Daily Archives: June 17, 2009

Malaysia, Sail Malaysia

Fueling the Boat

Heritage Bay Marina

Terengganu, Malaysia

Hi All,

It just took me about 47% of my battery to attach this email.  Hope it goes!  We’re off to Radang Island tomorrow as are most of the Sail Malaysia cruisers.  Will email again when I can.  I might try to send the Batik email if my battery lasts.  I am over at the marina office.

Ru

DoraMac

 

Fueling the Boat

The price was right and the fuel dock was just down the river. So Monday Randal and I went to fill up. Hashim, one of the marina supervisors came with us. We got 1500 litres @ 1.88 ringits per litre (393.3 gallons @ $2.03 US per gallon = $804.49 ) Only Hong Kong, back in July 2007, was cheaper. The most we have ever paid at one time was in Subic Bay. We took on 1,321 gallons and paid a total of $3,579.91. The most we paid per gallon was in Makassar in August of 2008 where we paid $3.26 per gallon. Divide the amount of fuel we had bought prior to our Terengganu purchase over the time cruising so far and it equals about $182 US per month. Randal says that’s not really the way to do it, but it does give you an idea after I write that we just put $804 of diesel into the boat. I wouldn’t want anyone to think we do it very often. We burn about 1 and 2/3 gallons per hour. We also burn fuel when we run the genset at anchor to charge the batteries.

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Maybe this spreadsheet will make things clearer.

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There were other boats at the fuel dock so we pulled alongside and tied ourselves to one. Hashim is in the red hat. The fuel worker in the white hat came aboard DoraMac for a tour.

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I don’t know his name, but he was 22 and not married. He said he needed to earn money first. Smart young man! He was polite and helpful too. Randal made a flag bandana hat for him.

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The fuel intake has a red cover so there is no mistaking it with something else. You can see our bow line leading from DoraMac to the one we are tied to. I had to throw the line and hope I didn’t mess up because we really didn’t have time for a second try. There are no brakes on a boat.

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We’re the boat on the left!!!!

I really had a hard time interpreting this photo, but the real green and brown fishing boat is the one on the right. The image of the boat on the left is all reflected from our boat. Even the blue and white fender on the left is a reflection. The green paint on DoraMac is reflecting back all of that color…pretty amazing to me.

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The bank of the Terengannu River.

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A fishing boat going by.

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See all of the lights? They are used for night fishing to attract the fish to come to the surface. When we make night passages you can see the lights from miles away even. With our radar set for 3 miles, you don’t see the boats on the radar but you see their lights. Makes me nervous though I am getting better at trusting the radar. The bridge at the top of the photo is the one we ride over to get to town. On the other side of the bridge is the Crystal Mosque.

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Malaysia, Terengganu

Visit to the Noor Arfa Crafts Complex in Terengganu with Ruth and Elizabeth

On Tuesday, June 16th, Ruth from Icicle One and Elizabeth from Labaraque and I met at 8:30 am in the marina lobby to await our prearranged taxi. We might have taken the 3 ringgit water taxi and then the free bus, but the bus schedule is somewhat erratic and the taxi was only 8 ringgits apiece so we splurged on the taxi to save time. The complex opened at 9 am and we wanted to be there in the cool of the morning, before the crowds of tourists arrived. www.noor-arfa.com is the web address and you can see the beautiful material they make.

Most of the crafts people we saw were trained at the complex. Traditionally men do the brush painting and the block printing and women do the songket weaving. At least that’s the way it was in the Noor Complex in Terengganu. www.batikmalay.net is another wonderful web site about Malay batik. Most of the printmakers were men.

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Batik tools. Some are done as a block print.

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Preparing the cloth for the color. We thought the women were using water just too wet the cloth to absorb the paint.

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Both women walk around the cloth adding color. They have done this enough to have an idea how to apply the color and work well together. Then the frame is tilted first one way and then the other to let the paint run. A lot like doing watercolor!

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Then more color is added and allowed to run.

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This was a piece that was ready to have additional design added. Unfortunately we didn’t learn what would happen next exactly though we did see a similar piece with a gold design running through the cloth. The white design was woven into the cloth prior to the painting.

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Using paintbrushes this young man had painted the back of this shirt.

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Songket weaving has gold and silver thread woven into it. This woman had learned the process from her mother.

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I would not have the patience to do this at all.

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You can see how intricate the pattern is and how time consuming it is to create this material.

According to the woman who has the batikmalay site there are some small local shops and maybe I can see some of those when we return here in about a week.

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“Pulled tea” is poured from one pot to another adding air….like cappuccino only without the machine. We had a late morning snack and then went back for a late lunch.