The Flying Python

Reconditioning a 40 years old vintage racing bike

2012-02-12T20:37:00.010+08:00

This old bicycle had been lying at the back of my parents' house for the last thirty odd years. My younger brother bought it second hand when he was in school and that was around 1980. When I was offered the bike I quickly took it and the deal was I will pay my brother RM 50 if I can rebuild the bike to a road worthy condition.

Upon arrival, I stripped the bicycle apart and gave it a good wash. It was a good thing that the bicycle was hung near the kitchen as the whole bicycle was greasy. this layer of oil actually prevented the bike from rusting. After that I sent the bike to my good friend's hop at Jaya Motors. His mechanic spent two days changing the list of consumable that I requested....tyres, tubes, cables, bearings brakes, lights grips etc. At the end of the day I was only charged RM 150 by my friend.. a really good deal as he only charged the items at cost. what are friends for?

A lot of people in the shop was admiring the antiqued Shumano 600 ten speed racing gears. It is still good and looks like it will last another 100 years.

This is how the beauty looks like now. I have just done about 100 km riding the bike. it feels good and it is a fast bike to ride.

It is not the lightest bike around but I am happy with it. This is my bike No 4 at home. Next I will try and acquire a Surly Long Haul Trucker touring bike.. See I am happy with a RM 200 toy!

How Poor Is Poor?

2011-12-05T21:45:00.014+08:00

Most of the evenings when I was flying in Timor Leste I would walk up a hill behind my hotel. One of the evenings it started to rain so myself and another Vietnamese pilot Capt Binh decided to take a short cut to go home. We used to past this little wooden shed on the slope of the hill many times but had paid no notice of it. That particular day because of the rain we decided to go in for shelter.We were in for a surprise! Inside that little shed were about 21 boys . This was their sort of "hostel" and all of them were university students in nearby Dili University. Because of the war with Indonesia, they were quite old. the oldest among them was 26 years old. Their parents are from the districts all over Timor.This was the bed for one of the boys. Some of the students were just sleeping on the cement floor.There was no water supply nearby so it had to be brought up in jerry cans. You can imagine the hygiene standards of the boys here. As for food, their parents only share a sack of rice every month for ALL the kids. Amongst them they had a few dollars to buy oil, sugar and salt. These boys are expert at survival for I saw with my own eyes they were gathering leaves of some of the trees nearby to be boiled and eaten. There were a few chicken behind too.For their only meal of the day there was nothing much to be eaten. What I saw was only rice and some leaves.BUT these boys were cheerful and looks happy. To them they are waiting for a bright future after their university education.I had a look at their mathematics module. It looks like Form 2 work to me but these are for their university here. No wonder one of my engineering hand who had been teaching in a university do not even know the working of an internal combustion engine! He graduated as an industrial engineer from Indonesia.

I felt bad for they boys and next day I decided to buy some good food for them. The next time when you feel poor just remember how poor these boys are...both financially and spiritually.

Our Garden of Eden

2011-11-11T21:59:00.003+08:00

Our house is located at the bank of the Chukai River in Kemaman. It is the local laws that there must be a buffer before the river and any house. This buffer belongs to the government. Since my house is the last house before the river, I had the previlege of using this land to grow some fruits and vegetables fo our own consumption. It had been designed so that our house is about 3 ft higher than the plot so that from the house compound we cannot see the vegetable plotI had several bunds of Kai Lan, Lettuce and Spinach ( sawi). I do not need to buy greens from the market for about 8 months every year. Those bright looking vegetables sold in the market are full of chemicals . Greens from my garden esp the letuce are normally eaten raw or just stir fried. Home grown greens do not have a bitter taste.I make my own compost to be used as plant food from the grass cutting of my gardenWe have several lime and lemon trees to provide us with all the sour contents of our cookingBananas trees that we grow are the gigi gajah variety which is almost extinct now. It looks something like the pisang montel and is very tasty.These star fruits are the honey variety but I have to compete with the squirrels to get the fruits. My Alsation dogs will scare the monkeys away but they don't seem to mind the univited squirrel guest!Five dragon fruit trees provide us with fresh juicy fruits that are full of anti oxidantsThe dragon fruit flowers are real nice.However when taking the fruits one got to be careful. My wife just got ""stung" by the tree! Ouch!!I have also discovered that by allowing the weeds to grow in between the veggies I can actually have worm free veggies. The worm maybe like the weed more than the veggies.I got to report this new discovery to the University Pertanian!

Building my First Watercraft

2011-10-16T22:46:00.003+08:00

Actually this was not the first boat that I built. Much earlier when I was a cadet in the Royal Military College (1975) I was drafted into the watermanship club and part of the project was to build a fleet of kayaks for some open day in the college . The sickening thing was it had to be done in our "spare time" ..a commodity that we NEVER so it was done over a few Sundays. Ten years later one of my friends, Dicky Cheah showed me a similar plan for a "Cnavas covered " kayak. I borrowed the plans and traced the full sized bulkheads. At that time I did not even have a jig saw but I know of a Dr Wee who had one. So after seeing the plans he decided that he wanted one as well. Over several evenings we cut the bulkheads and used cheap ceiling wood for making a basic frame. I got some old lorry canvas to be used as the skin of the kayak. Before long the kayak was ready. It was a very stable boat and I had a lot of fun with it. Sometime I would carry a passenger in the boat too. The total cost of building that boat was probably less than RM 100. So boat building need not be complicated or expensive! Just the will to do it!

Turning over the Second Hull

2011-09-30T20:45:00.007+08:00

The second hull was actually completed sometime back but I was in no hurry to have it turned over as I was busy with the first hull.The opportunity to turn the hull came when I had a few workers coming over to paint my roof and to repair some section of the fence that had been damaged by the dogs.With the help of the three workers and another 3 friends I decided to get the hull rolled over. First I had to start removing the supports for the bulkheads.Removing the last few pieces of wood can be quite scarry as the hull can "move" slightly. If there were some external forces the hull can topple so removing the last two supports were risky and I decided that I have to do this dirty job.I briefed the workers and positioned three men on each side. I was to be the cheer leader from the front. Emergency procedures were briefed to the workers. You can get hurt if you don't follow my advice!I got them to lift the boat off the ground initially just to see how light it was. Indedd it was not too heavy!Now..on my command roll the hull to my right. Steady...Ok ..Ok start rolling. It is an easy job..Steady...Ok..now take a short rest. Already half done..These two big planks that support the hull will be put to good use in some parts of the boat later. It is strong and mature wood.

