37° during the day in the Marina, three showers a day and loads of washing from at least 2 changes of clothes a day and bedding galore, whew! Fortunately there is a local Dobi for the heavy stuff but wherever we need to go here means a car journey as Marina Island is not near the town.

We are a bit stuck here as we are waiting for our new sprayhood to be finished but in true Malaysian style the power is regularly OFF so Chris and Lynn our South African canvas workers are unable to finish the job. Not only can they not use their sewing machines but their light and air conditioning is also cut off and as they work from a steel container they have to get out when the power is off else they would roast. Whilst we wait a silly thing has happened: we ordered a new watermaker from Germany which had a 225 Euro fee for 12 – 25 day delivery or 600 Euro fee for 5 day delivery. We opted to save ourselves 375 Euros with a delivery to Langkawi where we would be in 8 days or so. We have now had an email just two days after ordering to say that our delivery is already in Malaysia and we are nowhere near Langkawi yet – grrrh – we are now trying to ensure that our duty free water maker won’t be sent back!

It was very good to see old friends John and Chris Chaundy sail in on Sara ll. They did the Indonesian Rally this year so we were able to compare notes over a glass of wine. Their boat was looking very smart after a lot of teak work done in New Zealand.

We have met up with a number of yachties who did the Indonesian Rally when we did it, Graham and Liz whose boat Elida of Laira is on the hard and will be completely re-rigged before they take to the water again; Sea Topaz with Duncan and Ria who have just finished circumnavigating Borneo and spent last evening giving us helpful information and will provide us with anchorage details which will be extremely useful. At a dinner given by James Khoo, the hospitable and helpful Marina owner, we met up with Bob Coutinho from Bicho Vermelho. He is keen on getting a flotilla of yacht owners together who want to get back to Europe and would be interested in attempting the Red Sea to transit Suez Canal in two years’ time as he feels the Somali Piracy situation will have changed by then – interesting to see what the response will be.

The Noonsite website gives good up to date information on piracy in Gulf of Aden, Northern Indian Ocean and the Southern Red Sea. It details the current assessment of EUNAVFOR, NATO Shipping Centre and UKMTO which concludes that:

‘The threat remains unchanged in terms of the freedom of movement of Pirate Action Groups (PAG’s) in the wider Indian Ocean. The area of high risk has not changed.’

The assessment also states that:

‘The reduction in the number of successful attacks is explained by greater deployment of Private Armed Security Contractors (PASCs) on Merchant Shipping and increased disruptions by Naval Forces.’

And: ‘The greater deployment of PASCs increases the threat to sailing yachts. If ships become harder to capture then the PAG’s may well turn to more vulnerable targets such as Yachts.” For 2012 the advice of the Military remains: DO NOT SAIL THROUGH THESE WATERS, EVEN IN THE COMPANY OF OTHER YACHTS.

Another option that increasing numbers of yachts are taking is to be transported by ship to the Med. However the cost is about $40,000 so it would not make much sense for us to do this when we could sell Gryphon 2 in Australia or NZ and buy another boat somewhere else. If Bicho Vermelho has no luck in getting a Suez flotilla together they are even looking at going into the Persian Gulf and having their boat shipped overland by truck across Saudi Arabia to the Red Sea.

In any case, we are fairly sure we want to return to the Pacific, possibly by way of the Philippines. There is apparently some excellent cruising there with friendly people many of whom speak English. We have just met a Belgian couple Chris and Guy who have been cruising there and continued as far as Japan, but I am not sure we shall get that far!