera,  Northern Philippines in time for Christmas. 

So, for those of you who’ve been waiting with baited breath a whole year, or just thought you’d fallen off our mailing list here’s a brief history of 2013. Starting with Christmas in P.G.; we shared the festive season with 2 other yachting couples – the fabulous Nat and Ralph on Saltotu and Linda and Tony who were amazing hosts on Christmas Day on their aptly named boat Amazing Grace.  They pulled off a full roast for the 6 of us and we had a great day drinking, eating, and partying into Boxing Day!

We ended up spending over 2 months in P.G., most of the time with very windy/cloudy and rainy weather so we all became locals of the nearby Rock N Roll Bar and P.G.  Yacht Club!  We did have some nice days though and managed a “girls day out” shopping in the main township, snorkeling, motor cycling round the picturesque bays and G managed to get in a few days diving.  When we got our break in the weather, G and I made a run for it and headed back South to our old (and favourite) sailing ground of Bususanga.  Lucky we did, as on 6th March I got a dreaded phone call from Our Bev telling me that Mum was dying.  Mum was 86 and had been ill for some time, so it wasn’t unexpected, but it doesn’t make it any easier to accept when you’re so far away and all you want is to be with your family and say one last good bye.  We were able to leave Pelangi on a mooring buoy with friends looking after her for the unknown amount of time we’d be away.  We made the dash to Manila airport, but were too late.  Mum passed away before I’d even managed to check in.  It was heartbreaking.  I arrived in the UK to the coldest spring on record and the highest the temperature got to in the 6 weeks I was there was 8 degrees, even the dog wouldn’t go out one day it was that cold!  We farewelled Mum with a small service that she would have liked; playing her favourite songs and sharing memories with family and close friends. 

We returned to Pelangi to thaw out at the end of April and she willingly took us to El Nido, a gorgeous spot North West of Palawan Island with lots of small islands to visit, fabulous coral reef to snorkel, a beautiful lagoon and even a secret beach which you swam though a cave opening to get to.  It was a wonderful trip and a fitting end to our time in the Philippines.  We needed to head back into Malaysia before the winds changed or we would get stuck there and after the typhoon that just went through we’re glad we did!

We crossed the Balabac Strait and entered Malaysian waters on 23rd May and headed south down a now familiar route of the east coast of Borneo then across to Tioman Island which we reached on 25th June.  We had plenty of dolphins to keep us company almost every day and lots of bird life too on what was a very nice passage. 

It’s over 2 years since we were last on Tioman and not much has changed; some of the old sailing fraternity was back in the marina along with some new drinking partners (Tioman is a duty free island after all!), most notably the ever-helpful and philosophical Larry and his lovely partner Cordula.  Larry has recently found out that there’s no such thing as a cheap boat and a lot of patience and a sense of humour goes a long way when each day of boat repair presents a new challenge.  We spent 3 months in total there doing some much needed and long-awaited maintenance of our own and as the season transitioned we headed south around Singapore to Johor Bahru, West Malaysia  in the company of 2 other yachts.  This trip is notorious for the amount of heavy traffic and VERY big container ships that you get to tango with on your way through the shipping lanes so a daytime passage is always recommended.  Trying to decipher what’s moving and what’s at anchor is the main game you play for the 50 - odd mile journey, and you do get honked at rather loudly by impatient tanker captains if you dare get in their way!  There were a few incidents to make the journey a memorable one, but eventually all 3 yachts were safely berthed in Danga Bay marina on 10th October.

Compared to the idyllic Tioman marina with its pretty setting, clear blue water, and nice beaches Danga Bay is a dirty hole with filthy water and a depressing town center.  The last straw was when a full sized, tethered dead cow came floating by the outer docks one smoggy morning – absolutely true!  Time to go!! So we slipped our lines sharpish and continued our journey north towards Penang.  It was a lovely 10 day passage with dolphins playing round Pelangi on our first morning out of Danga Bay.  We enjoyed some nice evenings anchored off small, uninhabited islands, spent a day in Port Dickson stocking up on provisions and enjoyed 2 days on Pangkor Island with lots of sunshine and beach walking.  Pelangi’s haul out had been pre arranged and at 2.00pm on 18th November the travel lift gently plucked her out of the water and onto 5 hardstands.  She’s getting very spoilt here with bottom scraping and anti fouling, a new galley, a specially designed radar arch with room for 4 solar panels, a spray hood/dodger so we can stay dry on wet days, plus lots of TLC from me and G as we sand, scrape, glue and paint all sorts of extra bits.  She also has a new bimini (sun shade) cover, new sail bag and even Dolly has got in on the act with new chaps (covers). If we have any money left over after all this lot we hope to cruise around the island of Langkawi 60 nautical miles away for Christmas, then onto the islands off Thailand and around the Andaman sea.  G’s mum Bev has decided to join us for part of this trip.  This will be her 2nd time aboard Pangers so the 1st time can’t have been that bad!

So there you have it, a mixed year for us with new friendships founded, old ones re kindled, wonderful sailing, heartbreak, some very precious time with my family in Devon, lots of maintenance and long stopovers and much to look forward to.  My log shows we sailed/motored over 2,110 nautical miles and visited/ anchored off 27 islands, so not bad mileage for a slow sailing year!  There’s not enough brain cells left to count the number of beers, red wine, rum, vodka, gin and whiskey drunk over the same period, but I do recall drinking a can of coke one day!!

As for all those of you reading this, we hope you’ve had a good year with travels, adventures and special times of your own to look back on and new beginnings to look forward to.  

I’d like to dedicate this posting to the memory of my mum.  Her and dad brought me up to believe that I was as good as anyone else and could do and be anything I wanted.  I wouldn’t be living the life I do without them, their love, support and that belief.

Christmas cheers then

Captns J and G XXX