Now just a bit more. we have to get the hull upright. Easy does it again..Get ready...lift..

See..it is quite easily done. My designer says he turned over the hull with just three persons. It can be done but will require more effort.

With the approaching monsoon in a few week's time there is not much that I can do on the boat except for the smaller bits and pieces. Now just one more problem. I don't know if the low loader can come over to my house to get the boat to the river.If not I will have to look for a site near the river to start my assembly in a few month's time.

Meeting some young Malaysian Bicycle Tourist

2011-09-22T20:48:00.005+08:00

One of my hashing kaki Pretty Boy told me he is expecting some friends from KL who would be riding bicycles to Dungun from Chukai and asked if I would join them. Since it was my day off from flying I said I would lead them to Kijal following the coastal kampong road.At the appointed time of 0630 hrs I met the group which consisted of two young men and three ladies. They came in all sorts of bikes ..from a folder to a genuine touring bike.I liked the way they loaded their bicycles. This bicycle has just gone round the country in 63 days and the young man in this picture was the cyclist.This is a properly equipped touring bike which the owner bought in China. He took the bike back to Malaysia and then did a 70 days cycling trip to Shanghai via Thailand and Loas. The bike looks good and it is inexpensive.So I lead the pack through the backlanes of Chukai town and crossed the bridge to the Kemaman Supply Base through Teluk Kalong and finally to Kijal beach. The ride was nice and quiet.In Kijal I took the group to a small village shop for Nasi Lemak and roti Chanai breakfast. I had to leave them on their own as I was expecting some government Safety Officer coming to do an inspection on my shop at 1030 hrs,

After we took this picture I sped off back to Chukai. I felt nice that at least there are SOME people in Malaysia who enjoys bicycle touring. Keep it up!

Work inside the First Hull of my Gypsy Catamaran

2011-08-23T21:17:00.008+08:00

Now that I have completed building the second hull (waiting to turn over) I started working on the insde of the first hull. Luckily I was adviced by the designer to add in the LAR keels later otherwise it will be more difficult to get in and out of the hull. I need two pair of ladders..one inside and one outside the hull.Each time I need to get something eg a saw or a piece of cloth I have to climb OUT and then climb in again. This is hard work and a lot of time is wasted. Now I have to cut the holes in the bulkhead so that it is possible to go across the hull.Then the bulkheads has to be glassed to the hull panels. Each time when there are dust or dirt created by the work I have to haul in a vacuum cleaner and get the area clean again.
With the bulkheads cut and trimmed I can get a "feel" of the spacious hull. There is full standing head room in the centre of the hull.

Glassing the 600/225 biaxial is hard work. I have to wear a gas mask to avoid breathing the smell of the polyester that is trapped in the hull. It makes work very fatigue. As this is the month of Ramadhan, my part timer is not around so it means more climbing in and out whe I am working alone.

This little fellow insist on coming inside the hull to be with me but it is not possible so she sits outside and makes a lot of noise!

How to be a Good Guest...........

2011-08-20T21:28:00.014+08:00

I have been very fortunate that I had always been very well treated by my friends wherever I go throughout the world. Some of the people who welcome me to their home are people whom I have never met before in my life . They have always made my life interesting and when I am in some faraway land I always feel blessed to have such good people. If you have been following my blog you would remember some of the people who has taken good care of me.

Whenever I am at home I would not hesitate to take in some guest to my house. These people have also enriched my life in one way or another. Sometimes I have bad experience with lousy and selfish guest and I had to sleep in the dog house to escape from my wife's nagging!

From my experience, the Golden Rules when invited to stay with a family are:

1. Be considerate to your kind host. Do not expect the world from them. Most of the host has taken time off to be with you.

2. Do not mess up the house. In another words, clean your own shit!. Leaving coffee cups all over the place and leaving your fruit skins all over will annoy the host!

3. Pay for some of the meals when your host take you out for dinner at restaurants. Do not just sit there like a dumb fool. It is most annoying even your host can afford it.

4. I always try and fill up the host's refrigerator whenever possible. After all food and drinks in supermarkets are cheap when compared to eating out. These items always leaves a good impression of me to my host and they keep welcoming me to their homes.

5. If I buy any fruit or fruit for myself because of any special diet requirements I will make sure that I get some for my host's family. Just buying sufficient for myself is a big NO No!

6. If you have a sick or handicapped family member it is best not to bring the burden to your faraway host. It creates a lot of burden to them.

7. Try to google the local culture of the family that you are going to visit.For example it is taboo to leave your shoes on a table Or to wear your shoes inside any Asian house.

8. When you leave make sure you leave the room clean. Do not leave all your rubbish in the room and expect your host to clear it. Make sure the sheets are sent to the laundry to be clean. At least load all the dirty linen in the washing machine.

9. I have a habit of bringing a small present for my host esp to their wife or children. It works wonders. My Hash House Harrier T shirts are worn by my friends all over and they enjoy the dirty write ups on the shirt. Often on a visit a few years later I still see them wearing it. By not bringing any small gift it shows that you are unconcerned.

10. In area where I cannot bring the family out for a good meal before I depart, I will always buy some food and use their kitchen to cook some good Asian Cuisine(as my French Friends say) for us to eat. Of course I can bullshit my way through and I tend to behave like a celebrity chef as seen on TV .....very often teaching my host on my cooking!

11. After meals clear up your own mess. Leaving the plates around is bad. I would often help to clear up any mess that was made in cooking the food.

12. If the family that I visit loves pets esp dogs I will make sure that I respect their pets too. I had one guest who behind my back used a chair to hit my lovely poodle . Really "sakit hati"

13. Do not hoard the family TV with your favourite program . If this happens my wife will be very angry as she has her favourite serial soap operas that she does not want to miss.

14. Try to organise activities for yourself or ask the host for some recommended activities. By doing so you are giving the host a chance to relax .

