Tiomans

East of Malaysia

June 30, Monday, Pulau Tinggi

A trip to a waterfall on the east side of Malaysia..

Terns are whistling, a slow swell gently rolls Stamper and a nice cooling wind pulls at our anchor chain just barely hooked on a piece of granite, 10 meters deep. We are anchored in a uninhabited bay and spend our time as we please. Julie has taken on the challenge keeping up her journals. She has the discipline to spend some hours every day to write. I must say; her writing is better than mine.

I have been pampering Stamper; checking her engine after the major overhaul done on her in May to see if we can really trust our life to this renewed piece of technology. After 10 hours of slowly running, it looked like she was still overheating a bit. That was blamed on the cylinders having to wear off after their renewal, but the next ten hours still gave the impression of an overheating engine at too low a cruising speed. By now we were however in clear swimming water, east of Singapore and Malaysia. A jump in the water revealed a propellor covered in one centimeter barnacles all over. After cleaning that the speed of Stamper on engine increased 50% and I do believe it will solve most of the overheating symptoms. We will see.

A smaller annoyance is a broken sink drain, just as we will not be near any shop to find a replacement for the next month. Some inventive glueing may do the trick for the time being.

The last months have been an exercise in patience; waiting for the engine, for parts, for some final installation work. In a place like Johor Bahru; floating garbage belt, bad all-night-singers in a disco nearby, noise from construction sites all over, heavy traffic and just a derelict city. A trip to HongKong broke the monotony; Julie wrote about that in her blog.

The empty and cleaned up engine room, ready to receive the overhauled engine.

Just two days before our planned trip to the Tiomans we received the sad news that Miekes brother Theo had died alone in his apartment, a cruel way to have to leave this world. For Theo's brothers and sisters this was an emotional period, just one year after Miekes passing. I was glad to be able to spend some time with them.

Life on board is different since Mieke died, though difficult to pinpoint that difference. Might be the most fundamental change is our aim to go back in our tracks to the Pacific? No longer on a track that leads to a goal but meandering across the globe, we are now real liveaboards. Mentally setting an end-goal to our big ocean crossing travels sometime when I reach 70 years of age. What do you still want to do with your life? Get involved in awareness of climate change? Or write a book? And planning non standard travels like our trip from here to New Zealand in 2015, or standard travels like a 14 day stay in Japan with a cheap flight.... We realize that our life style is special, unique and will end when we have to say farewell to ocean passages. Both premature melancholy and a bounty of things we want to do before that time makes a curious mix. Add the many farewells to old time sailing buddies on their way to cross the Indian Ocean. - I am looking at an empty sea off Pulau Tinggi.

Pulau Tinggi beaches are far from clean..

But on Pulau Tioman, a big cleanup has been done. The beaches are (mostly) pristine.