Sunday morning went exceptionally well, we posted the Christmas cards, picked up our dive bottles, checked out of Malaysia at Customs, Harbour and Immigration, we even found a fresh vegetable market on the drive back for some provisions.

After handing back the ‘hire’ car and paying up at the marina we left our berth and secured to the fuel jetty to top up with fuel.

All done, we let the lines go and we were on our way…..

As we drifted away from the fuel berth Mark said

 “There’s a problem – no power – take the lines back ashore – quickly”

Well, I had already taken off one line so I grabbed the other one and lept around six foot back to the fuel jetty.

We tied up the stern and used the bow thruster to get the bow around.

A quick examination and we decided that the throttle cable had broken – we both looked at each other and then at the control console.

“How the hell do we get access inside to take a look !”

After a little time for consideration, a useful manual and a lot of help from the guys at the marina and we had removed the old cable, leaving in place a line to pull through the new one.

Then it was back to the office to hire a car again for another trip to the main town.

This time the car had no fans, just holes in the dashboard, and only one working window with no air conditioning – a hot trip !

Amazingly the second shop that we tried was crammed with engine parts and had numerous throttle cables stack high up on a shelf, which were exactly the right length and exactly the same make as our old one. They were also very cheap so we bought two.

A couple of hours later and the new cable was fitted, we took some biscuits to the girls in the office and had to force some money on the marina guys for all their help.

We moved back to our original berth for the night, had a nice meal out with the other ralliers and set off first thing in the morning for Koh Lipe.

Lucky – if that had happened at sea ……