15. Be prepared to spend some money because it is your holiday .

If you follow these golden rules I can assure you that your host would love you and you will get a second or third invitation to their homes. Flouting these Golden Rules means it will be difficult to get a second invitation!

Building the LAR Keels for my Gypsy catamaran

2011-07-21T22:52:00.009+08:00

In between building the hulls I had to build the LAR Keels. LAR is Low Aspect Ratio . The plan says I can either build the keels from flat panels OR make a small mould. Considering the keels to be quite narrow I would have imagined that it will be difficult the lay up the few layers of 600/225 matt. ( I do not have small hands!). So it was decided that I would make the flat panels and then shape it to the required profile. BUT BOTH THE KEELS MUST BE IDENTICAL! And I do not want to mess around with the keels as both these small keels should be able to take up the weight of the boat when beaching!First the shape and size of the panels are marked on the melamin chip boards. A releasing agent is applied to the surface so that the sheet produced does not stick on to the wood.. To speed things up I made a double sized panel so that it can be cut later and becomes two panels.Next gelcoat is applied. This was followed by the required number of layers of appropriate glass as per Richard Wood's plan.The flat panels are then clamped together and shaped using pieces of wood at the correct positions. The dimensions are given in the plans.After that the required layers of 600/225 biaxial are glassed inside the panels.As added security, I added another two layers of 600 gm CSM on the outside for some extra reinforcement. As you can see from this picture both the keels are almost ready. Maybe a layer of PU paint will complete the job.
This is another tick on my plans. A tick indicates a completed section of the plan.

My Friend Trevor, the Traveller

2011-07-11T23:50:00.011+08:00

Trevor Hinwood hails from Tin Can Bay, Queensland, Australia. One fine day in June 2000 I met him at the waterfront in front of my shop. From his looks I knew he was a yachtie so I went up to him and asked if he was from the sailboat anchored in front. I was still in my white shirt and blue pants and looked very "official". Trevor looked up and enquired if I was the local harbour master coming after him for anchoring fees! Well he looked friendly enough and I invited him to a coffee shop for some toast and coffee. I told him I am a sailor as well and that I will be sailing to Pulau Tenggol over the weekend. Well, he was going to Tenggol too but will be a day ahead of me.When I reached Pulau Tenggol he was already there with his boat " Blueswift". About an hour before my arrival I radioed him on VHF and he prepared a lovely breakfast for me and my crew. I did not even anchor on that trip but just rafted next to his boat.We went shore Pulau Tenggol with his dinghy and had a good time at Tenggol. I remembered paying for lunch at the resort (cost me a bomb!)I sailed back to Chukai in the evening and Trevor continued his journey up North until Koh Samui.

Somewhere around end October he returned to Chukai and decided to stay until the monsoon is over. His 35 ft Blue Swift aqlmost looked like a town feature, being anchored in front of my shop for the next 3 months. At the end of the 3 months he decided to engage Bruce the Goose to sail his boat back to Australia.During his stay in Chukai I invited to my house and we became family friends. I was forever digging his brains as he has a wealth of experience on boats. He came sailing with me and taught me the best Man Over Board drill. So much more practical and easier to the textbook drills.At that time I was still the owner of a Maxi 77 named Cakra Mada. After Trevor returned back to Australia we kept in contact and he went round Australia two time by campervan (an old Toyota Coaster bus conversion). Towards the end he felt he needs the good Asian food and decided to come over to Malaysia to stay on a tourist permit. So in 2009 he came over to Cherating to stay at Kampong Inn. From here he wanders around the country by bus and train. One fine day he met a Thai lady and he decided to go and stay with her. So after that it was the Thai adventure. I believe Trevor is a SIGNtist as the Thai lady does not speak English and Trevor does not speak Thail...so it has to be international Sign language!

While he was with me managed to create a blog for him but unfortunately he did not master the skills required to maintain a blog so there were only limited entries. Visit http://trevortravel.blogspot.com/

He was my support driver when I did a solo cycling trip fron Sg Gawi round Kenyir lake to Gua Musang

Trevor is now in Vietnam with his Thai lady friend underrgoing some prostate treatment. Till today he blames meeting up with me as the downfall of his life!

Building The Second Hull

2011-06-26T22:34:00.006+08:00

The thing about building a catamaran is that you have to make the hull two times. I am now in the process of building my second hull. With the mistakes that I learned from building the first hull building the second hull seems a bit easier and a lot faster.The second hull will have to be exactly the same shape as the first hull so I have to use the same bulkhead support as the first one. All the markers were already inm place from building the first one. The bulkheads were also made together whe I made them for the first hull.Even the screws were "used screws " removed from the first hull.By now I have a "part time" worker. He is Cik Wan who works as a postman by day and when I needed an extra hand at night I will call him in.Actually he knows nothing about boat building BUT he is willing to learn.Despite of all my other adventures it doesnt take me too long to come to this stage. Building the bow requires some patience as we have to "shape" and bend the flat panels . A sort of Stich and Glue method is used.

The nose had to be shaped with foam again. I am hoping to have the hull turn over in about 10 day's time when I have my days off from flying again.

Ferrying a Super Puma L2 to Vietnam

2011-06-06T22:53:00.014+08:00

Once a while I get some interesting job instead of just flying to the oil rigs. This time it was to ferry a Super Puma L2 helicopter that we had leased for the last 22 months for our operation in Timor Leste and also Kerteh. The date of departure was 28 May 2011. I was to fly the helicopter with one Vietnamese pilot and two engineers from Kerteh to Ho Chi Min city (Tan Soon Ngat International airport).This aircraft with the yellow star, callsign VN 8610 is a beautifully maintained machine. I used to tease the Vietnamese engineers that they have some well kept secrets on keeping the machine tip top that they do not wish to reveal to us.Capt Quan was the Vietnamese pilot to fly with me for the trip. He is an old friend of mine..we had been together for many occasions and he is a competent and good pilot. One problem solved for me. The aircraft was loaded to its max take off weight with spares and aircraft equipments that had to be returned to Vietnam. After a delayed Customs inspection we took off at 1130 hrs. The distance between Kerteh and Ho Chi Min City is only 900 km so the flight should take us about 3 hrs 20 mins. During this period we had tail wind "pushing" us faster.

