40) West to East Malaysia. 27 February to 12 June, 2016.

We went up on the hardstand on 27th February for four to six weeks’ worth of re-doing the antifouling and fixing the ever mounting pile of repairs on the boat that were needed to keep us cruising safely. PM worked from 9am to 7pm daily for about three weeks solid to remove the blue antifouling, by himself and by hand, with a metal scraper and a small orbital wet sander.

When all the blue paint was removed it revealed a big, sad problem - huge patches of blistered paint over most of the hull of the boat. The paint job we had done by Seatech marine, in a Gold Coast shipyard in 2011, had not taken hold properly on about 40% of the boat's hull surface area. We thought getting it done in Australia and using the best products, we would get a superior job and one that would last a long time. That's certainly what we paid for when charged over $22K for the job, but what we got, was inferior and one that lasted less than 5 years.

So PM then spent another six weeks removing four layers of the old white blistered paint using a small angel grinder, to get back to the bare steel. He then acid washed these areas and applied three layers of red primer.

Sea life removed revealing the blue antifoul with the white blistered paint underneath.

Reverie resembled a Jersey cow when this stage was completed, except it was cream and red, instead of black and white. Then two layers of grey paint were applied to cover the entire hull and then lastly up to three layers of blue anti-fouling was applied - job finished. 




Up on the hard. Looking like a Jersey Cow.

During this time I was busy cleaning out 16 filthy bilges. Then I chipped away the rust and those spots were cleaned, treated and painted. At least I was able to undertake this task in air-conditioned comfort. Once that job was done I gave the entire deck a serious scrub, and cleaned all the lifelines. In the last week, PM fixed the engine, freezer, and the water maker and we provisioned the boat. 

The only thing we didn't do was acid wash and polish to the sides of the hull and some serious rust treatment to the deck. Both these areas were looking pretty shabby and stood out against our nice new hull paint job. Oh well, we will have to save that for another day when we are in a quiet still marina. We couldn’t afford any more delays as we needed to get around to the east coast of Malaysia and up into the Gulf of Thailand or stay another six months or so in the marina, as being on the west coast during the SW monsoon is not ideal.

Finally it was time to leave the hardstand after three solid months of extremely hard work in tropical heat conditions, and return to "the blue". Yes, you can certainly say we were not sad to see this working stage of our cruising life over and done with. We were gently placed on the sea lift, and at high tide - 5pm, we were "splashed". We gladly said goodbye to the hard work and sadly to the last few remaining friends at the marina, Ben and Belle (Ocean Jaywalker) and Angie and Larry (Tao 8). We would highly recommend Pangkor marina for facilities, service and friendliness. With a nice high tide on the 27th May we departed the marina and headed south.

We quickly tracked down the coast taking only five days to get down the western side of Malaysia and into the Malacca Strait. During the five days we had four out of five days of bad weather. Well we did expect it as the SW monsoon had officially started in May and would not be abating until approximately November. Thankfully the monsoon was not in full force as yet and the four storms we did get were from the north and north-west and the longest lasted only five hours.

We then crossed the western edge of the Johor Strait, down into the Singapore Strait and around Singapore. It was busy as usual but this time we knew what to expect and we were going with huge tankers in one direction only and not trying to cut across two lanes of traffic in front of tankers. Much easier than last time.






Rounding Singapore Strait. This ship looks like it has its own amusement park on deck.

The Singapore Maritime Police and Singapore Navy were everywhere but we luckily didn't hear a peep from them. We guessed that they were receiving our AIS signal as we were receiving all the ships' signals around us. As a precaution we gave way to everybody and so can only assume we did everything right. No news is good news - right. By late afternoon we had 'arrived' on the east coast of Malaysia and were anchored in the eastern side of the Johor Strait, wedged between Singapore and Malaysia, opposite Changi airport.



From here we quickly moved north from one anchorage to another along the east coast of Malaysia. However we did enjoy a stay of a few days in Kuala Terengganu or 'KT' as we call it, to check out of Malaysia and re-provision. Moving north we spent the last few days in Malaysia, checking out Palau Perhentian. We could not go ashore officially so we snorkelled and swam in the gorgeous Turtle Bay.

Turtle Bay, P. Perhention, Malaysia.

Procedures: Kuala Terengganu (KT): You can anchor safely in the bay just north of the marina or get a berth at the marina. Being in another state you also need to check in with the three authorities. Customs and the Port Authority are within walking distance from the dock opposite the marina and on opposite sides of the road to each other. Check your map for the exact location. For Immigration you need to take a half day excursion to the Airport which is costly and time consuming. Take a taxi from the bus station. However, there is a way around this – 1) Download and print the appropriate paperwork from the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) website. 2) Complete the paperwork and have your passports ready. 3) Await the big orange ship (oil rig boat) that pulls up at the marina at least once a day, sometimes twice, early in the morning and late in the afternoon. 4) Go ashore and await Immigration to process all the ship’s crew and then attend to you. 5) Present your prepared documents and passports to Immigration. If you don’t meet the requirements for any reason you will need to go to the Airport to check in but you can check out here with Immigration following the above method, at least saving one trip.

Water: The marina has water.

Fuel:  Put all your jerry cans in your dinghy and travel up river from the marina (western bank). Take the left hand fork in the river and the fuel dock is on the eastern bank below the bridge. The fuel hose can reach to fill up the jerry cans. If you are a small boat and also game you can take your boat up there at high tide and raft up against several fishing boats. The fuel hose can reach across the boats to fill your tank.

Provisioning: There is an excellent fresh produce market on the eastern bank conveniently near the dock. A small supermarket is near the bus station. The huge mall with supermarket is a bus/taxi ride away.