It's always a worry when you splash back in after doing some work on the boat.
You know, is everything going to work again? Is it going to leak?
Morning campers! Look at this, it's a bright sunny morning
and we've spent a few days just doing nothing really. It's been quite nice
just doing nothing, sitting here. There's been a little bit of weather over on the other side,
but I think that's mainly down the west side of the South China Sea.
The forecast looks all right. We actually waited an extra day because there's supposed to be some
south-westerly winds coming through. Can't see them yet. Anyway we're about to weigh anchor. And up to
a 30 mile trip today. I say 'up to' because we're not actually sure where we're going.
It depends on the sea state on the other side.
Looks like we were lucky to leave the boatyard when we did.
For the last couple of months during lockdown there's been hardly any activity in the boatyard,
and literally two days after dropping back in the the water there's already three boats there
lining up to be hauled out. And they've already hauled out another two. And it's only 8 30 in the morning.
So, looks like they're starting to get busy again.
'Bout time we got busy too...
Oh! First time in two months we're actually going somewhere, which is brilliant!
Left the boatyard a couple of days ago, but we've been hanging around waiting for the weather.
There is something big going across the South China Sea, and eventually, we thought 'bugger it', let's just go!
So we're not really sure exactly where we're going to end up. There is a very nice spot around the corner
(where we've been before) with a very nice little beach bar. In the mood for that.
That'd be great, but the swell just might be too much for us to anchor there. So we'll check it out first
And then if that's no good, we've got Plan B which is a little bit further down the west coast of northern Sabah.
There's a couple of really nice protected anchorages. So we'll see how the day progresses
At the moment lovely sunny sky, not much wind, but hoping that will build up as we reach the
top and go around the tip of the very northern tip of Sabah. See what happens!
We should explain that in this part of Malaysia (i.e. Borneo) there are few and far places, "few and far"
is that right? There are a few places to anchor "far and between" to anchor
in the seasons. You can probably see right now actually, we're at anchor on Borneo and maybe you
can see the horizon's doing this a bit. We've got a bit of a swell coming in and of course with the
north-east monsoon there are only certain places we can anchor. Plus we get this counter current
that comes up the coast and that's pretty much set at about a lot and that also plays a little
bit of havoc. It's specifically where we are in northwest Borneo, so it's the coast of
Sabah that we're talking about here, this little bit, this little bit that we're allowed to be in.
that has these problems. Two days ago it was flat as a pancake in here, but as you say...
Did the wind move round? The seas move round? I think the seas... We are in the transitional now, so
you do get sort of disturbed weather patterns. But i think this will last for
a few hours and then it should be right again. Yeah, if it gets any worse we'll...
up sticks and go round, yes.
It's a mild inconvenience. A bit like this advert. If you see ads
here's an inconvenient advert for your viewing displeasure.
The joy of going back into the water is always slightly tinged with a little bit of anxiety.
You know you're never quite sure. You've done a whole load of repairs and maintenance.
You've done all that. And to make sure all those repairs and maintenance are working properly...
Well normally what happens is when you drop in the water the first thing you do is go and check
your seacocks. Yeah yeah yeah. Especially since I did the maintenance on those - I was very worried
this time, and we had them all up and ready to check. and that was all okay.
Dripless seal. And the dripless seal. We put a new dripless seal in.
We do those actually while we're still in a sling, don't we? Yeah
So if there's a problem we can come straight back out.
So there's that.
Then there are all the things that you haven't done.
So your boat's been on the hard for two months, and you haven't really
been able to run the engine or do the normal checks that you would do in that time.
So that's the next thing to think about, all those things. Because boats go wrong if you don't use them
Just spotted a couple of issues already. The first thing is the tachometer is not working.
Turned the engine on this morning it seems to be stuck at a thousand rpm.
Increased the revs, it's not moving. We can hear the revs all right, but we can't actually see what the
revs are on the tach. It's probably some kind of wire problem.
The other thing that's happened is this chart plotter here. It's not a touch screen it's a manual job with analog
buttons, and the right button to push the cursor right is not working either. Now, I suspect that
obviously these are electronic issues and this is what happens in the Tropics.
