Harmonie - All Systems Go - Rebak Marina, Langkawi, Malaysia

All Systems Go - Rebak Marina, Langkawi, Malaysia

Harmonie

Don and Anne Myers

Tue 29 Nov 2011 04:12

6:17.710N 99:41.849E

October 15, 2011 - November 12, 2011

For those of you waiting sleeplessly for the promised summary of Harmonie's new installations, repairs, etc... here it is. If the relief you feel as a result of this entry finally being posted doesn't put you to sleep, then certainly the following paragraphs loaded with boater tech talk will.

When I said we sweated off pounds at Rebak Marina for 3 1/2 weeks working through Harmonie's to-do list, we really did. The first week was particularly enjoyable since we were living on Harmonie up 'on the hard' as they say. Living in that elevated position wouldn't be so terrible if it weren't for the elevation, and the ladder needed to scale up and down it. We have an abnormal fear of ladders around boats after Don's tumble in Australia. Needless to say, we were especially careful on the ladder during those seven or eight days and nights. Nights were the worst. Waking up at 3am and remembering that to get to the bathroom one must climb over the deck to the stern, scramble down the ladder, walk the hundred paces or so to the unlit marina restaurant, search for the light switch outside what is hopefully the women's bathroom, try not to be surprised by the collection of sleeping local bodies spread all over the couches in front of the restaurant's buzzing TV (think Poltergeist), bang through the bathroom and stall doors as the urge overtakes you, and then pray, pray, that someone left you some toilet paper. Being much more practical than I am, Don had a better system. When he woke up at 3am, he simply scrambled into the forward head and used the all-purpose bucket. Yes, the same bucket that not only performs normal boat-bucket duties, but sometimes doubles as a puke bucket, or, after careful disinfection, a pedicure bucket, and of course in this case, a pee bucket (we boaters do have a certain affection for items that serve multiple purposes).

Back to tech talk.

While the boat was on the hard, the following was done:

The shaft seal and oil in the main engine lower gearbox was replaced with new.

Because the prop (our feathering Max prop) had to be removed in order to get at the shaft seal, the prop was reassembled and greased after the gearbox work was done.

Propspeed, the semi-miraculous coating used to guard against marine critter growth, was applied to the prop.

The bow thruster was removed, the shaft modified such that it now has a stainless steel sealing surface which should prevent the bit of saltwater leakage we occasionally experience, the seal replaced and the oil changed.

The bottom was painted with an average of three coats (some areas received more, some less). Buying the paint and getting it to Rebak Marina was a job in itself. One tiny Chinese shop on the island of Langkawi carries the precious paint, which after paying very big bucks for five big cans, we lugged into the back of our roller-skate rental car, then lugged onto the Rebak Island ferry, then lugged from the ferry dock to the hard stand area, then lugged up the ladder on to the boat for safe keeping until it was used. Much sweating and a dollop of grumbling was involved in that whole process.

The hull was washed and two coats of wax applied - all done while perched on a ramshackle ladder, or in Don's case, balancing on the flange end of a big-ass pipe. No flash scaffolding to be had here in what we occasionally forget is a third world country. Did I mention how much the hull size changes during the waxing process? Every day for a week, the hull slowly expands in all directions. Then, as soon as the last bit is polished, the entire thing snaps back into its original shape. Amazing, but true.

New zincs were installed on the rudder and prop (the zincs act as sacrificial anodes, which help to protect the more important metal pieces and parts against corrosion).

Reinstalled the main engine fuel injectors. This, after we brought them home in our carry-on luggage (and lived through the scrutiny of security personnel in three countries along the way) so they could be re-built (which they were….and then of course we brought them back to Malaysia in our carry-on luggage and experienced the whole security scrutiny thing in reverse).

Tightened the alternator belts.

Cleaned all the thru hulls, including one which was reinstalled back in the spring to insure it wouldn't leak (not that it did leak, just that the Captain was concerned it might).

Fabricated new brushes for the fresh water pressure pump motor (which conveniently decided to die three days after we arrived back in Malaysia) using similar, but not quite right brushes purchased from one of the few Chinese hardware stores on Langkawi.

Changed (improved) all the plumbing to and from the fresh water pump.

Scraped the adhesive tape stripe off the rub rail and replaced it with new reflective tape.

Reinstalled the sails.

Ok, so, during our week on the hard, how many of the above items do you think I completed, and how many did Don? Yup, 0 for me, and 14 out of 14 for Don. Don't get the wrong idea though - I was busy the entire week, working nearly as many hours as Don. It's just that in the time it took me to scrape the adhesive stripe off the rub rail on one side of the boat and wax most of the upper half on both sides of the hull, Don finished everything else. He's like a machine. I'm like, ummm, like grass growing. The job might get done, and done well, but you wouldn't want to stick around to watch it happen.

