On Friday 1st November the new crew arrived nice and early. Lisa and Kenny had sailed as guests with Shawn just before he left his Captains job with a charter company in the Caribbean in 2009. Having spent several days in Singapore before crossing the border to join Imagination, they had already met up and spent time with Scheila and Phil, so they shared transport and all arrived together at around 08.30. The early arrival meant there was plenty of time to orientate and chat before leaving Imagination to go to the shopping mall. They all enjoyed lunch together before going to the supermarket to buy supplies for the following couple of weeks, with the early evening being spent getting to know each other/ reacquainting before Scheila, Phil, Ally and Shawn decided to make the most of the Marina facilities and go to one of the bars for a drink. The 2nd was an overcast day and while Shawn dealt with onboard power issues and Ally worked on blogs, the others went out to complete their shopping. The services of an agent were used to arrange domestic clearance from the current port of Senibong Cove and so on the 3rd, having been shopping again, the crew arrived back in plenty of time for everyone to get picked up by a driver, along with the agent, at 14.30. They were driven to the Immigration office in heavy rain and once there, the paperwork etc took around 40 minutes. Once back on Imagination, a Customs Officer arrived within half an hour and had a cursory look around before giving clearance to leave dock the following morning. At 05.30 on Monday 4th November, everyone was up and getting ready to leave the slip and there was great teamwork as lines were let off and fenders moved as Shawn backed Imagination into a fairly tight channel before heading out to the Singapore Strait. It was a long hard slog as they made their way over the next 14 hours around Singapore, fighting against strong currents and weaving between the hundreds of massive cargo ships, most on anchor but some moving around. Lisa prepared and cooked dinner on the move, which was an unexpected but necessary requirement, before the anchor finally went down at 20.30, having only covered 32nm ( that’s an average of just 2.3nm/hr!). Despite that, everyone had taken turns at the helm to get a feel for the navigation instruments including the autopilot. Scheila had kindly bought over a new autopilot head on Shawn and Ally’s behalf, which meant Shawn could replace the previous one that had a mind of it’s own which made using it unpredictable and frustrating, leading to many a choice word! It felt like utter luxury to, once again, have one that does as it’s told when it’s told and definitely much easier for crew to use. The next 4 days consisted of early mornings, long days, dinner and early nights as they hopped along the West coast of Malaysia in a Northerly direction. It was done as day hops rather than overnight trips due to the sheer number of vessels around and fishing paraphernalia in the water which thinned out as they moved further up the coast. On one of those days, the 7th, which was Lisa’s birthday, the anchor was dropped near a small Island, Pulau Besar, mid afternoon so that everyone could go to the beach and bob in the warm water with a drink for an hour or so before dinner and birthday cakes later.
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Saturday 9th, just before 7am, the 3 day sail to Langkawi commenced. Everyone was in high spirits, if a little nervous about the upcoming night watches, but it was a good, comfortable day. However, 10 minutes after Ally handed over the helm to Shawn at 17.30 to go and start dinner, the Port (PRT) engine cut out, followed several minutes later by the Starboard ( STB) one. Luckily, there was just enough wind to keep Imagination moving while Shawn, with help from others, started the lengthy process of emptying the fuel tank, filtering the fuel as it came out revealing lots of muck and sludge and then filtering it again as fuel went back into the tank. Daylight had turned to darkness and after a very swift, later than planned dinner, Shawn then continued on and changed/cleaned fuel filters and refitted them, with Ally acting as “gopher”. Throughout all of this, Phil, Scheila and Kenny with Lisa watched the helm closely and tacks had to be done frequently to avoid the nearby shipping lane to PRT, other vessels moving around and shallow water to STB. Having refitted the new/cleaned filters, the STB engine wouldn’t start and so Shawn concentrated on the PRT engine which has more power at lower revs, knowing from previous experience, that he would have to siphon fuel from the tank down to the engine as it doesn’t flow of it’s own accord. Unfortunately, the fuel line was blocked and being unable to remove the blockage by manually blowing and sucking on the fuel pipe, his talent for problem solving kicked in and he used a scuba tank and high pressure hose to blow into the fuel tank. This didn’t work, so he went down into the engine room and Phil lowered the scuba tank down to him so that the fuel line could be blasted from that end. That worked! What a relief. But that relief was short lived when the engine wouldn’t run for more that a few minutes at a time after multiple attempts, and after 6 ¼ hours, it was time to leave things be until the morning and let crew get some rest. The conditions overnight were not very pleasant which was compounded by the stress of having no functioning engines and then one of the mainsheet blocks broke apart at 02.20. It was very quickly removed and replaced before prolonged heavy rain with gusts to 27kts along with thunder and lightning arrived. Once conditions had improved on the morning of the 10th, Shawn tried the STB engine and by some miracle, it ran. Sadly, the same couldn’t be said for the PRT side, so he had to return to that engine room where he bled the fuel injectors after which it started up and ran properly too. That was the 3 things for now, surely ( the water tank ran dry on the 8th when a tap on the water maker had been left open!)? The next couple of days were relatively stress free other than dodging fishing vessels and there was even a fleeting visit from dolphins. On the 12th, the anchor went down for the night at 18.35 near a small island, Teluk Botol. The following morning, everyone got in the dinghy to go to another nearby small island to see if they could spot any wildlife and they did manage to see a Macaque in the trees before moving Imagination around to another anchorage near Pulau Intan Besar, where Shawn, Ally, Scheila and Phil went ashore to relax on the beach for a few hours.