About 150 km before arrival at Ho Chi Minh city we overflew the Mekong delta
. This area is very flat and there are padi fields all along the way.
At Tan Soon Ngat airport in Ho Chi Minh city we had a company rep from the SSFC to help us sort out the piles of paper work. There were some very serious looking government officials all around.
At the same time we topped up our fuel for the short flight to Vung Tau..the homebase for SSFC.
By the time we took off from Ho Chi Minh city there was a thunderstorm in our flight path. Apparently this is the rainy period in Vietnam.The biggest surprise was when I landed at Vung Tau airport. We were ordered to taxy to the hangar where there was a reception waiting for us. The whole management staff of SSFC was around. After the engines were shut down I received a bouquet of flowers to welcome us to Vietnam. At the crew room there was a reception party,. Champagne was served. Here I met a lot of my old comrades.There were some exchange of presents.Later that night we had a grand dinner in a 5 star hotel. All on the house.And next morning we were taken out for a good Vietnamese breakfast before we boarded the ferry to Ho Chi Min city for a city tour.

Vietnam is a fine place. People here are friendly and the food is lovely. Most important you will not get your wallet burnt on a visit to Vietnam. Next trip I will come with my family OR my bicycle for furthur adventures in Vietnam.

A trip to Kelah sanctuary in Kenyir Lake

2011-05-02T21:59:00.040+08:00

There are three Kelah sanctuaries in the country . The most successful one is located in Sg Petang which is a river within Lake Kenyir. For those of you who are unaware, Lake Kenyir is a huge lake with an area of 225 sq miles. Kelah(or Mahseer ) is a breed of fish which require clean streams which are highly oxygenated to survive. If the rivers are polluted they simply disappear. The government has been wise to set up a sanctuary in Sg Petang to allow this species of fish to breed in it's natural environment. The sanctuary in Sg Petang is only open to public from March to OctoberWhen my partner in crime Cheong decided to come over to pay a visit to our parent in laws last week I snatched him away for a trip to visit the sanctuary. If anyone wants information on the sanctuary by googling he will be quite disappointed as there are not much informations of the place. I took along my inflatable hoping to get the coordinates of the place so that we can get there in our own boat. I know , sometimes the boat operators might want to make a quick buck out of us and i am not going to allow this to happen to me.The entry point for the sanctuary is at Sg Gawi. The entrance permit costing RM10 per person had to be purchased at the Tourist Information Centre Tel 09 622 1276/ 019 943 9168). No one here can give me the coordinates for the place. I am now at the mercy of the boat operators! Luckily there is a boat going in the next morning to pick up some tourist. The clerk here (picture above) arranged for us to hitch a ride on the boat at a reduced rate. Each of us had to pay RM 100. Not too bad but it would have cost me RM 10 for fuel to my Yamaha 2 hp!The state government has decided to allow the locals to operate the boat service in the lake. This gentlemen, En Hassan is one of the contractors and he will ferry us to the sanctuary early next morning. Just for your info, no one is allowed to stay overnight in the sanctuary. Only day trips are allowed . This En Hassan is a good guy and he can be contacted by HP no 019 984 3291/019 966 3075/ 019 943 8303By evening we decided to camp outside Lawit Resort . They have a shelter ready and it comes together with a table as well. Of course we had to cook our own yummy meals.Our excellent campsite has a beautiful lake view and it gets very cold in the early hours. We cannot ask for more ...fresh air, birds singing, nice view and all for free!By 0815 hrs next morning we were at the jetty. We waited a few minutes and were off by 0830 hrs.We had the whole boat for ourselves.The boat was doing about 20 knots on a 75 hp engine. These people obviously do not know much about fuel consumption verses speed. If only they throttle back to 15 or 16 knots they could save 50 % fuel! All along the way I was getting GPS fix for the turning points so that the next trip I can come by kayak or my sailboat (no fuel required!)We arrived at Petang Island Resort in bout 40 minutes (10 nm miles from Sg Sawi jetty) to pick up 5 more passengers. Petang Island Resort to me is almost haven on earth..pristine, well kept, little outside influence, surrounded by forest and it is an island on fresh water. Next trip I will camp here. I think the adjective to describe this area is PRISTINE.From Petang Island Resort to the Kelah sanctuary headquarters is another 4 nautical miles. This is a floating office where we have to give our licence to enter the sanctuary. Informations about the Kelah fish could be found here. From here the park rangers will escort the visitors to the streams and luboks where the kelahs are abundant. No fish could be taken out dead or alive. The penalty is RM 10000 fine. Cheong cheekily asked if we could take just one small fry home as a souvenir.. Answer was a firm NO.From the park HQ it was another 2 miles of boat travel. The river was shallow and there were a lot of logs. Being a boatman myself I had to jump down a few times to assist and tow the boat away from the rocks. Each time I jumped off the water I told the boat operator he owes me RM 50. for the effort! At the designated parking place for the boat we had to start trekking.Clear water, shaded jungles and no noise pollution..hmm this is going to be a nice trek.The place is clean too. From the park HQ onwards visitors are not allowed to bring in food and there is even a No Smoking restriction. Good work Ketengah, the body entrusted to the project.The trails are well maintained and marked. I think anyone below the age of 75 has no problem on this trail.All the park restrictions are up on a board. Make sure you obey the rules otherwise you will be fined and maybe banned for life to visit the place.Soon we spotted some schools of kelahs in the clear river. Actually Sg Petang is only about 21 km long and has 91 streams feeding into this river.Then when the fish hear that there are visitors around they come by the hundreds to welcome us! What a lovely sight.We were allowed to swim with the fish. The only discomfort is the fish keep nibbling us. I had camped in this part of the river about 25 years ago. Of course we did managed to catch a wild kelah and had a good meal (it was not protected then) . Now 25 years later with "self enforced discipline" we can actually swim with the kelahs. This I give thumbs up to the authorities.Soon it was time to say good bye. As General Macarthur once said and I will say the same.. " I shall return......(pretty soon)!"