Me, working ever so slowly on the rub rail (Don ended up scraping the rest of the stripe off this side in record time). Note the lovely-looking bottom paint and highly polished hull. Note also the sections of big-ass pipe in the foreground. These are what Don balanced on while painting the bottom and waxing the bottom half of the hull.

Splash down.

The launch process usually makes us nervous. Me more than Don, but that's normal. Here at Rebak Marina though, there is no need to be nervous. There is never any wind, no current, the travel lift is huge - big enough to haul trawlers bigger than Storyteller and catamarans as wide as they come. This marina always sends a diver down to ensure the lifting straps are in the right place when hauling a boat, and the lifting straps are covered when putting a boat in the water so new bottom paint isn't marred. There are usually at least four or five marina guys around doing this and that, and we mostly don't need to do anything until we are asked to step onto the stern of the boat as it is lowered into the water, which we did (very gracefully, I might add). Once we were aboard, and the boat lowered, all we had to do was start the engine, which Don did, and move slightly forward so the lifting straps could be slipped out from under the boat.

The travel lift operator motioned for Don to move the boat a bit forward while I stood ready at the bow to throw the travel lift dock lines to the guys holding the other ends. Don complied, and the boat went….backward. The boat went backward. Hmmm, Don must be testing reverse, I thought to myself. The boat then moved forward, and then backward again. Aha! I reassured myself, Don is testing both forward and reverse before we leave the haul out slip (as we know, Don is incredibly cautious and thorough). But - then I thought I heard Don say something odd. I thought I heard him say, "Damn! I put the prop together backward!" I thought he was kidding (and thought it peculiar he would make a joke at this normally very serious middle-of-launch moment). Then he said it again, "I put the prop together backward! When I put the engine in forward we go backward and when I put it in reverse we go forward." Just to be sure, I did ask if he was kidding. Unfortunately, (and to my continued surprise) he said no.

After Don told the marina guys they were going to have to lift us out again so he could reassemble the prop properly, and assured them that he could do it in less than an hour so they wouldn't have to work late, I could see that they found the whole thing somewhat amusing. There was a lot of Bahasa (Malaysian) chatter going back and forth between the four or five guys and there was more than the usual amount of laughter. To his credit, the lift operator did do his best to make us feel better as we apologized profusely for the inconvenience, "Don't worry!", he said in his accented, mostly broken English, "One time we lift a boat up and down three time! Three time! One time, engine no good! Two time, engine no good! Three time, engine ok. Two time for you not too bad." Hmmmm, hopefully it's only two times, we were both thinking at the time.

The diver was called, the lifting straps put back in place, and the boat lifted out (with us stepping gracefully, and sheepishly, off the stern as it was lifted). In half the time promised, Don had the prop off and reassembled properly (as best we could tell….the assembly of a feathering prop is slightly confusing for reasons I won't get into….even more so for a guy suffering the full brunt of jet lag and holy humid hotness two days after his return to Malaysia when he reassembled the prop the first time). After that, all was well. In the water the boat went, and this time when the lift operator called for forward, we went….forward. At least the whole thing gave us a good story to tell (and justification to feel nervous every time the boat is launched, even in the most benign conditions).

More tech talk.

Once the boat was in the water, a whole new list of things to do was generated by the Captain. Don is big on making lists. Did you know this about him? It's a good habit to have, and makes my life easier as all I had to do to create this blog entry was to copy various lists out of Don's little red notebook. We spent the next 2 1/2 weeks doing the following:

Replaced the VHF radio antenna wire in the main mast. Oh, now this was fun. As I recall, the conversation went something like this: Anne: "About how long is this going to take?"; Don: "About a half hour." Eleven trips up and down the mast (for Don, with me working the thankfully electric winch to lift him), and one and a half frustrating days later, the job was done (half hour, my ass!). There was nothing wrong with the old VHF radio antenna wire except that it was old, and it was a good idea to replace it. The problem is that our main sail furls inside the mast, which means there are only two small conduits in the aft 'corners' of the mast where wires can be run. Wires run up the conduits in our main mast for the VHF radio antenna, FM radio antenna, deck light, steaming light, tri-color navigation light and wind instrument. All of that makes for pretty tightly packed conduits. In the case of the wire we were trying to replace, getting the old wire out was no problem, but when we tried to pull the new wire through (which is larger than the old wire), it just wouldn't go. We tried pulling it from the bottom up, and from the top down. No dice. Next we tried the snake. An excellent idea except that it is about 5 feet shorter than the mast, so when Don ran it down through one of the conduits from the top of the mast, it dangled 5 feet up from where we needed it to be. Our next brilliant idea was to extend the length of the snake using the one wire coat hanger we still have on board, strengthened and lengthened even further with some other wire we had handy. Don went up the mast for the nine-billionth time and ran the extended snake contraption down the mast conduit where it promptly got stuck on one of the other cables, about one-third of the way down. I lowered Don to where the hang up seemed to be and he was able to unstick the snake by messing with the wire attached to the light mounted on the mast in that area. In the end, the job got done, but not before the entire mast was lathered up with several coats of Don's sweat.

