S/V Morning Light

For those interested: this is where Morning Light is docked right now.

Morning Light’s position is now also on de Zilte Wereld Kaart with Dutch cruising boat’s current locations.

Broken hub of my front wheel.

The part that came off.

The marina.

Morning Light at the dock.

Tuesday morning I went to anchor outside the marina and padlled my kayak inside to talk to the marina manager. Got a slip for one week, it takes a good chunk out of the budget, but you get a lot back. The marina is part of the Sutera Harbour resort. A number of nice hotels, and when you are in the marina you get VIP access to all the resort facilities, which includes pools, restaurants, bowling, gym. All very nice with lots of personel to serve you. In the marina you need to switch your toilet over to the holding tank, they actually come check that you do so, so I am switching over the valve and pop, have the loose handle in my hand, no more switchting over to the holding tank on Morning Light.

Tuesday afternoon there was the bi-weekly Optimist race (if you don’t know, Optimist is probably the smallest sailing dinghy, they are great for kids to learn sailing in0. I had always wanted to sail one, so I got myself signed up for the race. Sailing those things is really a lot of fun, every little thing you do has an immediate effect. But, the are terribly small and have no ballast, so while I was distracted by listening to the explanation of the course I managed to flip the thing over. But, no problem, it went completely turtle and stayed that way. No problem though, you get from underneath the thing, pull on the center board, and right up it comes. One problem, it is then full of water, and I had no bailer. Someone gave me their bailer, I got the water out and was ready for the race. Of course I had no clue about the start procedure, horns were blown, flags were raised, and I just waited until it seemed like everyone started to race and followed. The first up wind leg I made the usual mistake of trying to sail too close to the very light wind and rounded it 5th from 8. But #4 was not too far away, and on the down wind leg I manage to pass him by trying to balance the boat as well as possible and by trying to catch the waves with the rudder and sort of row/surf a bit. On the last leg I did get some closer to the top 3 but was not able to catch them. There was a buffet for the racers and other yachties, and even an award ceremony. I finished 4th, but due to the special Sutera harbour handicap system (rules kept secret) I won first price. Two tickets for the bbq (I seem to always win those kind of prices) for Saturday night. It is supposed to be very good and they have fish as well.

Wednesday morning the diesel mechanic came to the boat. Started the engine, and he had lots of compliments about the maintenance and how it was running. He took the injectors out to be serviced and properly set the valve clearance of cylinder #4. He also called someone to come have a look at the refridgerator compressor.

Wednesday afternoon I was going to get my bike ready for some riding, the first since September 08 in Fiji. Got my bike out, tires where flat, pumped them up. Rear would hold air, front would not. Get a new inner tube (from the supply I bought in Curacao, the only place I have found that had long stems), start putting the tire back on and I head “pang”. Look around, part of the hub (that holds a spoke) came off! So had to walk into town to have lunch.

In the afternoon we sailed the optimists again, this time just for fun. Did some laps in the pool as well, now that riding the bike is not an option.

This morning the refridgerator expert came by. Problem with the fridge (which is engine driven) is that the electronic clutch is suddenly using 15 amps, which makes the fuse blow (but it used to draw only 5 amps). The mechanic came with only a single screwdriver as a tool, so there wasn’t that much he could do. A replacement compressor was going to be about $200, well, the fridge gets only used when motoring, so that is not worth it for me. Because I have both cockpit lockers empty for easy access to the engine I did some small projects, like fixing a little wooden plate that holds part of the exhaust system. And I checked the anode of the fridge system (that whas before the mechanic had come by).

The diesel mechanic came back this afternoon, with the cleaned and checked injectors. So he installed those and we ran the engine, had a hard time to get it started at first, but that was mostly because it takes quite a while before the fuel system is completely bleeded. Once running it seem to run well, than suddenly the mechanice ask if there is cooling water coming out, and I realize there isn’t. In the morning when checking the anode, I had to turn the raw water seacock closed. And I forgot to open it again. So I burned up the impeller of the salt water pump (that was obvious because the things was smoking). So now I had to replace the impeller. Luckily I do have many spares for that. When that was done I ran the engine, and the hose on the raw water pump came of, had worked its way loose when I was replacing the impeller. Fixed that and the engine seems to run smoother and with less vibration than before. And comes back to its normal RPMs. Tomorrow I will take the boat out for a little test run.

Then I am behind the computer after all that, and it turns out that the water that was spraying out of the pump managed to splash my WiFi adapter (the powerful external one), which is now broken.

So, all in all, I have a fixed engine, broken fridge, broken bicycle and broken wifi. Guess the working engine out weighs the other broken things….

In the evening we went play a game of bowling in the resort, we all sorted sucked at the same level, but had a good time.

