For those avid followers of our blog, many apologies for the lack of any report. We arrived here in Pangkor in mid-January and have since been busy doing a long list of boat jobs and a spot of health tourism.

The most important job has been to re rig the boat. Gryphon 2 is 10 years old this year and the insurance company deems that the perfectly good looking standing rigging should be replaced. A local rigger suggested we get a pack sent out from Beneteau in France where the boat was built. In theory this is a good idea as it means the quality of the materials and workmanship should be to a good standard. It also means that I could do the work myself as each wire is already made to measure and just needs inserting where the old one went.

Of course things are never as easy as they seem! Our first problem was that when the pack arrived from Z Spars, who make the rigging for Beneteau, one of the swages that are pressed onto the ends of the wire had been poorly made and caused a kink in the wire known in the business as a banana swage.

Bent!

No problem as Fox’s in Ipswich, where we bought the boat, arranged for 2 new wires to be sent out from France…….they eventually appeared……but too short. There are 2 rigs for this boat and we have the slightly taller “Performance Rig”.

Short!

Much embarrassment from Fox’s and any day now we should receive the replacements for the replacements! All of this is made more complicated as Fox’s have to communicate with Beneteau who in turn have to speak to Z Spars. Any package then has to find its way through customs in Malaysia which can take hours or can take days.

The last bits arrive, 3rd time lucky!

Other problems have been overcome in dismantling the roller furler for the genoa and also freeing the spreader ends which are designed with stainless rigging pins held in an aluminium casting and so become totally seized up.

We have also had the boat out of the water to sort out a number of under water jobs, including the rudder bearing, the cutless bearing and replacement of all the anodes. We had the hull antifouled by Jo and his crew, they did an excellent job. With labour rates so reasonable it is not worth doing hard manual work in the midday sun oneself. It was just as well we did employ someone as I developed a mild fever which lasted over a week and left me feeling floppy and tired. It also had a strange effect on my inner ear that left me feeling dizzy and slightly drunk when trying to walk in a straight line!

There have been many other jobs to do and as I write Lorraine, using her space age washing machine, is washing all the seat covers which are transformed by a cold water wash. They are still in remarkably good condition for their age…..unlike the captain!

Hanging about.

To make life easier we have hired a car for the duration of our stay and even more importantly bought a very second hand air con machine that makes life much more bearable below decks. The unit is so efficient that we have had to resort to blankets at night. (The thermostat does not appear to work properly). The car has been a boon in getting us to the shops and we have saved a lot of money on taxi fares. One of the problems with this boatyard is it is rather remote from the nearest shops. Our usual shopping experience is the local Tescos. Like home from home, at least until you get to the dried and fresh fish counters, the fruit and veg selection, the tofu counter and the Chinese ingredients!

Our health tourism consisted of getting various bits checked out by the local experts. We spent a half day in a private hospital having our eyes checked. The whole setup was very slick and professional with some very fancy machines that produced clever pictures and graphs of the health of our eyes, followed by a consultation with the ophthalmologist....all for the equivalent of £18 each. We also both had our skin checked for any damage from the nasty sunshine, but all was good.

We now hope to be leaving here in about 2 weeks and returning to Port Dixon, which has the advantage of being close to Kuala Lumpur International Airport. We have booked for the end of the month to visit Peter in China by way of Hong Kong. It is then all go for Cocos Keeling and the start of our next big ocean crossing.