A Different Education - Flight Lessons

For the past three weeks we've been holding afternoon school aboard Crystal Blues, working with primary and secondary students to improve their English comprehension. Ley has devised a grab-bag of games and projects to use, and some of the older kids have been working on our computers, completing homework and school projects. From 3.00pm most afternoons you can't move in the cockpit or the cabin for kids and projects.

Yesterday we cancelled the normal classes and arranged to visit the longhouse with games for the kids. In preparation we'd photocopied (in bulk) several patterns for folded paper aircraft, and we organised a competion - the longest flight, the best decoration (they had to colour them in before folding), with prizes for boys and girls. 10 children took part, with lots of laughter and delight when the flight competition began. The longhouse verandah is enclosed, about 150 metres long, plenty of room for paper planes !

The real surprise was what happened next - the mothers, who had been watching their kids in action, wanted to participate ! We issued more patterns, and 8 mothers folded deadly accurate little aircraft - no time for decoration, this was serious......and very competitive.

Then another surprise. We had noticed a group of young men at one end of the house looking disdainfully at all this "kids stuff", but when the mother's aircraft flew very far and very true, the young men sent an emissary. Can the men make planes too please ? Sure, so more patterns came out. Despite the young men's best efforts, the womens paper plane building skills won out - they still proudly hold the distance record. To our surprise, a childrens game ended up involving almost the entire longhouse population - everybody went home happy and sore from laughing ...

Two Birthdays In Borneo

Lat. 02degrees 10.54north, Lon. 111degrees 40.90east

We haven't moved since our last report, still at the longhouse on Sungai Tulai, but we have had our birthday - Ley and I both being born on June 13 (yes its scary).

Life on Sungai Tulai is very peaceful. On Sunday we went to church (twice), in both cases following the service and songs using an Iban text - not so hard to follow, since the tunes were familiar. The people here are Methodist now - most services are conducted by lay preachers from the longhouse, but once a month a pastor comes from the city, in the afternoon, and provides an additional Sunday service. That was last Sunday - hence the two services. We were pleased to host the pastor and his crew on board the boat for afternoon tea.

For our birthday we had a celebration lunch in a Chinese cafe down river in Bintangor, having ordered a special seafood meal in advance. It's a twenty minute run in the dinghy from here. We invited four of our friends from the longhouse - two came by powered canoe and two by motorbike. Later in the afternoon we had cake and tuak (rice wine) at the longhouse with about 60 well wishers, and made it home just before dark. The children of the longhouse made small birthday gifts for us - little figures made from balloons, sand and thread. One boy gave a us local river fish (live) in a tiny jar, with two glass marbles and a tiny pack of fish food - an aquarium he said in English! We also received sweet potatoes and cooked local prawns. We've transferred the fish to a bigger home, changed the water and fed it, but so far resisted naming it .....

Really a memorable birthday - lots more pictures in the Tulai River photo album - check it out in the right hand column.

Sungai Tulai Has Become Home For A While

Lat. 02degrees 10.54north, Lon. 111degrees 40.90east

Salamat Hari Gawai..... If you use the Lat. and Lon. information above (plug it in to Google Earth) you'll see that Crystal Blues is nowhere near the ocean. We've travelled 80km upstream on the Rajang River ("Batang Rajang"). From Bintangor town we took the Batang Bintangor to reach the Batang Tulai, arriving here on June 2nd. A couple of miles up the Tulai, and we're amongst old friends, a great long-house community (5 long houses) and wonderful people. Its our second visit here.

The river is just over 120' wide, but still deep, averaging 8 metres, which is just as well as we had 5 meter tides for the first few days. As the tide turns, the boat swings and the davits on the stern almost touch the jungle on the river bank. The locals have welcomed us in fine style, with lots of Tuak (rice wine) and partying. Each day we join them for some activity - yesterday we hiked into the jungle to gather wild vegetables, which were shared amongst all the families in the longhouse, with a suitable portion for us.

To our delight we're now referred to as "Auntie" and "Uncle" by all the local children - a term of endearment and trust that we're very happy with. Each afternoon the kids swim across the river to play on and about the boat, and most evenings we spend in the long house. Boat visits have been very popular, with some people swimming to us, others arriving by local canoe and many carried in our dinghy. Over 100 people have visited in the past 4 days - Ley has baked three cakes and we've run out of self raising flour and sweet biscuits...