This morning the rain had gone and it was nice sunny day.  The sails had dried to I put the covers on and went to shore.

Got a cab to drive me to the port captains office.  Sounds easy, but the cab driver did not understand where I wanted to go.  After some asking around, driving around, reading my paperwork from Kudat, we ended up at the right place.

The customs guy was not very happy with the lack of paperwork from Kudat customs, and they had taken the wrong piece of paper from my exit clearance.  Then he sent me off next door to the port captain’s office.  There the guard questioned my reason to go there and wanted to send me back to customs.  I convinced him I had just been there so I got in.  In the building was  no one at the desk, so I waited until some worker showed up and they told me to go to the 2nd floor.  There some frowning over the only piece of paperwork I was left with.  In the end they sent me back to customs to get back my clearance from Kudat.  So I go back, but instead he returns me a copy of my Cebu clearance.  Found out halfway in between, so back once more.  Then I got the A-okay and got cleared in with the port captain.  Phew, my optimism about Malaysian bureaucrats has evaporated by now.

Took the bus into town for a quick lunch and then a cab to the Sutera Marina.  There I learned that Angelique II had left on Sunday.   Went into the marina office to inform about there rates (quite pricy, but definitely is nice, with all the luxuries I am not looking for).  They were nice enough to give me the address of a local diesel mechanic.

Took a cab to drive me to the mechanics shop, but the cab driver did not know where it was (even though I had the address).  So he called the mechanic and talked to him, he ended up handing the phone to me, so I talked to him.  They were out for their lunch break,  instead he suggested he would come meet me at the Yacht Club.

He showed up just half an hour ago, and we talked about the problems and possible remedies.  Have a good feel about this guy.  Assuming the engine starts, tomorrow I will motor to the Sutera Marina and take docking space for the duration of the engine repair.

That was pretty much my day’s work.

This trip took off with a false start.  Saturday morning, just after I got up, a squall came over.  I am sitting inside contemplating to leave in the rain or not when I hear some shouting from the fishing boats docked nearby.  I get outside and look around, just to notice that the docks were close and getting closer.  That anchor was dragging.  So I get outside in the rain in my underwear.  The concrete dock was already too close to pay out more chain and hope the anchor would bite with that.  So time to start the engine, of course that took too long, the concrete was literally one meter from the stern when the engine fired up.  Motored away and then had to make up my mind.  Try to anchor again or leave.  Decided that leaving was the easiest.  So starting winching the anchor up and motored out, with the kayak in tow.  Once outside slowed down and lifted the kayak on board.  15 Minutes later things cleared up and we were underway.

For the rest of the day there was marginal wind.  Did some sailing, since the engine is not very happy right now, but made progress only slowly.  Late in the afternoon the wind became so light that I decided I might as well keep myself occupied and get the gennaker up.  And, so I did, first time since the repair, took a little while to untangle it all, since the sailmaker had not folded it up such that it would come out of the sail bag ready to go.  But the repair looks good and had about 2 hours of sailing with it.  Then even the last bit of wind died and since the sky looked dark I decided to bring down and fold the gennaker before any rain or nasty weather.

Floated around for most of the night until somewhere around 3 in the morning when some wind appeared.  Hoisted main and unfurled genoa for some sailing till that wind disappeared as well and motored the last 35 miles.  Took me a while to make up my mind where to go in KK, there are a few marinas, and a number of possible anchorages in the pilot and from noonsite.com.   But I had a hard time figuring what was where.  Ended up going to the Yacht Club, where you can anhor off the beach.  Dark clouds started to close in on me, and the engine started to struggle even more.  Got the anchor down and when I tried to pull on it in reverse the engine left me.  The rain was getting closer, and just managed to tie down the main sail before the storm got there.  Did not have time to put the sail covers on, so my sails have been getting a wash down.

After waiting for about an hour for the worst rain to go by I paddled the kayak to the Yacht Club, and that is where I am sitting now, with live music and a meal later.  Nice place.  Tomorrow morning time to do the paper work and then I really need to find a good diesel mechanic.

The band at the Fortune bar in Kudat.

Ship on the horizon.

Mount Kinabalu (4100 meters high) in the morning.

Off shore supply ship on the way to an oil rig. There is some oil exploration in the area: Orient Explorer was shooting seismic only a few miles north of Borneo.

Dark clouds approaching over Kota Kinabalu.

Just added a new entry in the port side bar, a minute Google Map showing the current location.  It is centered on the current location, and will automatically update once I get to the next location.

Recently I also added the FEEDJIT entry (showing where in the world people are visiting my web-site from) and the Facebook link.  It seems to load up fairly quick with the internet I have here, but if it the web-site is getting too slow please let me know.  Actually, any feedback on the web-site is welcome because I enjoy messing around with it.