On Thursday 14th November, they arrived in Telaga Harbour Marina, Langkawi and went straight onto the fuel dock to refuel, but just as they had tied up, the Port engine cut out again. After more filter cleaning and high pressure air blowing, Shawn managed to get it going again so that we could come off dock into a slip once all the clearance formalities had been completed. Lisa and Kenny decided to spend a couple of nights in a hotel here as they were not coping well with the heat/lack of breeze so they departed and Ally, Shawn, Phil and Scheila had a wander around the immediate area. It seems this was once a bustling area with a small waterpark and quaint shopping/cafe area, all now closed and in disrepair apart from a small but well stocked chandlery. They decided to eat an early dinner at a nearby hotel, which was very high end, and they all felt a little underdressed in their sweaty daywear, but, the service and the food were superb.
On the 15th, the four of them picked up a hire car so that they could do some shopping and exploring. They visited the Skybridge via cable cars and took in the great views from the top having picked up Kenny as he wanted to join in for that experience and, after dropping Kenny back to his hotel, they drove to Kuah and the Giant Eagle. The car was dropped back to the airport by Ally and Shawn early on the 16th and they then took a Grab car ( Uber equivalent) to a marine supplies store to pick up some fuel filters that they had put by for them.
Lisa and Kenny returned to Imagination and at 15.30, everyone went to the top of the dock to meet the agent who was facilitating the clearance for International departure. With that completed by 16.00, it was straight back to Imagination and they were away from the dock at 16.10 for the sail to Thailand. The overnight trip was straightforward and they arrived in Ko Rok Nok at 07.55 local time. The day was spent enjoying the gorgeous sandy beach, the clear, warm, turquoise water and relaxing onboard before sailing overnight again to Chalong Bay, Phuket, arriving at 06.35 on the 18th. All went ashore just after 9am to complete the clearing in process which, it has to be said, was an absolute breathe of fresh air! All agencies are under one roof in 4 offices in order, and they all use and have access to the same paperwork that is generated on registering online in the first office. The online entry is checked before crew are told to visit the Harbour Master, then Immigration and finally, Customs. The whole process was so easy and over and done with within half an hour. Brilliant, quick and easy, with pleasant, polite, professional and respectful personnel. A walk along the long dock and into town followed to get set up with data SIMS and then lunch before returning to Imagination to relax and recover from the night sails.
It took 7 hours to sail from Chalong Bay to Phi Phi on the 19th and on the 20th, everyone was eager to go exploring ashore. Each couple had different agendas so they split up having arranged a time to go back to Imagination. Ally and Shawn were very pleasantly surprised to find many positive changes since there last time here in 2017. There has been lots of building work since then, with many stalls, bars, hostels/hotels, stores creating a vibrant network of lanes full of life and a wonderful relaxed, friendly vibe. The biggest change was that the hundreds of tourist dayboats that arrive no longer line the whole length of the beach for hours, but go off to anchor/moor up, moving in and out to drop off and pick up in specific areas. Other areas have been cordoned off to make the water accessible for people to safely cool off in which is lovely, but very busy. After mooching around the stalls for a while, Ally and Shawn climbed what seemed to be thousands of steep steps up to a couple of viewpoints with the scenery being well worth the effort. They had a soft drink and a snack before descending and finding a fab bar ( Freedom Bar) on the beach on the other side of where they were anchored and had a couple of beers and some lunch and dodged a very short lived, but heavy downpour before meeting up with everyone else.
Ally and Shawn remained onboard on the 21st, odd jobbing, while the others went out for separate boat trips for the day – Lisa and Kenny on a speedboat, and Scheila and Phil on a local longtail, and they all had a great day. Ko Racha Yai ( aka Coral Island) was the destination on the 22nd, but with the overcast weather, everyone remained on board for the remainder of the day as day trippers came and went on the many day/dive boats. Ally, Shawn, Phil and Scheila went out on the dinghy to try out a couple of the snorkel spots that all the dayboats were taking their guests to. The weather was a beautiful temperature, but the snorkelling was very poor which was very disappointing. The overcast conditions continued on the 24th when it was time to leave. The only upside was that there was finally some good wind ( gusts to 27kts) so they were able to sail the 12nm back to Chalong Bay where some cleaning was done before a relaxed afternoon. Lisa, who had spent the last 3 full days in her cabin feeling under the weather ( apart from one or two visits upstairs for sustenance), felt well enough to join us for our final dinner and drinks together. By 09.45 on the 25th, the group cleaning had been completed and Lisa, Kenny, Scheila and Phil had left Imagination leaving Ally and Shawn to complete a deeper clean, laundry, defrosting freezers etc etc…all the usual, mundane jobs that need doing regularly.
With the Starboard aft cabin being used as Ally’s “dressing room” and Shawn’s general dumping ground (!!), it was time to start clearing it as Ally’s son and 2 of his buddies were due to arrive for a visit on the 29th. Having started the process of finding homes for everything on the morning of the 26th, they felt it was time to get off Imagination for a few hours. Shawn and Ally took the damaged spinnaker (from May) all the way to a sailmaker in the North of Phuket before having a late lunch and checking out a couple of supermarkets. The following few days were full of clearing, putting away, sorting and cleaning and Shawn spent a whole day with a local mechanic who came onboard to try and get the dive compressor running again ( unsuccessfully). Finally, the 29th arrived and Ally had been eagerly watching online as her sons flights made their way from the UK to China and then down to Phuket 🙂
