June 2018: Bird watching in the Panti Jungle.

I spent the entire day suffering from lense envy!

Our time spent in Puteri Harbour Marina is always made special as we get to spend time with Bruce's work mate, Tony and his lovely wife Evelyn. Once again they went out of their way to make us welcome and this time they shared a bit of their life with us.

We didn't realize that earthy colors would have been best, we stood out like a beacons!

Tony giving Bruce some pointers.

Bruce getting into it, using Tony's suggestions.

Deciding to not go on the tourist route, Tony & Evelyn asked us to join them with two of their friends on a birdwatching morning in the Panti Jungle. To say I was a little anxious is an understatment. I am not a fan of the bush, let alone walking around in the Malaysian jungle and it was doing my head in. I will admit that when we were in the car and heading out to breakfast, I was feeling incredibly over whelmed.

I dont know why I worried, everyone was happy, helpful and dedicated.

Our time together started on a Wednesday afternoon, where Tony & Eveyln came and picked us up from the marina. To their surprise I (Deb) had never eaten 'Steam Boat' before, so we went off to their favourite place. It was very interesting and worth a try if you have never eaten it before. Bruce loved every morsel.

After our dinner, we went back to their home and had a lovely evening sitting around chatting. Next morning we all got up bright and early and off we went to have one of favourite breakfasts: Roti Canai with Teh Tarik at the town of Koto Tinggi. Then off to the jungle!

Some lovely sun light coming through into the jungle (so glad I wasn't walking around in this!). 

On the drive to the jungle, Evelyn and Tony shared with us that on one of the recent visits they saw elephants - in the wild! I was so excited to think I may see a wild elephant but it was not to be. We did however see elephant poo and Evelyn pointed out to me some slide marks that had been left by elephants as they climbed up a small embankment.

This is all we got to see of the elephants:their poo!

Go Bruce, he's got a bird in his lense.

Much to my relief, our birding day was all spent on a road (in the jungle) not actually trekking in the jungle per say. We had to share our road with cars and a quite a few trucks carting sand.

These guys went up and down all morning.

Being on the road we had to keep a look out for the trucks.

We had only driven in about 1 minute on the road in when we saw their friends, Belinda and Laipeng. The girls had stopped their car as they heard the call of the hornbills. As it turned out they had heard a pair of male and female hornbills calling each other, their call was quite loud. Thanks to Tony, he sent me photos with the names of the birds on the photo for easy identification.

This was to be the start of an amazing morning. We saw loads of birds and we admired both Tony and Belinda on their skill with their cameras. Tony likes to use his tripod to steady the camera and Belinda, who uses the same camera, likes to hold hers by hand. Both captured the most incredible photos.

Tony & Belinda using the same camera, but with different styles. Bruce joining them looked very professional, Bruce is that lense cap still on?

It's amazing how over the last few years we have met many birders, as they call themselves. We also like birds but have never gone that extra step ourselves to look for them. To be quite frank we were impressed. Our four keen birders were incredible. They have gained so much knowledge over the last 3+ years and during our morning they couldnt keep us any more informed. We learnt so much.

As hard as I tried, I searched and searched, waited, listened, searched again,,,,I couldn't see what they were seeing!!!

Poor Tony, he spent a great deal of his time being very patient with us both, trying to help us to see what he was seeing.

They could identify birds by sound, they knew a certain bird would come to a specific area and they knew the birds habits. We were astounded to watch our friends chatting amongst themselves discussing what bird they just saw right down to: female/male, adult/fledgling/young, nesting, territorial behavour etc.

Tony was so good, he knew a certain bird would be in a certain area - which turned out to be a small stream, at a certain time. So he set up his screen (for camouflage), sat down on his chair, positioned his camera through a slit in the screen and on his phone played the call of the bird he knew would come to the stream to drink. Sure enough it did just that,,,it was amazing.

Getting set up by the stream.

And here is Tony's little bird. This litle guy came to check out the bird sound (playing on Tony's phone) and satisfied he didnt have an intruder, decided enjoyed a splash in the stream.

Here are more of Tony's shots,,,,remarkable clarity!