Now that we know the various families and children, the relationship is closer. Yesterday we had a movie (DVD) afternoon for all the school-age children on board, with cake and drinks afterwards. After that they all made drawings of characters in the movie - Monsters Inc. The kids then asked Ley is she could help improve their English skills, so English reading lessons filled the afternoon until swimming time at 5.00pm. In the evening we took part in the longhouse ceremony to end the Gawai (Harvest) festival - around 150 people with traditional gong and drum music, lots of dancing, and beautiful local food. We ate the heart of young sago palms, some stuffed and cooked with tiny immature banana's, plus chicken and noodles. The longhouse chief made a speech, we all drank tuak (rice wine), and Gawai was over.

You can see more photographs at : http://picasaweb.google.com/svcrystalblues/TulaiRiver2007

Anodes Ain't Anodes it Seems - We're Off To Bintangor

02deg03.98N., 110deg52.68E.

Crystal Blues departed the Santubong River (Kuching), North Borneo, on Tuesday morning. Three hours later she was anchored back in the same river.... and nine hours later Neil was on his way to Singapore, via Johor Baru, to collect a new gearbox oil cooler and anodes for the main engine. Not good news for us .... but kinda good for Malaysian Airlines.

We noticed a salt water leak in the bilge as we departed the river - on inspection it proved to be a corroded end cap on the oil cooler. After returning and re-anchoring we also pulled the anode from the engine heat exchanger and found it was unchanged since installation - about six months ago. This anode was purchased in Singapore from a local chandlery - seems the zinc in it is not what it should be - maybe not zinc at all. The copper oil cooler took the anodic load instead, and of course it dissolved.

This morning we fitted a new (Cummins manufactured) anode and the new oil cooler, tested everything and departed the river again at midday .. and all is OK. We're now about 15 nautical miles from the mouth of the Rajang River. Its a full moon night, beautiful conditions. We're motoring at 6.5knots on a glassy sea, 2.0 knots of breeze on the beam. Will enter the Rajang River around midnight, have been there once before, so we hope we know the way in .... rising tide (4 metres tonight !) and good charts, plus radar. Tomorrow we'll work the tide upstream to Sarikei, then the next day to Bintangor. It's Hari Gawai festival time here, and we have a date at a particular Iban native long-house, just past Bintangor. Music, dancing and rice wine .... Hari Gawai!

Possibly no phone coverage for the next few weeks, as we're in the Rajang River delta, but the email should work just fine.

Fusion Food In Santubong

One of the many reasons we are sailing is to experience the local food. Each destination presents a new opportunity to tempt our senses. We eat where the locals eat, cook with local produce and shop where the locals shop. We love the seafood and vegetarian fare in Penang, the clean fresh tastes of Thailand, the Indian roti in Langkawi and the endless variety in Singapore. We also keep a well provisioned freezer on board and stock up with produce when and where it is available. Occasionally we’ll cook western style meals, but generally they all have that touch of Asia about them.

Local Kuching yachties, Ian and Mona, were coming for dinner so we stopped at two roadside stalls and bought tiger prawns and midin, a local fern. The women who collect and sell this vegetable were all smiles - we think they were wondering what we were going to do with our banana leaf bundle of midin. They asked which resort we were staying in. We gave them our boat card, with a picture of Crystal Blues on it and explained that were staying on our boat in the river.

We discovered midin during our travels in Sarawak last year. Served in restaurants, it is quickly cooked in the wok with garlic and light soy or oyster sauce and presented on its own as a vegetable dish. It has a texture similar to asparagus. For dinner, Ley cooked prawn risotto and a side serve of midin. Delicious! A fusion of flavours, textures and cultures.

We Chase The Singapore Police Coast Guard

1 degree 46.22 North, 108 degrees 14.91 East.

Crystal Blues departed Singapore on Saturday May 19, after fuelling at RSYC. Our destination is Kuching, Sarawak, about 400 nautical miles distant across the South China Sea. The weather has been very kind, no real wind and lots of motoring, and we should arrive in the Santubong River on Tuesday morning.