USEFUL GPS WAYPOINTS

Sg Gawi Jetty N05 08.193 E 102 48.270

Route Check 1 N05 03.632 E 102 48.840

Route Check 2 N 05 02.768 E 105 47.132

Route Check 3 N 05 00.560 E 102 47.126

Route Check 5 N 04 59.056 E 102 46.831

Petang Island resort Jetty N 04 58.802 E 102 47.021

Route Check 6 N 04 58.277 E 102 46.665

Route Check 7 N 04 57.380 E 102 47.164

Route Check 8 N 04 55.466 E 102 47.867

Now, any takers for a canoeing trip to the sanctuary?

Turning the First Hull Over

2011-04-17T23:25:00.006+08:00

For the catamaran homebuilder turning over the hull is a historic moment. It marks the completion of the hull exterior. The only work that needs to be done is the interior furniture which is normally wood works.
I had given my hull a two pot mixture International Polyurethane paint. The purpose of the paint is to hide off quite a bit of imperfections. Of course from a distance of 50 ft the hull looks reasonably fine but if you were to go near you can see all the scars!
But unfortunately there had been quite a lot of rain this year. Only the last two weeks that we see some drier weather.
The position of the low aspect ratio keels had to be marked on the bottom of the hull so that I don't have to struggle under the boat to mark it later on.

First of all the cabin had to be relocated to another part of the garden so that the hull can be inside the shed.

There were some workers in a nearby constructions and I also rope in my neighbours that runs a fish farm behind my house to help.

A total of 8 persons were required to carry the hull. As you can see from this photo, the hull looks big.

Now got to start working on the construction of the second hull. I hope to complete it in 6 week's time.

Our Son Alwin scores 10 straight As.......

2011-04-13T22:28:00.009+08:00

Well the SPM results are finally out and Alwin scored As for all the subject that he took.He had always been in a take it easy mode so I don't know if it was luck or effort or just pure intelligence!

But one thing is for sure..he spends a lot of his time playing Warcraft online. I bet he must be a General by now with all the hours in front of the screen.

See he is so happy that he thinks he can fly.

However it will take him many more years to be in the left seat of a flying machine. Right now he is in taylor's College doing his South Australian Matriculations after which he wants to do Chemcal engineering as his first degree. Hopefully he can get a scholarship to do his course overseas

As you can see from this video, his mother laughed the loudest!

I gave RM 50,000 ......

2011-03-22T11:31:00.002+08:00

Yes..I gave RM 50,000 to my son and his cousin last year. They were 16 and 17 years old . No it was not real money but was VIRTUAL money. They can do anything they like with the money and whatever profit they make will be rewarded to them as REAL MONEY. Some suggestions were they can invest in shares..let me know when and what price they buy and why, they can do trading (maybe online through Mudah.com), even buy real estate. It has to be a legal transaction (no Ah Long activities). All they have to do is advice me when they make any business transaction. The idea here is to cultivate their thinking habits sort of like a "Tactical exercise Without Troops" something which I did a lot in the military college years ago. It was also make them make money work for them instead of working for money which most people do. It has been a year already and the results are most disappointing! they had not made a single cent. the least they could have done is to park the money in the bank as fixed deposit and they could have earned at least RM 1500 at a 3% interest. Well it looks like if they do not want to be rich in life. Maybe it is too easy to join the rat race by working hard and run the threadmill.

Shaping the nose of my catamaran hull

2011-03-17T21:50:00.007+08:00

The bow of the hull up to this stage is only a flat piece of wood. The design calls for putting foam and make a shape that looks nice and functional.To construct this i used some scrap / left over foam from my hull construction. These are "pasted" and secured to the front of the hull. Altogether I used 4 layers of foam. The foam is then shaped with a grinder and then I applied 2 layers of 600/225 biaxial and one layer of 300 gm CSM.
After the nose is glassed, it is sanded down again ..to that stage where it will look nice from 50 ft!

Meanwhile I have started filling up the holes in the hull. these holes were drilled into the hull to provide support of the hull panels to the bulkheads during the construction process.

Touring Bicycle Haven with my Dahon Mu 8

2011-02-23T23:53:00.020+08:00

At the end of my simulator training sessions in France I treated myself to a tour of Holland by bicycle for a few days. As usual my trusty Dahon Mu 8 was with me. My big bags were left in my friend's apartment. In fact I used his place in Hoofddrop as a base for my tours. Hoofddrop is like PJ and is quite close to Schipol airport. The first day of my tour was a ride from Hoofddrop to Edam. The planned cycling distance was only 50 km but with all the twisting and turning around I did another 10 km extra. I started at about 0930 hrs from Hoofddrop heading towards Schipol airport. I had to go to the airport to reconfirm my flight back home. From Schipol I wandered off to Amstervee and then to Amsterdam. No problem at all..this is not a navigational error but rather a diversion and some extra sight seeing. With the air temperature around 6 degrees it was fun to ride. In Holland, bicycles are the king of the road. Cars were stopping for me everywhere! And Holland has bicycle lanes all over the country. These bicycle lanes are very well marked and has excellent signageThe roads are very well marked so there is no problem going from one point to the next. the Dutch are also very friendly people and they speak English pretty well too so it is difficult to get lost enroute.This picture was taken near the Schipol Airport. I was really suprised that cars and bicycles go under the taxiway. The bridge at the background is where the huge 747s taxi on top.Wild life, esp birds and ducks are everywhere. The Dutch have done well to conserve their wild lifes. These geese just walk up to admire my trusty Dahon. I was having wild thoughts about cooking roast duck or geese for dinner! But not for this trip as I will not be camping. Next trip if I come in summer I will camp and maybe I will have roasted wild duck for dinner!It is lunch time when I arrived Amsterdam central area. To satisfy my hunger I had a hot dog. Expensive.. 5 Euro for a small hot dog.It was very difficult to navigate away from Amsterdam to Edam. My GPS keeps pointing towards a direction that says NO CYCLING / WALKING. Eventually I found out that I have to take a ferry to the other side of the town to head towards Edam. The ferry ride was free and once on the other side of town the ride to Edam was straight forward. Edam is famous for its Edam Cheese buy unfortunately I could not take one of these back on my bike. This village is very scenic and the pace here is typical village standard although Edam is only 30 km from Amsterdam.I had booked myself a room in a B and B in a village called Volendam which is about 2 km from Edam. This B and B is run and owned by John and Henny Kruize. John had been a bus driver but he has done very well with managing his wealth and life and I am totally impressed by his knowledge of things and machines.This is the good breakfast that Henny served me. I had enjoyed it very much. We had meat, cheese, coffee and eggs. A real value for money. I would recommend their place to anyone visiting this part of Holland.After breakfast it was a short ride to visit Monikerdam. This is a small historical village and there are a lot of boats . I spent about and hour admiring the boats.There were some catamarans around too.I past by a floating village. people here stay in houses that were built on top of the water and for them to visit the neighbours means a few strokes of rowing their boat.Of course no report on Holland wold be complete without photos of windmills. These are operational wind mills. Notice the bicycle path by the side.Having a sandwich lunch by a very scenic canal. The food actually taste better here!This is how their fish mongers sell fish. Much better organised than our pasar malams!. Again getting out of Amsterdam for the ride back to Hoofddrop was a pain. I arrived back in Hoofddrop by 1500 hrs after cycling 50 pus kilometers.Here I stayed with an old friend Keith Yim in his apartment.Day 3 was a trip to the North sea resort town called Zandvoort. It is only about 20 km from Hoofddrop so I started a bit later at about 1000hrs. I passed by Hamstede which is a beautiful village. Zandvoort is a touristy place. There are beautiful stores and restaurants here. I was told this place is packed with German tourist during summer. Of course there are abundance of wild ducks here too. Just amazingFor lunch I want to taste the fresh North Sea fish. These fish stores are set on the beach and they serve very fresh sea food at a reasonable price.For 6 Euro I had a piece of cod and some potatoes. The fish was very fresh and tasty.I took the route via Harleam to go back . This route is more "hilly" because the riding is done on top of the sand dunes.