Thanks to Belinda, here is a list of what she captured through the lens this day:

1 black hornbill (male and female)
2 black-naped monarch
3 blue-throated bee-eater
4 buff-vented bulbul
5 chestnut bellied malkoha
6 cream-vented bulbul
7 crested-serpent eagle
8 greater racquet-tailed drongo
9 hairy-backed bulbul
10 hill myna
11 large woodshrike
12 little green pigeon
13 orange-bellied flowerpecker
14 raffle's malkoha
15 red-eyed bulbul
16 thick-billed green pigeon
17 whiskered-tree swift
18 white-bellied woodpecker
19 white-throated kingfisher
20 yellow-bellied bulbul
21 yellow-breasted flowerpecker
22 yellow-vented bulbul
23 barbet (unable to i.d.)

And a few of her incredible photos, all shot without a tripod:

A flock of at least 6 Blue-throated Bee-eater up high up above the trees

Buff-vented Bulbul feeding a juve?

Chestnut-bellied malkona

Chestnut-bellied malkona was really busy flying from left to right collecting twigs for nest building.

Female Black Hornbill

Female Black-naped Monarch. Notice how yellow is the inside of it's beak. For Belinda this shot was whats called a 'Lifer' which means its the first time she has seen it in the wild and got the photo to prove it!

Greater Racquet Tailed Drongo minus one racquet

Hairy-backed bulbul

Male Black Hornbill

Male Black Hornbill

Lovely Orange-bellied flowerpecker

Large woodshrike

Yellow-bellied Bulbul

Yellow-breasted flowerpecker

Other than all these beautiful birds, we also saw a fair bit of other wild life:

The amount of ants on the ground was incredible. This line of ants were crossing the road in tight formation (until a truck ran over them).

Belinda was fast enough to capture this white tailed squirrel.

This big boy was scary. Bruce and I both saw loads of this ant wandering around alone.

Creepy big spiders.

A Raffles Banded Langur, photo by Belinda.

I think he is checking out Bruce's moustache!

And we saw colourful flowers & lovely green foliage. Bruce snapped lots of colourful fungi........

Just as we were all discussing finishing up as the clouds where coming over, we all heard a large crack in the jungle. I thought it was a tree branch falling down. But no sooner had we heard the cracking sound than a wild boar speed out of the jungle at an incredible speed crossed from one side of the road to the other disappearing in the thick foliage. We just all stood there, shocked and little frightened. The animal was so fast, if it had of ran into one of us, broken legs and goodness knows what would have happened. With our hearts pumping like crazy, we all jumped in the cars and took off for lunch, glad to leave the horrible stench he left in his wake behind us!

Thanks to Google Images, this is a Malaysian Wild Boar.

On our way to lunch, Tony & Evelyn stopped to show us the remnents of two WW2 bunkers. Built by the British, the bunkers housed machine guns to have some control on who came and went.

Tony and Bruce with a WW2 bunker behind them.

Shame about the graffiti.

Protection from the north and south. This position was the highest point of the road with views for miles.

After the near miss of a the wild boar incident, signalling the end of our bird watching, Tony & Evelyn took us to a very popular roadside cafe called: Kiang Kee Bak Kut Teh. Bak Kut in Chinese means 'pork rib' and Teh means 'tea', so a direct translation we were heading in for Pork Rib Tea. This is a favourite place for the Chinese to come eat. They even drive their fancy cars over from Singapore to sit and eat while admiring their nice cars. The cafe specialises in the dish called 'many pigs parts' - lucky for me they also sold tofu and vegetables. The main dish of pork ribs in soup was delicious. We must admit though, we did have some of the pigs trotters dish and it was very good. Bruce tried the stomach lining soup, he didnt mind it, but I dont think he is rushing back to whip some up in Matilda's galley!

Our lunch stop: Kiang Kee Bak Kut Teh roadside cafe. Image curtosy of Google Images.

Thanks gang for such a great day out!

Cruising Spinnaker

Why do we use our cruising spinnaker so much.  

Keeping this short and sweet, as they say a picture is worth a thousand words.

Not an unusual sight, not much wind today. Lets make the most of what we have got.

Up with the Cruising Spinnaker, on really light breeze days (0-10) we run with out the main up, keeping an eye out for increasing wind strength

Here we go 3.3-3.7 Knots boat speed in 7-9 Knots of breeze. Its a whole lot easier on every thing than motoring and keeps the cabin cooler. 