It's also what happens when you don't use your boat for a while things start to go wrong.
Especially electrics. What we've found in the past is that electrics need to be used.
All electronic items need to be used this is why we say even when you're in a marina
'turn your instruments on every now and then' just to keep those cables dry. I suspect
that this chart plotter has got a bit of dampness in it, and probably (hopefully) just needs to dry out.
I'm sure there're going to be other things that we'll find, so we'll take it reasonably easy,
not bash it on our first day. Dunno, maybe I should look at the fan belt. Could be a loose...
fan belt, but we appear to be charging all right. Yeah, we'll have a look at that at the next anchorage, I think.
Can't think of anything else. Anything else? Oh yeah, the dripless seal which Jamie
changed in the yard. He keeps checking that. There was a little bit of splashing this morning,
which he said we should expect a little bit of spray to begin with. And then he'll go back in an
hour and have another look. Of course, every time we do that we have to empty the 'Horrible Cupboard"
of all these boxes and things that are all stacked up on each other.
So they're spread around the boat at the moment, we'll go back and check that in about an hour or two
I don't know where we'll be at that stage, we'll find out!
No sooner did I say I'll check the fan belt at the next anchorage I thought no that's a silly idea because
if it is a loose fan belt you want to deal with that now. So anyway I just turned the engine off
and checked the fan belt and that seems to be okay. It's on pretty tight so it's not the fan belt.
I'm kind of hoping that it is just damp electrics because that's the sort of thing that will dry out.
If they're marinised, then they tend to sort themselves out.
So, after a few hours of motor sailing down the coast we arrive at our first spot which
is called Agal Bay. And you may be able to notice there's absolutely no swell here.
Dunno if you saw in the footage as we came down, there is quite a bit of northerly swell,
which is why we couldn't stop at Roby's place, Secret Place. Which was a bit of a shame. We sent
him a message to apologise, we'll come back up next time.
But there is a swell set in, so this does obviously define where you can and can't go.
This one? Flat calm, look at this...
All we've got ashore is a few fishing houses, no restaurants, nothing like that.
A few fishermen buzzing around. It looks like we got here just in time because you
can just see behind me, the usual late afternoon storm coming off the mountains.
We are in a beautiful quiet bay on the west coast of northern Sabah there's nobody here but us...
On land, we've got a few small houses. We're going to check out those tomorrow.
And I can just hear the call to prayer. Yep, sunset call to prayer. And we've got rain and thunder...
And lightning going on around us. But it's warm, still very, very warm. And the other thing is we've
got home-made ginger beer by our friend Craig. It's got bits of ginger in it. And it's quite... alcoholic.
It's nice. I love it, it's lovely. Cheers!
Here we are down below in your typical, tropical storm.
And the reason why I wanted to record this is because the sound of the wind howling
through the rigging is quite something. But I don't think you can really hear it, actually.
Anyway what's happened is we've got the usual south-westerly squall that's come through.
It's absolutely battered us. Wiind speeds have only hit 20 knots so it's not that big.
And there's no fetch. But lightning all around us... It's always very exciting to be in these
conditions. I was saying to Liz that you know one of the things I dislike about cruising is being
stuck in an anchorage where the boat's doing this. It's one of my pet hates. Or even worse
if it's doing that. But here there's no movement at all, we're just surrounded by
a lot of water. Let's go and have a look upstairs and see what it's like up there, shall we...
Lightning, thunder all around us. But more importantly I've run out of ginger beer.
Yes it's really coming down. 20 knots of wind. But we're flat, flat, flat.
And that's the tropics. You get these lightning storms every night. We've got a big
range of mountains there, with Kinabalu, at 4 000 meters the highest point. And a whole
range of mountains that go down the length of Sabah. So the moisture collects throughout the day, and at night
down it comes and here we are enjoying a nice little bit of a thunderstorm.
But it's flat, look at this it's great.
THE LOUDEST THUNDERCLAP WE'VE EVER HEARD AT ANCHOR!
OMG! That's the loudest I've ever heard! that was so loud...
Oh my word. In seven years that's the loudest so far.
Jesus. What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do?