Captain’s Log: Puteri, Nongsa, Passage to Tioman

July 9-16

Hi All,

I’m writing this blog on Friday, 7/14, sitting at a lovely anchorage between the islands of Sembilang and Seri Buat……about 7 miles off the east coast of Malaysia and 100 nm north from the Malacca Straits. Well, I say lovely…it is blowing 15-20G25kts now as a squall passes…..no rain yet and the anchorage is somewhat protected….just about a 1′ chop so pretty smooth!!!

Nongsa: The visit was just what the doc ordered….clean, bright brown diesel (bought 425 gal) and some good times with other cruisers. In fact rather therapeutic!!! We reunited with 3 Rally boats, and we had a cruiser commiseration night……:)))) One boat had an indirect lightning strike wiping out all their navigation electronics and as they had just gotten underway and in the confusion of the hit, they ran aground dinging the prop. They have spent the last month or so in a boat yard et all getting all repaired. Another boat, due to nothing on his part, but through a mechanic’s comedy of errors, got seawater in the engine and has spent the last 2 months getting the engine rebuilt….ugh!!!! And finally, another boat had a fuel tank leak and some rigging issues……they have called it quits for the cruising season and are making their way back to a boatyard to seek more repairs….arghhhhhh!!!!

So after that evening of jocularity and reuniting, we didn’t feel all that bad about all our recent nagging little pissant issues:))))

We spent 3 nights at Nongsa…..checked into and out of Indonesia, did some boat projects, and spent a day in Batam with Stedem from Atlantis doing some shopping, getting an Indo Sim card and having a delightful lunch at a Italian restaurant…..home made lasagna and wood fired pizza!!! We also went with Stedem one night to a gorgeous seafood restaurant for chili crabs…..OMG to die for. We first had these in Singapore…..these had more of a red chili based sauce where Singapore had a more black pepper sauce…..these were delicious…..the sauce at first seemed too spicy but by the end of the feed-a-thon I was putting the sauce on my fried rice and veggies it was that succulent!!!

AND…..we think that all that bad fuel is 99% clean…..yeah, yippee, HAPPY DANCE!!!!! Today is the first day I have not fuel polished in over a month!!!!!! So in summary: 126 oz of water, 118 oz in port tank and 8 oz in strbd tank, 32,000 gal of fuel polished, 27 passes through the fuel polisher, 8 filters, 7 2-micron and 1 10-micron filter!!!! Holy bad fuel batman!!!!

Singapore Straits: Well…..practice makes perfect….but glad all that is done!!!! Since Nongsa is south of the Straits and East Malaysia is north, we had to cross the shipping lanes twice…..oh what fun!!!! Actually, it was kind of fun….ok, maybe I’ve been smelling diesel fumes too much:))) But, with the aid of AIS….it tells you the CPA……critical point of approach and TCPA….time to critical point of approach…..and it visually shows all this on Nobeltec, our navigation software. So, it is just a matter of vectoring your way through the maze……kind of a puzzle and I found it somewhat challenging and fun. So…the first lane we cross…..ships going east bound……there are 3 ships we need to vector around…ok, got it lined up….all staying 600-1000 yards away (1000 yards/meters is a kilometer or ~ half mile+)…..Kathy then says uh John, you see that blue dot on the Simrad chartplotter……it’s not on Nobeltec….well, crap…..the blue dot usually means wreck or some sunken obstacle…one wants to avoid….so I quickly re-vector and ooops…….not what the Admiral wants to hear…..the 3rd ship is a tanker….all full…..10 containers high…..and doing 18 knots…really…yikes…..ok, we get past the blue dot and I make a hard 60* turn and speed up…..we pass with 600 yards (more than a quarter mile+, maybe 2 minutes) to spare….but whoa……a full on tanker that close, closing down on you that fast is well……it’s just frickin huge and I think my mouth dropped all the way to the floor I was that amazed, impressed and ok, a wee bit nervous……must go faster Mystic!!!!

Onto the West bound lane where we had 5 ships to vector around and did so with all staying 800-1000 yards away….thank you very much!!!! On the way out of Nongsa we had no ships on the East bound lane…..ok, so that was easy….and we had 2 ships on the West bound lane…..and that was easy as well!!!! I’m not sure how many AIS targets we had at any given time……maybe 200……it was so cluttered we turned off the radar as it was sensory overload and we relied on AIS and visual!!!!

Passage to Tioman: We took our time and day hopped up the East coast of Malaysia. The first day we did 52 nm…….had a 1-2 kt adverse current most of the time…..and overnighted in Jason Bay surrounded by a gazillion fish flags attached to fish traps. The 2nd day we went another 54 nm to our present location…..this time had a 0.5-1.0 favorable current most of the time….go figure!!!! The water is getting nicer…..no more of the ugly, polluted, trashy, dirty waters of the Malacca Strait……this water actually has a blue tinge to it and visibility maybe 10-20’….ok, it’s not paradise but after the past month it feels refreshing. Mystic now has a proud yellowish bow mustache from the dirty Malacca Strait waters….ugh!!!! We thought about snorkeling today but couldn’t find a decent spot….most of the coral was dead and some heavily silted…..but we did do some beachcombing…….lots of plastic trash but Kathy did find a few shell gems!!!!