 

 

 

On those days where it is actually blowing 10-15 Knots we can get a nice turn of speed, we run with the main up on these days so we can shield the spinnaker with it when its time to pull it down

So at the end of the day we can sit in the anchorage drink a cold one and enjoy the sunset

Anchor it right

You saw it here first, 

The locally made Rock-na anchor as used by Tioman fishermen

Prototype done now for production

Check your safety and lifting gear regularly

Check your safety and lifting gear regularly

Checking through my safety gear, when I had the life sling out of the pack I noticed some rusty discoloration on the material ends.  I rotated the rings in the material of the sling ends and discovered one ring was suffering crevice corrosion. This would explain the rust marks on the material. After closer inspection of the ring I could see that it was no longer safe to use as a rescue/lifting device. This has happened in just a year. The warmer and more humid tropical climate certainly accelerates corrosion.  It’s well worth while checking all stainless rings or “D” loops by rotating them regurally. We have several safety devices with stainless rings, eg life jackets, boson’s chair, harnesses and we will now decrease the time between inspections. 

Rings after they were cut out of the sling material ends, the exposed part of the ring looked ok

Closer inspection of one ring shows how close it was to failure.

May Newsletter 2018

News from the Crew of Matilda

May  2018

Ships log: 

This is a local fishing boat hauling in his trawling net. The run between Penang and Pangkor is littered with these boats who often are pair trawling, making some runs difficult to work out your best passage.

The beginning of May saw us at Penang and as much as we love it, we didn't stop this time around. We spent our first night anchored just outside the Junk Anchorage at 05 24.18n, 100 20.67e in 6 meters after a long day from Langkawi. The following day we decided on a small jump down to the Queensbay Mall anchorage at Jerejak, dropping anchor at 05 18.45n, 100 18.08e in 10mtrs.

Next day we did the first of many big runs south covering 62 nautical miles to Pulau Talang for the night. anchoring at 04 25.25n, 100 34.69e in 10.3 mtrs. The following day we made it nicely in to Pangkor Marina, staying put for a couple of weeks to do jobs.

Saw the sea plane come and go a few times, it's always quite the sight.

As it turned out the 'couple of weeks' turned into a month. Bruce during some routine engine maintenance discovered one broken engine mount and 2 with cracks in the inserts.


Crew log:
The run down once you leave Langkawi is full of long days, generally with little wind. So it was a surprise when we dropped our anchors at Talang on the east side away from the west as it is the Sou'west monsoon season at the moment, when a storm came up. As always it decided to roll in around midnight and was coming directly from the Nor'east - ohhh goodie another lee shore, so we hauled anchored and puttered around to the west side. 

Basanti bathed in the morning sun as she leaves Penang, bound for Pulau Talang, Pangkor.

Sadly we had to leave our mates on Basanti because their engine decided to not run in gear, lucky for them their new Rochna anchor was holding on for dear life and true to form it didn't let go. Come day light, we moved Matilda back around to assist as we are now proud owners of a Hookah unit. Turned out their prop was totally wrapped up in rope. Not a pretty sight, but once the boys cut it off, the engine started again and off we went down to Pangkor Marina to do some jobs and have a look around the island.

The Captains all Hookah'd up and ready to cut the rope free.

This is what they saw under Bastanti,,,,what a dreadful mess.

This is the ball of rope Bruce and Ken cut off Basanti's prop/shaft. The ruler showing the 1" thick rope!

Once we where tied up at the dock at Pangkor, its all go go go,,the job list always seems never ending. One of our jobs was to flush the entire run of our bilge - not a pretty sight but had to be done.

Floor boards all up exposing the full length bilge on Matilda.

Here is something we had not seen before. A crane dropping a yacht back in. Her twin keels will not fit on the SeaLift so a crane it is.

After a week in the marina we decided we all needed a day off from working on our boats. Pangkor Island is an 8 minute ferry ride over so we all jumped on for the princely sum of RM14 p/p return ($4.20). We had a great day buzzing around the island on our hired scooters. The pictures can tell the story of the day...........