As we cleared the Singapore Strait on Saturday night, well clear of Singapore waters, we were intercepted and followed by an obvious military type vessel, 50cal. machine gun on deck, which trained a (very bright) spotlight on us, whilst holding a very close station. We were effectively running blind. After 5 minutes we'd had enough of this and called them on VHF but received no response to repeated hails. After almost 10 minutes and repeated VHF calls from us they fell astern without identifying themselves.

Not impressed at all with their gung-ho boat driving and spot light use, nor with their failure to communicate when requested, we turned and chased them, applying our spotlight to their bridge. The image above, extracted from our positioin logging on our chart plotter, shows us following the turn, following them. They eventually heaved-to and begrudgingly identified themselves on VHF Ch16.

This was the Singapore Police Coast Guard Vessel PH.61 ! When we requested a change of channel to free the emergency frequency, communications were lost.... a man on the deck yelled at us to please use Ch16 again. So we returned to the abused Ch16 and asked what they were about - two different voices responded at different times, with different ineffectual excuses for their behaviour.

Now obviously, we clearly respect Singapore's right to investigate vessels at its borders, and are happy to cooperate, but only so long as it is done in a professional and safe manner.

The way these guys behaved was not courteous or safe - definitely not Singapore's finest hour. It took 10 minutes to get a response from them, and no useful communication ensued. In the end we announced our intention to resume our voyage and left them there, and have lodged an official complaint with the Singapore authorities.

Incredibly, at this stage we think Crystal Blues may be the only sailing vessel ever to chase, apprehend and interrogate a Singapore Police Coast Guard security vessel ! Go figure ....

Line Dancing in the Malacca Straits

With our fourth uneventful Malacca Straits passage under our keel, we are now safely tied up at One Degree 15 Marina in Singapore. We hope to be here a week before transiting across to Kuching in Sarawak, Borneo.

We departed Penang midafternoon on May 8, with tidal assistance and a reasonable weather window. Eventually the tide turned and took the wind with it. For the next two days we had noserlies, even when we made a course change. Ah well, we did have a pleasant sailing moment on Tuesday evening, but the remainder of the trip was motor sailing, then just plain motoring.

As we moved down the Straits we were accompanied by continuous lines of really big ships, heading north and south. There were amazing gas ships with their camel like domes on deck, huge panamax car carriers, bulk freighters, cruise ships and coastal freighters. Large shipping movements along the Malacca Straits conform to the traffic management schemes as detailed on the charts by pink lines and arrows. These pink marks are followed religiously by all. We choose to sail just outside this area and have found it to be mostly clear of tugs, barges, trawlers, local fishing boats, nets, fish traps and other distractions that hug the coast. The only really challenging sections are where there are designated crossings into coastal ports of Malaysia. At one of these crossings last year we collected an interesting piece of flotsam. With the engine disabled, Neil dove over the side and cleared the proppellor of heavy rope. These surprises only happen at 2am!

Our last week in Penang was filled with festivals. We celebrated Wesak Day, (Buddha's Birthday) and also the First Full Moon in the Hindu New Year calendar. What a treat to be part of these
celebrations.

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Burning the Candle at Both Ends

People who knew us BC (Before Cruising), knew that we were good at burning the candle at both ends. Seems we fell back in this habit on our whirlwind trip in Australia. Not only did we cover a lot of road miles, but packed in many social and family visits. We even resorted to keeping a diary to control our schedule ... way too busy.

Road miles included a drive to Moulamein in NSW to visit Luke's partner's parents on their property at Burrindi. Nick and Kerry Lowing, Sondras's parents, run a rice and cereal farm. Although our visit was short, we toured the 3600 acre property, enjoyed fabulous food and company and are looking forward to our next visit. The country was very dry, but most fields were laser levelled and prepared, just waiting for the rain and planting out. The fields, like all the equipment on this property, were beautifully maintained. We hope they get their rain soon.

James and Marian Farrell also invited us up for the weekend to their new property at Glenhope. We walked the back paddocks, fed the horse, sheep, deer and goats and enjoyed the peace of the bush. James had brought up a few trees to be planted, so armed with jack hammer and shovels a mature pecan and quince were planted. The jack hammer made digging into the hard soil so much easier as James, a professional landscape gardener, had discovered.

