Pirates, Typhoons, now this...

Silly photo aside: Malaria is no laughing matter. There seem to be plenty of mosquitos available for transporting the disease from person to person. My take from the article is that this is not the most dangerous strain, the few reported cases are taken seriously by the government, the various agencies jump on the outbreak immediately and the affected area is quite remote from where we're apt to be.

More Bold Malaysian Paint

Sure is more interesting than the usual hues of off-white blended with urban grime. There is much color here in Kuching. These two buildings look good from the table at the coffee house on Carpenter Street.

Got X

The X advance team came up with this new promotion which is appearing all over Borneo...

Need GPS Help

I'm looking for a GPS with a Go From button. The designers seemed to expect a plan. There is no plan, much less a destination. On top of that, this sailing with light winds, currents, and random temptations is unreliable. There's no certainty in it. I know where I've been. I can easily punch that into the buttons. But where am I going?

Spinnaker Furler

Experimented with the spinnaker several days. X likes it. Pulls along nicely on these light South China Sea winds. Caught the edge of a squall once. Wind rotated 180 degrees and X hit some new, to me, high speeds. Fun and a little worrisome, plus the wrong direction. I flew the 1A on a Code Zero Furler (pictured). Interesting. The PO cut the kite a foot too tall and the furling line 6 feet too short. Sheesh!

Flying Creatures

Swallows in the rigging, butterfly on a lava boulder. Just saw a bright blue wasp, I think...

Inedible Beef

Brought along some frozen Malaysian beef. It looks good in a pan with vegetables, curry and coconut milk, However it is far too tough to eat. Fish like it.

Pulau Tioman Cruise

Pretty bays all around Pulau Tioman. Anchored here a week. No visitors.

Chili Source

Got the chili problem solved. All the bottled chili sauce in Malaysia has sugar as the first or second ingredient. That is like cooking with catsup (background). What one wants is just ground chili's with maybe a little vinegar, garlic or onions. Chili powder (left) is common, but has no zing. I had been flying in with asian chili paste from Monterey, crazy (middle). Now I know to ask for fresh ground chili paste, a produce item (in bags, foreground). Chili Boh, red, hot and plenty sweet without added sugar.

Banging in the Morning

Thunderheads come visiting. This boomer greeted me in the morning but went away flashing and booming elsewhere.

Color and Trash

Local color. Like the Mexicans, the Malaysians are not afraid to use some color. Also like Mexico there is too much trash everywhere. A few months ago in Mexico the President came to visit little La Cruz de Huanacaxtle. The authorities spared no expense to clean up the litter, sweep the streets, paint everything he might see from his limousine. Here on Pulau Tioman the Sultan came to visit his island. Likewise nothing was spared to clean what he might see. Plus the locals hosted a huge colorful party. Dancing, music, food.

One small benefit of all the plastic garbage floating around in the seas is one can find some useful stuff. Seven nice plastic fuel jugs washed up on a pretty beach and are now mine. I also fished from the sea a dozen interesting fishing floats. But what a nightmare: these ball-like floats roll and clank incessantly. Useless to me, I gave them to a fisherman at the first opportunity.

Moldy Electric Spaghetti

More rewiring of X. I suppose everybody imagines themselves a capable electrician. A roll of electrical tape and a six-pack of beer make everyone a professional. So I've pulled out hundreds of pounds of the unused wire snaking mysteriously between lockers and bilges. Free wire for all the friends. As shown here, an unused piece of X's galley has been converted to a panel holding all the little electronic bits that allows X to navigate, send high-seas emails, and display interesting numbers about speed and wind.

Face Time with Fishes

X sailed around Pulau Tioman and the nearby islands for a couple of weeks. Not very many miles. Boat maintenance and face-time-with-fishes while at anchor in various idyllic places. At one reef a Batfish (picture credit: NOAA) repeatedly came over to investigate me. Other little fish had been nibbling and pestering me but this one was the size of a large pizza. A nibble will leave a mark. Later I was told that the Batfish is just curious, harmless. The batfish was swimming amongst acres of interesting Vase Corals (picture credit: unknown).