There is a national park but maybe it is winter now as there was nothing much to see. Again I reached Hoofddrop by 1500 hrs.

For the 3 days of touring I did only 160 km which is not really a lot. Holland is such a bicycle friendly country that I would recommend anyone who wants to come to Europe for a bicycle to start in Holland. i hope to get back for some longer distance cycling in the near future.

Gypsy Building Progress

2011-02-22T22:40:00.006+08:00

Well, it is actually a NO PROGRESS report! Work on building my catamaran stopped towards the end of Oct 2010 when the monsoon started. At this stage the hull was almost ready to be turned over. The monsoon season is the time when it rains heavily and it is almost a daily affair. Somehow or rather it started about 2 weeks early this year. I am not prepared to have the hull turned over to collect all the rain water so the decision was to let it be as it is until March 2010.

The reasons as to why there had been no blogging last month is that I had been on the move..Nov/ Dec I was in France for my EC 225 helicopter ground school (see earlier posting). Then it was a family trip to Chiengmai, followed by flying conversion with a Eurocopter factor instructor on the new helicopter . ( I just don't understand why they are PAYING me so much to enjoy all these!)

The biggest culprit is that I travel with a new toy now..the Ipad which has no "holes" for me to download my pictures in the absence of a regular notebook/PC , Those of you who think you can survive only with an Ipad you will be disappointed!

I have just came back from a simulator training trip in France yesterday and YES I will be starting on building my cat again as the weather is much better now.

Ground School for the New EC 225 Helicopter

2010-12-31T11:04:00.005+08:00

The next offshore helicopter contract calls for a brand new helicopter..the Super Puma EC 225 helicopter. It is a modern helicopter that evolved from the Super Puma family and it has very "matured" designs and a lot of oil companies are using/planning to use this model. I was one of those in MHS to fly this type of helicopter from April 2011. However, the training bond for the training is RM500,000.00 for a period of three years. After signing the bond, I proceeded to Eurocopter factory in Marignane Airport in Marseille, France for the ground school training before the flying phase.

Security in the Training Service is very tight. We are NOT ALLOWED to take any pictures anywhere and we cannot wander into any of the factory except the classroom and the canteen. This is to safeguard some of the customer's secrets as a lot of military helicopters are built here. Any breach of the rules means instant dismissal from the course. Of course computers etc are not allowed in as well to avoid any IT theft! There were 6 of us in this course..4 from Malaysia, one from Brazil and another from Eurocopter China. The handsome man in the centre is Jean Luc, our instructor. The ground school covers all aspect of the aircraft technical and was held over a period of 10 days after which there is an exam. A passing mark of 75% is required to pass this exam in order to start the flying phase. I scored 94% for the exam.

Everywhere there is NO PHOTO sign but I cannot resist breaking this rule when no one else was around!

For those who want to know more about the training and Eurocopter, please visit their site at:

http://www.eurocoptertrainingservices.com

Cycling to an Aquaduct in Rural France

2010-12-15T22:58:00.016+08:00

The weather report looks very promising for winter...some sunshine, high of 3C for the day. Now that is a good reason to take my Dahon folding bike to explore rural France. I had known of an aquaduct in the region from my earlier trips (An aquaduct is an ancient man made structure to tranport water between on hill to the next over the valley). Good old google earth was consulted and the coordinates entered to my Garmin 60Csx GPS. A route from where I am staying at the moment at an olive farm in Rognac was planned. This trip will take me through some villages and the estimated distance with some diversions will be about 45b km. Just about ideal.I had to rely on my GPS for navigation since I do not speak French. Asking for directions in English languiage in France might not be a very good idea. You can end up in Holland! A thick rubber band was used to strap the GPS to my Dahon. I promised myself that I will buy a proper GPS holder in future.If the GPS fails then I will use the road signs which is ok.After cycling about 6 km from Rognac I came across an open air market. I was told sinec it is near Christmas there are quite a lot of these pasar malams all over.These guys werte selling some Spanish made electric bikes at the market. I had a chat with them and they were very interested in my machine. The electric bikes are quite expensive..around 1500 Euro for a basic model.The view along the way is fantastic. Only a person on a bicycle will be able to enjoy such views. There is a small river that flows parallel to the road. There were also farms not too far from the main road but of course the growing will have to wait for better weather.Then from a distance I could see the majestic structure of this ancient aquaduct. By then I had cycled for over an hour. Although it was 3 C, I did not feel cold while cycling but when I stopped I found that I was sweating a little.It is amazingly beautiful. I just cannot imagine the number of (probably slave labour) that was required to build it. And they can think of the arches to support the column.I saw a trek by the side of the aquaduct and wanted to climb up to the top. Being unable to understand French, I had entered a private property and by the time I was 100 meters on the trek, some fierce looking dog that looked like it had not been fed for a week came after after me. Then the owner , a fat lady appeared. I told her using sign language that I wanted to go to the top of the aquaduct but she shoke her head and said "Neil" . I think that was simple enough to understand and I went off.I took off on my bicycle again along the D20 route, hoping to get to a store where I can get some sandwiches for lunch. There was a restaurant along the way but it was a high class one so I skipped that.By now, I had guessed the meaning of "la propriété privée" but I could not resist venturing into this arae to enjoy the nice river. Besides i did not see or smell any dogs.There were no sandwich stores for the next 10 km so when I saw a fruit store I stopped and bought myself a bunch of bananas for a healthy lunch. these few bananas cost me 2.5 euros which is about RM12.00 so it is not cheap. Turning back towards home, I decided to climb up Ventabren which is about 1200 ft high. A pleasant climb with a lot of cold sweat.