Installed an AIS transponder and added a separate VHF antenna on the mizzen mast for the AIS system. We've had an AIS (Automatic Information System) receiver since we left Baltimore in November of 2007, but this year we decided to add a transponder. The receiver has allowed us to 'see' ships and other vessels on our electronic chart. Using an AIS transponder, vessels automatically broadcast information - their name, size, destination, speed, course, etc., and this information is displayed on our electronic chart including the closest point of contact and time to that point. This information has been incredibly useful to us over the years. Now, more and more private boats like ours are adding AIS transponders so that information similar to what the big ships broadcast (similar, but not nearly as detailed) is sent out in the same way. We decided it was time to do the same. This way, all ships and boats that have an AIS receiver will 'see' us on their electronic charts. Compared to the tiny radar reflection a sailboat has (especially in a rough sea), the automatic AIS signal will make us much more visible to big ships and other sailboats. The installation of this nifty new gadget and the new, dedicated antenna and wire in the mizzen mast went like a breeze compared to the main mast/VHF radio antenna wire debacle described above.

After going up and down both masts 90 billion times to install the new antenna wires and antenna, Don volunteered to go up and down both masts two more times in order to put two coats of desperately needed wax on the long-suffering painted surfaces. The wax seemed to adhere well to the previously applied coats of Don's sweat.

Purchased, mounted and registered a new EPIRB (Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacon). If ever (hopefully never) we are in an emergency situation out at sea, this little (expensive) gem will be our best friend. When activated, it sends out an emergency radio signal indicating our position so rescuers know exactly where to fish us out of the water. We've always had an EPIRB on board, this is just the latest and greatest version.

Installed new motor mounts on the generator. Remember when the generator started flopping around in the engine room as we bumped our way from Darwin, Australia to Banda, Indonesia on that semi-ferocious beam sail in 2010? Don fixed the problem at the time with a few well-tied lines and that's the way the generator has been kept from flopping around ever since. We decided it might be a good idea to mount the generator properly before we attempt another boisterous multi-day beam sail. Don ordered four new motor mounts and then fabricated the additional parts needed while we were home. He then did his best to imitate a pretzel in a hot oven - twisting himself into the right position to install the things on the generator in the corner of the engine room, which happened to be broiling in the heat of the Malaysian midday sun at the time.

Replaced the mainsail traveler line. Seems trivial, but the old line had seen better days and was slipping. The new line is much happier (as it should be for $4.25/ft).

Replaced ball bearings in the mizzen traveler. Also seems trivial, but when the mizzen boom position needs to move, it needs to move.

Installed a new chain counter. Ahhh, the chain counter. It seems so frivolous. Who needs a chain counter when you can simply mark your anchor chain every 5 meters with paint or wire ties or something? You could do that, and we did through most of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand last year while Don wrestled with the old chain counter (and lost). But it's so comforting to see the exact number of meters of chain deployed (to a tenth of meter, if you ever feel the need to be that precise) and displayed boldly right next to the wind direction indicator on the dashboard. Certainly the next time we have to Med moor we'll be particularly thrilled to have the new chain counter (which has the added feature of programming the exact number of meters to be deployed, and deploying them with the touch of a button). I make this installation sound easy, but Don had to modify the windlass gypsy and make a new bracket to hold the magnetic sensor, as well as re-wire parts of the system and read the new chain counter directions twice through to figure out how to run the thing with all its features.

Installed a 200 amp fuse on each of our eight house batteries, and a 300 amp fuse on the engine start battery. The fuses should keep the batteries from shorting (and potentially causing a fire). All good.

Replaced the shower faucet in the forward head. The old one was tired and corroded. Every time it was used we had visions of an exploding faucet with precious fresh water spouting everywhere. The new one is bright and shiny, but of course required quite a bit of cobbled plumbing since none of the old hoses and fittings were standard sizes.

Waxed, waxed, waxed. Yes, we had already done the hull, but once the boat was in the water, we still had the rails, cockpit, hard dodger and decks to do. It's embarrassing to admit, but we have not fully waxed and polished all the surfaces on the boat since we left home in July of 2007. So we sweated, and we waxed. As usual, Don completed 90% of the area to my 10%, and the bits that are still left to do are mine, but it's not completely my fault. Like the hull, the decks expand exponentially while waxing is going on. At the moment, the decks on our boat are huge. We expect this problem to right itself as soon as the last bit of trim around the bow deck lockers is shined up.