Back on the home front in Williamstown, we installed three printers for friends and family, cleaned up and pruned the trees on our rental property and built a blog site for Peter and Maria's wedding (it's linked from this site, just look under Our Favourite Links).

The final days included family meals and watching Shaun compete in the annual Anzac day cycling road race in Williamstown. Both Neil's and Ley's parents were there to watch this fast paced event.

We forgot to mention that in the midst of all this fun we both caught very unpleasant colds, but soldiered on regardless. We flew out on Thursday morning, cloaked in leather jackets and finally arrived in Penang 14 hours later in 34 degrees and high humidity. Time to rest, recuperate and sleep in.
Check out the new photo album, Australian Visit 2007, in the photo links on this page.

Home Is Where The Heart Is

Crystal Blues is berthed in Penang, and we flew home a week ago for the wedding of Neil's brother Peter, to Maria Karpetis, held last Saturday. What a fantastic wedding it was - a marvellous Greek Orthodox service in a beautiful rural setting. A six hour "luncheon" followed, which completely ruined most of us. Maria looked like a Greek goddess, and Peter looked just like he should - extremely happy ! About 100 family and friends celebrated the event, dancing to blues, rock and traditional Greek music. Since the wedding we haven't stopped - a whirlwind round of social engagements and reunions with friends. We're also going through a change of tenants in our rental property, so the visit home has allowed us to work on that project as well.

Earlier today our godson Ethan Shaw flew in from Sydney. On school vacation, Ethan (9 yrs) took his first flight without his parents to spend a day or so with us. A full day at the Melbourne zoo was followed by dinner in Carlton. Ethan loves Spaghetti Bologna, with cheese, and boconcini and tomato, and Italian bread etc etc - so we had it all !

Ethan flies home tomorrow, and we'll return to Penang around the 28th of this month, after just a few more reunions....it is nice to be home again.

Old Souls Day

Religious and cultural tolerance seems to be a catch-cry around the world. In Penang, where almost every street has a Hindu or Buddhist temple, a Mosque, or a Church, it is no exception.

Today as we were riding our motor bike we turned a corner and just had to stop and pull over. A Chinese family were building a large stack of paper goods - shoes, food, money, gold bullion and shirts, in the middle of the road. Each item was piled high on to the stack, incense was lit, payers were said and whole pile was ignited. As the fire burnt down many of the ashes floated upwards, carrying with them all the worldly goods that the Old Souls would need for the coming year. The shop in our photograph sells paper "goods" for burning as offerings.

This all took place in the middle of a busy road. Motor bikes and cars patiently waited and weaved their way around this ceremony. No harsh words, no horns blarring, just a simple ceremony of a Chinese family honouring their deceased relatives in the middle of a busy road.

Our First Day In Cyberspace

OK, this is kind of scary - the launch of the very first web-log ("blog") from the crew of Crystal Blues. We hope you like the site, and will try to keep you entertained with content.

The blog was setup with tons of help from Mike and Tracey on SV Seadrive - thanks guys. Mike can be an animal sometimes, but he really knows his stuff ! Check out the Seadrive web link in the right hand column .....

All our past newsletters are available here, along with the Marine Services Directory we've collated over the past few years - the link buttons are below for .pdf downloads. The photo's are all public domain for non-profit users - just let us know if you plan to publish any .... a by-line would be nice !

Next we'll try to put our various video productions on the page, to make them available for download. We'll see if U.Tube can handle that. Stay tuned.

Greetings to all those checking in for the first time - give us lots of feedback and we'll try to make it better !

Its A Whale

Its not so often we hear that call on board, but Ley was pretty excited and she called it out REALLY LOUD. This occured just yesterday, on the passage from Langkawi to Penang. Sure enough, in amongst the fishing fleet, she got a good look at the creature. Reference to our whale books suggests it was a Goosebeak Whale, with a surprising spotted brown colouring. The whale sounded several times in our view, and slowly moved away from the fleet (and from us). This one wasn't so big (about 6 metres), but its great to see them, and nice to know they're surviving.

The Taxi Driver Told Us ...........!

Crystal Blues departed Langkawi this morning, heading for Penang. Sailing at 6.5 knots with an 11 knot NE breeze, flat seas, blue skies. Lovely!