Flopper stopper: Oh to laugh at us now:)))) The anchorage at Jason Bay was very rolly so the Admiral said enough and she deployed the flopper……I’m still in no shape to lift heavy objects like this 35 pound flopper fin which is also very awkward to handle. I had come up with a scheme….yep, Craig……a 14 point plan:)))……to lift the flopper at the end of the deployment using our boom and winch…..the Admiral was not too excited but willing to try…..we don’t think she should be lifting this with her back. Anyway, the first part of the plan went well….we attached a retrieval line from the boom winch and hoisted the fin up…….now as you get close to lifting out of the water my thought was to use a boat pole to keep the line holding the fin away from the boat so the fin did not crash into the side of the boat as we are still rolling quite a bit. Kathy tried but did not like the pole so she used her hands…..yep, you guessed……she held onto too tight, boat and fin rolled outboard, gate was open, and away she went into the water crashing on the fin itself…..oweeeee…..fortunately she was not seriously hurt or too bruised, except for her pride, and she lost her favorite toe ring but saved her glasses!!!! When I saw her splash I dropped everything to go retrieve her which left the boom to swing wildly which eventually crashed into the bimini and stripped off the wires to the boom winch…..yes, it is funny haha now but not so at the time. Eventually we both calmed down when we knew she was not seriously hurt and got all the wires, boom, fin sorted and then had many glasses of wine/scotch to calm down….yep, living the dream for sure!!!!

Finishing blog on Sunday July 16:

We did make it to Tioman yesterday around 1:30pmish….but not w/o incident, which I’ll get to in a moment. There has been this pesky western swell…..from the mainland and just weird as in just wrong….all winds et al have been out of the south…..and unfortunately the anchorage at Tioman is exposed to the west….and yep, as we arrived the winds picked up to 15-20kts and with that west swell we had 2-3′ chop et al in the anchorage….ugh. We had to deploy the flopper and we used the thrusters to keep Mystic into the swell as we lowered the dinghy but she was swaying pretty good until we got the dinghy over the side…..arghhhhhh!!!! We then went into a very small marina in order to check back into Malaysia which was done very easily!!!!

We poked around the small town a bit and got some info on what to do. We then went back to the small marina and talked with several of the local cruisers. It is first come first serve at this marina…..really never found out who is in charge other than Harbormaster who had already told us marina is full……and, checking all berths concluded all was full. But, by the time we got back to Mystic, the swell was almost gone and the winds were calming…..we spent a very conformable night but the winds are already back to 15 kts this am….but no swell so Mystic is doing just fine so far!!!!

BTW we had good internet this am so looked at weather quite a bit and discovered a small LO up near Vietnam that was causing all this west swell…..ok, good to know!!!!

Cummins start battery: the pissant issue of the day/week which I alluded to earlier: hmmm……not having much luck with this Lifeline start battery……after 2.5 years this Lifeline battery was not doing the job…..so, we changed it out with one of our spare Northstar batteries (we keep 2 when we change our house bank, so this is about 1.5 years out of the bank)….hmmm…..it didn’t get the job done either….I’ll charge it up some more before we call this one bad but…we’ll…..ugh. We can combine this start battery with our House Bank so we can get the engine started but long term you want a start battery……I’m not sure why this particular battery only lasts 2.5-3.5 years…..maybe the heat in the ER…..ugh!!!!

Well anyway….as we tried to start the Cummins yesterday the Northstar battery completely failed and somehow the solenoid on the starter stuck and the starter stayed engaged….it made this godawful sound….ugh, ugh, ugh. Kathy thought to turn off the battery disconnect switch which finally stopped the starter!!!! Hmmm……now what to do….when all else fails get out the manual…..so started the troubleshooting…..it could be a failed battery, failed starter, failed solenoid or failed ignition switch….oh joy!!!! I started with step 1 and took the solenoid lead off the starter Neg post and voila it all worked. I’m not exactly sure why it worked but away we went. I’m thinking the Northstar battery failed under load which caused high amps in the solenoid and starter and something stuck. Completely disconnecting the circuit finally depowered whatever was stuck. I have emails out to several experts and hope to have a conclusion soon. In the meantime we have 2 more spare batteries to try……ugh!!!!

Weather: Well…..our proposition that as we came south from Phuket we would find cooler waters and weather…..and indeed that has happened. The water temp is now 83-85*F from the 89-91*F in Phuket……that 5* is huge on us humans!!! The cabin temp is now hovering in the mid-80’s versus the low 90’s and the heat index is in the 90’s versus the 100’s. We have even gone back to our usual GEN routine…..running during dinner et al and running the AC to cool down the stateroom. Sometime in the early morning one of us gets up to open the portholes and we have both been sleeping quite well!!

Health: Unfortunately Kathy has got a good old fashion cold/flu…..coughing, aches, maybe a slight fever, congestion…….arghhhhhh!!!! We are having a chill day today so hopefully she can get well soon…..of course, I woke up with a sore throat today….ugh. It’s now been 4 weeks since my hernia surgery and well, quite frankly, it’s not 100% as I expected. I’m not sure if it is because of too much boat project activity……when I’m folded up is when it hurts the most…..or just need the full 6 weeks to fully recover. My pain goes from a 1 up to a 5 when it is really aggravated when I do too much or walk too far…..ugh!!!!

The Plan: We will stay here a few more days then probably leave on Wednesday, July 19 for an overnight to Tarempah in the Anambas Islands in Indonesia. It’s a run of 130nm or about 17 hours. We will leave late afternoon for an early morning arrival. We plan to spend about 30 days in Anambas archipelago….there are over 500 islands so plenty to do and hopefully good diving!!!!

OK…..time to chill…..oops…right after some more battery work:)))))

Hope all is well!!!

John
Mystic Moon
Tioman Malaysia

Yep….that is a lot of AIS targets…..well over 200 and maybe more!!!

See Mystic…the boat in red with the 1 mile circle around her….then see the 5 ships going east (going left on screen) in the shipping lane….about 2 miles away and to the right of our predictor line….those are the 5 boats we had to vector around….fun!!!!

Singapore Straits…..we cruised with the LNG tanker in picture for 5+ miles….the Captain was not happy with the other ships….they got too close…..so she came over by us for a while!!!