First stop the boat builders. It gave us all a greater appreciation for whats out there on the water. These boats are very sold and massive.

These are their props,,,,,enormous!

Then off to the Dutch Fort for a look at the ruins.

Then off to the 'floating' mosque for a look. Its a very impressive building.

As we wanted to go inside the building (but not in where they pray), we had to leave our shoes at the door and put on appropriate clothing. Boy it was hot with these on.

Before we went into the Mosque, we made a few new friends. Very friendly locals.

Our rides for the day.

A lovely long lunch on on the western side of the island at Daddy's Cafe. 

Love seeing the Hornbill birds, they are amazing.

We didnt stop here in case the rest of the litter was being served,,,haha just joking.

The local kids having a snooze and being kids,,,,

There are some fantastic murals around the island, we loved this one.

Always monkeys,,,Bruce loved this guys 'mo'!

Puffer fish decorations anyone?

All over the island are these look outs,,,they are fantastic.

And this is us, at the end of our day out,,,it was loads of fun.

Then the jobs continued on. We had all 110 meters of chain double dipped galvanized which as it turns out weighs 255kg. Had the job done at Steelway.com.my at Butterworth and we are very happy with their service and the job. The chain looks really good and should give us another few years of service.

And this is what 110 meters of chain looks like on the dock. Bruce is measuring up every 10 meters, then  putting a marker on so when deploying we know how much has gone out.

During a clean out of some cupboards we found a huge tin of Milo we forget we had. So during the month we cooked up a few things Milo............ Here in Malaysia they love Milo. But we soon learnt to pronounce it as 'Me Low' as they do, when ordering a cold one.

Milo Biscuits, so good.

We spent quite a few days doing some sewing. One of the sewing jobs was to repair the spinnaker bag. As we use it a fair bit, we had been slowy damaging on of the sides, so a few repairs later it was all done.

Final touches to the repairs on the spinnaker bag. Bruce is hammering in the islets for the tie rope.

During some routine engine maintenance Bruce discovered one our engine mounts had a piece missing - not good, and found another insert was cracked, also not good. While not good news, better to have found them here while at the dock rather than at some island in the middle of no where.

Bruce soon had the parts ordered from Oz and the delivery did amused us. I'll let the photos tell the tale.................

We had to go to Customs House to pickup our parcel which was delivered via this truck, in this huge sealed silver bucket.

Once the seal was broken, everyone was intrigued as to what we were having delivered. Everyone is peering into the opened bucket.

And thats the parcel in Bruce's left hand,,,,yep that tiny parcel. 

This is what was in the parcel..........

Parcel back on board and unpacked, now to the awful job of removing all four mounts, getting the inserts out and then putting all four new mounts back in. Not an easy task.

These were our engine mounts. Turned out all 4 were damaged. No doubt this occured during our troubles with a bent shaft.

This is an engine mount. The yellow piece is called an 'insert', and this one is badly damaged,,,actually its broken.

And engines are never in a good place. The job took Bruce nearly 6 hours, with a fair bit of his time in this position. 

Laying on the engine block, working upside down to the part and completly working blind. You cant see the part while you work on it. It's a very difficlt job.

New engine mount inserts in, mounts back in place, now time for some polishing. When we were last on the hard stand we had an extra plate put on our bow so as the anchor stops banging into Matilda's hull. This is the first time we have had a chance to polish it up, and it looks great.

As usual things are never that easy to do, but before the sun was too high Bruce sat on the dock to start polishing.

For the other side he needed to get the tender in the water.  Its certainly coming up a treat - nice and shiny! 

Her stern all very shiny. The step ladder had a few minor repairs done and then polished.

And the job of polishing went on and on. Bruce also did our stern ladder, the bow, the stern its self , he even polished the solar panels! Then spent hours washing the top deck. She's all back to shiny and we are ready to leave to the dock. Looking forward to spending a few months on the east side of Malaysia/Thailand visiting the Thai Gulf exploring new places for us. Then revisiting Tioman and Anambas.

Her bow all shiny. The garland of flowers on our bow is a symbolic gesture of good luck. We see this gesutre on nearly all the fishing vessels in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. The fishermen belive the flowers are a symbol to provide good luck and protection, also to honour the spirits of the water.