At the top after a few kilos of steep climbing.Nice view from the top and I was suprised to find a museum and other tourist attractions around. It is now time to go home as it gets dark by just after 5 Pm. so it was another hour of cycling.

This si the railway station at Rognac which is located in the village centre. It has been a great day and I had enjoyed cycling in the cold 3C weather.

A quick tour of Switzerland

2010-11-28T23:54:00.021+08:00

It all started when I casually mentioned that I will be going for a cousre in France and I will be side tracking to Switzerland over my old school's forum. One old scout KC Foong came over with a private email that he can arrange for a hiking trip in Switzerland if I am keen. He has a Malaysian friend staying in Switzerland who is also a keen outdoorman. So I was linked up with a fine gentlemen KB Tan from Johore. Several emails later everything was set and I was ready to go. We were scheduled to meet up at the train station at Yverdon Les Bains on Friday 25 Nov 2010 at 1700 hrs local time. I arranged my flight from Kuala Lumpur to Amsterdam with a connecting flight to Geneva. Upon arrival at Geneva I have about 6 hours to loiter around before taking a train to KB's village. The airport offers a free bus trip down to town but it is valid for only 80 min. So I took along my bike to Geneva town for some sight seeing.Geneva is a nice clean city. Everything seems so organised and neat here! But it is cold.By evening I took a train to Yerdon Les Bains where KB Tan will come and pick me up at 5 pm. From there it is another 15 min drive to KB's house which is in a village. Sorry ..no photos of his house as it was dark by the time we arrived and the next whole day we were out. BUT believe me, it is a very nice old farm house and KB Tan has done a good job renovating it.Next morning by 6 am were were already on the train to Zermatt a popular skiing resort at the base of the famous Matterrhorns.KB is a veteran traveller..always well prepared. He even stocks up sandwiches and drinks for the trip. As this is the winter sports season, there are a lot of tourist in the area. we went away from the crowd as soon as we could.This area is like KB's backyard and he knows the area well . After putting on the snow rackets we started trekking on the snow. For a beginner like me it is very tiring trekking on the snow.Except for a shepherd there was nobody on the trail. One gets a wonderful feeling of loneliness here.The temperature is minus 17 degrees for that day and we decided to head for a church where we can get some shelther so thatwe can have a hot drink.After our tea time we spent another hour coming down. It was an interesting trip for me.It is now time to catch a train to Berne , the capital of Switzerland.It started snowing by the time we arrrive Berne. This is the famous clock tower in Berne. But life goes on like normal. people here are used to snowing..it is just like a light shower but a little bit colder.Even the cheese from this outdoor market is frozen.

From Berne, we took another train to another town Basel where there is a very popular Christmas night market...some sort of pasar malam to me but cleaner and run by Mat Sallehs.

This man was selling puppets and at the same time giving a puppet show. I enjoyed the show but did not buy any puppets. I have a short video and will upload it later.
KB's wife, Melody a Swiss and is also a seasoned traveller, having stayed in India and Malaysia.

Next morning I was up early to take a TGV train to Marseille, France for some more adventure. Thank You KB Tan for hosting me and thank you KC Foong for connecting us! We will meet in Malaysia!

Building a Hull of my Gypsy Catamaran

2010-11-03T13:29:00.013+08:00

After the 4 pieces of foam composite panels were constructed it is now time to assemble the pieces together to form one hull. First I have to find some timber to become the base of the bulkheads. Someone was demolishing a wooden house and I bought 4 pieces of 2 by 6 quite cheaply from him.

The spacings for the bulkheads are marked as per the plans. Wooden blocks are placed at the correct stations . Bulheads 4 and 5 were the first to be installed. The bulkheads are built from BS 1088 export quality Meranti marine plywood. A sprit level gauge is used to ensure that the bulkheads are perpendicular.A thread through a hole at the half width waterline of all the bulkheads are used to judge the levels/bulkhead heights. All the figures are given in the plan.I only have to use my physical strength to position the bulkheads. 2 by 1 woods are used to raise the bulkheads. Chipboard backbones are then made to provide some temporary structural strength and later to ensure the hull bottom is flat when it is offered to the hulls.These chipboards are removed when the hull is ready. A lot of "heavy" physical work is involved at thsi stage so I got hold of a local fisherman Yee to assist when he is not at sea.The backbone goes all the way to the transom.The first composite flat panel is then brought in. It need 3 person to put it in position. This is not so much of a weight problem but more of a size proble. Wooden stilts from 2 by 1 wood are used to support the panels. The panel is clammed onto the wood. Final position adjustments of the panel are made.The panel is then secured to the bulheads by screwing the panel into temporary wooden blocks.The second panel is then brought in and the same process is then repeated.