After several weeks of "boat jobs", we spent our last few hours yesterday in Kuah Town stocking up on duty free wine for the next few months. Towering thunderheads were building all around the bay and our taxi driver suggested that the wet season was coming a month early this year. Loaded with our bounty we stopped at the Asia Restaurant for a final meal there this season (mango squid, baby kailan and broccoli).

It started to rain lightly, so the owner's son kindly offered to drive us to the dinghy dock with our provisions. After unloading at the dock we waited for the light rain to pass over. Then it just got heavier, the thunder and lightning started, and we made a run for it. The cardboard boxes dissolved before our very eyes, the dinghy was filled with loose bottles of wine and beer, and gallons of water. Unfortunately the bailer was buried under a mountain of wine so we used a shoe to empty out the dinghy, as we motored out to the boat.

Yep, the taxi driver was right, the wet season is coming earlier this year.....

We'll be in Penang until April 11, when we fly home to Melbourne for Peter & Maria's wedding.
Crystal Blues will be left at Tanjong City Marina whilst we're in Australia. When we return at the end of April we'll set sail for Singapore and then Borneo.

Boat Jobs In Paradise

Right through March we've worked hard on boat maintenance. Ley repaired the small wear/tear in the genoa’s grey sacrificial cloth. Then it was her turn to go up the mast and sew four new leather (pigskin) boots on the spreader tips.

We hauled the boat out of the water and antifouled Crystal Blues bottom, at Rebak Island Marina. Last time we applied paint it was Jotun Sea Guardian, at Yamba in January 2005. Exactly 2 years later the antifoul just stopped working. There weren’t too many surprises on the hull. Yes, paint had been damaged here and there, but we had been in flood on the Clarence River in northern NSW and up and down the Rajang River and its tributaries in Borneo. The battle scars from logs, trees and general rubbish were evident. These were all dealt with after the hull was wet sanded by Ley. Neil cleaned up the hull, shaft and the prop and soon we were ready for the painting. This time we applied Jotun Sea Force 90.

In between coats of paint we dismantled the aft raw water inlet manifold, cleaned out the barnacle growth and rebuilt the manifold. New hose was obtained and installed, and every thru-hull checked for growth. This effectively ended our pump gremlins. Other works included repairing paint and timber damage on our rear steps, removing and replacing damaged insulation in the base of our refrigerator, replacing all anodes and servicing the PSS Shaft Seal.

Tug Boat Crystal Blues

In early February Helsal II, a 60ft racing boat from Williamstown (our home town) was berthed in the Tanjong City Marina, Penang. She had been chartered out for the Asian racing circuit, and the client reported a missing propeller blade. Now Bill (the owner) had the problem of getting the yacht to Langkawi (60 nautical miles) for a haul out to replace the propeller. A quote for a professional tow made Bill’s eyes water, so we stepped in and offered to take on the tow, for a much reduced consideration.

Within two days her crew arrived, and had a whirlwind introduction to Malaysia. A towline was assembled from two long nylon hawsers (one ours, one theirs), with 10 metres of chain in the middle. We ran a bridle from our welded cleats on the aft deck.

The tow departed Tanjong Marina (Penang) just on dusk and after a smooth motor up the channel both boats flew their headsails - a #3 on Helsal II and a full genoa on Crystal Blues. With our engine just ticking over at 1000 rpm and very little strain on the tow, we motor sailed through the night into a stiff noserly and lumpy seas. There was so much wind we were running ahead of schedule, so sail was removed at around 5.00am. Two hours later, just after dawn, we approached the “skinny bit”. A quick radio check with Bill assured him that there was enough water for their 3.2metre keel.

Another three hours and we arrived at Wavemaster Langkawi where the day was spent warping Helsal II into the slip. Tension, sweat and all of our long lines were required for this job. Helsal II was lifted the following morning – but there was no damage to the prop and all three blades were there….. guess how Bill felt !

The following day they departed for Darwin, via Port Dickson. Crystal Blues maintained a daily HF radio schedule with Helsal II until they were approaching Kupang in West Timor. We understand the boat is now in Darwin, and look forward to catching up with the crew in Melbourne next month. Check out more photo's at :

http://picasaweb.google.com/svcrystalblues/HelsalII