Are you still awake? If so, here's a few more pictures to break up the monotony.

Don the tool man, armed and ready for combat with the top of the mizzen mast.

Wax on, wax off. Don mid-main mast.

The tech talk is winding down.

Once all the delightful stuff listed above was done, we decided it was time to take the boat out for a spin. We left the marina the first weekend in November and ventured a distant eight miles to one of our favorite Langkawi area anchorages (scene of last year's mystery meat meal with the Brown's) for two nights. We used the time to do some more waxing and to test all the systems that are difficult to test while sitting in a marina, like navigation and anchor lights, the windlass and anchor wash down pump, the water maker, generator, SSB long range radio, satellite phone (for email sending and receiving), and of course, the sails. We sailed a full mile or two on our way back to the marina the following Monday. All systems were go.

Our view on a misty morning from one of our favorite Langkawi area anchorages.

It wasn't all work and no play.

No. It would never be like that. We had plenty of good company with us at Rebak Marina including Dave and Jan on the American boat Baraka (we met in New Zealand in 2009), Juliet and David on English boat Reflections (we met in New Caledonia in 2008), Misty and Peter on English (Scottish) boat Tamoure (we met in Darwin, Australia in 2010), and Fiona from English boat Sa'Vahn (who we also met in New Caledonia in 2008). Fiona is home working this year, but did come out to Malaysia for a week to put Sa'Vahn back in the water. She stayed with us on Harmonie until Sa'Vahn was habitable, and it was great to have the company and an excuse to party a little. Fiona will be back out with her partner Claire for the holidays, so we look forward to seeing them both in Thailand for Christmas. We also met a bunch of new boaters (new to us) during our month long work-a-thon at Rebak Marina, some of whom will be making the same passage across the Indian Ocean later this season.

We did take one afternoon off to go to the Rebak Island Resort's pool (it was my birthday and we felt like we deserved an afternoon off). We had the place nearly to ourselves. Not a bad way to end our Rebak Marina swelter fest.

Don approaching the lovely Rebak Island Resort pool on our one and only afternoon off.

One more story.

This entry is really long, I know and I'm sorry about that. It's what happens when a whole month is covered in one swoop. Just one more quick story.

Malaysia is an interesting mix of Malay, Indian and Chinese people, and no matter where we go in this country, we're constantly exposed to all three cultures. But take that, and add to it the international flavor that comes with a marina full of live-aboard cruisers , and a resort staffed by by those willing to come to Malaysia to work, as well as resort guests from almost anywhere in the eastern hemisphere, and you've got the widest international mix of people we've ever experienced outside of Singapore's airport.

On the night of my birthday, we decided to skip the cheap marina restaurant, which is populated by boaters from the US, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Europe and South Africa, and instead venture out to the fancy Rebak Resort bar and restaurant where we could drink slightly better wine and eat similar food for twice the price (but all the ambiance). In the bar, we were alone (which is to be expected in a resort with a large Muslim clientele) aside from one young family from Saudi Arabia. Dad was dressed in fashionable shorts and shirt, mom was dressed in the full black robe and veil (with just eyes, nose and mouth poking out) and their twin little boys were dressed in identical fashionable shorts outfits. We sat at the bar and drank wine. They sat on the surrounding couches and smoked a hookah water pipe (mom and dad, not the boys). A hookah is a large, elaborately decorated water pipe contraption that sits on the floor or a table and has one or several hoses or tubes for smoking. It looks like an overgrown teapot with too many spouts. I'm sure one or several of these were in every James Bond movie scene set somewhere in the Middle East, but it's the first time I've ever seen one in person (Don, however, says he smoked a hookah in college - tobacco only, of course). From the bar, with its Middle Eastern flavor, we moved on to the restaurant, where we were served by a guy from Uzbekistan (first Uzbekistanian we've ever met), and a girl from India. Next to us were two tables of Russians, with a smattering of Indians, Malay, and some western Europeans and Australians scattered around. our Uzbekistanian waiter told us the resort's employees speak a total of 14 different languages - this way at least someone on staff has at least one language in common with every guest.

We had the special - an international buffet. It seemed like the right thing to do.

Birthday dinner at Rebak's very international resort (picture taken by our Uzbekistanian waiter).

Next up: On the Road Again - a reunion with Lady Kay and Storyteller, re-living the Langkawi provisioning scavenger hunt, and the sail (motor) from Langkawi, Malaysia to Phuket, Thailand.

Anne