Lucy

My new best friend, Lucy, from the boat Northstar. Four years old. She likes swimming, ice cream, knocking on the hull during the afternoon nap and made-up games that make no sense. But she has now sailed away and I don't know if I'll ever find her again.

Inside-out Pizza

The only downside to making many pizzas is the great amount of propane required to heat the oven. So I tried making a pizza in a pan on the stovetop. Saves gas. Free extra crust. (I thought I published this before, but I don't see it anywhere...)

Beer Thirty

I have not posted since 6 April? Really? Maybe this repeating iPhone alarm is the reason?

Pulau Goal to Pulau Tioman

I'm dragging my toes in the water. It's midmorning and already hot. The sun is climbing up to it's brutal spot directly overhead. I'm sitting on the shady leeward rail. The water is some color. It's greener than blue and bluer than green. Transparent. I though for a while how I would describe it to you. But didn't think of anything. When my toes touch the water it changes from it's blue tones to sparkling gold as it reflects the sunny sails above.

Honey, I think I want to live on a yacht in the tropics. No dear, remember you promised we'd get a condo in Kuala Lumpur. I just took the picture. I have no explanation. Her name is Asean Lady. Google her.

I arrive at the tiny Telok Tekek marina on Pulau Tioman. A friend who has been half expecting me, someday about now, waves me into a slip after evicting some local boat that had been parked there for a nap. The heat has exhausted me. I take my own nap until the sun goes away. This island is dramatically tall, wooded, tropical, filled with birds, butterflies. Maybe 7 miles across. 5000 Malaysians and a few tourists. Did I just see a barracuda chasing fish out of the water? My photos don't do her justice. Google Images and see for yourself.

150 miles from the Danga Bay mud. Four day of sailing and motoring. Anchored each night. No serious problems. Confirmed that the jib is trash. There's another jib I'll try next time. Three days until Chloe's 17th birthday. Said I'd be fly there.

Sailing...

Sail all day. Motor just a few minutes to tuck in close to a little island. Spent the entire day under a hot sun tacking against a strong current while slowly passing dozens of little islands. Here's a typical cockpit view. And here's a comment on your Spring Equinox. Up in the frozen north the Spring Equinox might be celebrated. Here it means the sun is directly overhead. The streets do not have a shady side. I cast nothing resembling a shadow. The decks get burning hot and the solar panels finally work as advertised. Clouds are wonderful shady things. I stop for a moment to test the swim ladder. Works perfect. Very refreshing.
Dinner turned out to be a rather yummy potatoes, greens and yellow curry.

But just beyond Singapore...

Just beyond Singapore. In the South China Sea, along the eastern coast of Malaysia, things start looking much more peaceful. I can still see the petrochemical haze and distant ships in the sealanes, but the sky turns blue. The muddy shoal water gives way to deep clear water. Islands appear. Inviting tropical islands. A few dozen miles back the sweaty crowds are jamming themselves into the MRT trains. Here two tourists are standing on a lonely white beach. Captain orders to stop here for the night, toss over the anchor, prepare a pizza with mozzarella, salami, olives, and egg.

Just Sailing Around in Singapore Harbor

Ducking into the nav station on X to see if any ships might spring from behind the little island to my left, I snapped this picture of the MacBook screen. Where's Waldo? Each orange label points at a ship. The blue ones are moving, probably fast. The grey ones are not moving, but rather waiting for me to get right on their bow before they start. X and I are near the middle of the action. We have a green dot and are about to get passed very close by the OOS DISCOVERY, a smallish ship throwing a huge wake. This crowd of ships occupies 40 miles east to west across this southeastern tip of Asia.

A half hour earlier I was crossing the equally busy western part of the harbor when a powerful squall roared through. If I could hold my eyes open I could maybe have seen the bow. The rain was torrential. The reefed fold of the main drained rain water like storm drain. The old rule on reefing hold that one should reef the first time the idea arises. My new rule is to reef five minutes before that first idea. I had just gotten the jib rolled up and one reef in the main before we got pushed over hard by the first gust. I had been keeping my eye on several nearby ships which were now invisible. Big fun.