The initial use of F clamps make the job of fine adjustment of the panel position easier.The bow of the hull is then "forced" together using long clamps and twisting wires. At this stage the shape of the hull is formed. I cannot stop admiring the beautiful shape!The bow is glassed in stages so thet the wires can be removed one at a time.Next the bottom panel is positioned at the top of this inverted hull. Heavy objects like bricks and stones are used to ensure a flat bottom and not an "S" shaped bottom!The most difficult part is building the bow and getting the correct shape. A sort of stich and glue method is used. Next will be the fairing and painting of the hull before turning over '

Doing the Helicopter Underwater Escape Training

2010-10-09T22:34:00.007+08:00

It is a requirement by the oil companies that all pilots and passengers flying offshore to have a regular Helicopter Underwater Escape Training (HUET). In the early days, the training was conducted overseas (Singapore only lah) but over the last few years we have one training centre in Terengganu..the TSTC (Terengganu Safety Training Centre) so there goes our paid vacation. This course is to enlighten and train pilots and passengers how to escape from a sinking helicopter in the unlikely event of a ditching. If you talk to survivors of these helicopter ditching incident you will realise how undergoing these regular training had saved their lives. ( There had been three ditching incidents in my company so far!)
Normally the training starts at the base itself. Here we get to refresh ourselves on all our emergency packs and actually feel its contents including eating the super high energy glucose. Flares are provided for us to fire. Since I am a sailor as well I take this training very seriously.

After the fireworks we adjourn to the Terengganu Safety Training Centre. Normally we have some ground lectures to update ourselves with the latest procedures etc. For this trip we were introduced to the STASS..Short Time Air Supply system which actually provides us with air for an extra minutes should we go underwater. By then the helicopter simulator is ready.

There are three compulsory exercises to be done in the pool. The exercises are( a)...to escape through a hatch nearest to where you are seated,( b)..Escape through only one available hatch assuming the other exits are blocked and damaged and the most interesting exercise (c) ... is to escape with the helicopter rolled upside down.Exiting is one thing but to exit applying the CORRECT technique is another thing. You will be surprised that many people declare themselves as non swimmers hoping for some discount but normally that is not available!

It is actually quite good fun for me but the inverted exercise normally has a lot of water going into the nose!

We finally spend some time inflating and boarding a dinghy similar to the type that we carry all the time. In the olden days we had an additional exercise ie uprighting a capsized dinghy but nowadays the modern dinghy can be use on either side so there is no requirement for this strenuous exercise.

I am actually paid to do these fun things! So it is a good life after all.

Building Foam Composite Panels for the Hulls

2010-09-09T12:05:00.000+08:00

Having gained some experience in the making of the flat panels under the hulls, I come to the most exciting part of the work so far...building COMPOSITE panels for the hulls. Normally when a boat maker wants to build a composite panel vacuum bags will be used. The air is sucked out at a few atmospheric pressure so that the FOAM bonds with the skin. Now, if I am mass producing boats that is the option to use but then I am only going to build one boat so a LOW Tech solution has to be made. Luckily I have bought Richard Woods' plans and he has given instructions for a low tech way of making hull laminates. Reasons why a Foam laminated hull is more superior is that it is light, Very strong, heat insulator and the foam does not burn. Of course it cost much more than solid fibreglass and wood but in the end it is worth the extra cost and work.This year's weather has not been normal....a lot of rain even during this "dry" period so I had to extend my tent workshop and buy extra canvas so that if it rains after I had laid a glass panel it will not be affected.These 16 mm thick melamine boards are the mould for the production of the composite panels. It had to be on a level floor and are joined together with cellotape. The dimensions as per the plans are drawn onto the hulls. Flanges, which are strips of 4 mm melamine wood are placed at the edges of the drawn hull shape. these flanges makes the joining of one panel to the next easier later on.After the shapes and flanges are ready, a layer of gelcoat is applied. It is laid to set for several hours.When the layer of gelcoat has almost cured, a layer of 600/225 biaxial matt is applied. I had requested my friend Robin Tan to come over and give me some hands on training on the making of these panels. Robin has magical hands and he has built several boats including a catamaran (24 ft) . He explained the correct technique of rolling the matts and how to minimise and get rid of air bubbles which are the natural enemies to the panels.These are the PVC Foams that I bought from DIAB Australia. DIAB has a branch in Thailand and I had to deal with the Thailand branch . Now listen very carefully.....if you have to deal with them, be very very careful. My plan calls for Grid Scored foams and my request from DIAB Thailand was Grid Scored Foam.Yes we have ..no problem we can sell..etc and they invoiced and delivered me the Plain Foam. The foam comes in sheets of 7 ft by 4 ft . Quick correspondence with Richard Woods the boat designer suggested the only way that I could use the plain foam is to cut it into 6 inch squares with a hole in the centre and paste the pieces together again so that a good laminate could be achieved. It is a real pain in the **se! What you see here is the amount of foam for one panel.The foams had to be bonded onto the layer of glass using a special paste Divilette 600. The paste is VERY expensive, had to be imported from DIAB Australia and is classified as a dangerous good so the handling charges are a lot! And even though DIAB has a regional office in Thailand, no stocks are kept in Thailand so each user had to individually import the stuff from Australia. It looks like poor business sense but the real reason is that these paste has a life of 90 days if stored at a room temp of less than 25 C. Of the 90 days, 30 days are spent at sea and wharehouse so that leaves me with only a month to work.I did a trial with a few pieces of foam on a small part of the panel and waited for it to cure to see if the method works. Once I established that it works, then the work work of tiling and gluing the foams began. It is a back breaking task and I had to work fast so that the bonding paste do not cure in the pot. Each foam had to be inspected for proper bonding.

After the layer of foam is ready, another layer of 600/225 matt is laid on top the foam. the foam is now "sandwiched" in the middle of the two glass skin. 600 mm strips are placed all around the panel for extra protection.There is only so much of mixing and working that one person can do so in the later panels i had engaged the services of my friend Yee who is a fisherman to help. I imparted whatever knowledge I had on the subject to him and he was of a great help.

The cured panels are then trimmed and stored. a total of 35 man hours is required to produce on of these panels so it took me about 5 weeks of free time to produce the 4 panels for then hulls.

We have got a litter of German Shepherd Puppies !

2010-08-02T15:22:00.011+08:00

I have always thought that breeding quality pedigree dogs will be another form of passive income. After all I have a big compound and I do require the services of good guard dogs to deter undesirable elements from getting into our compound. I had been having Labrador Retrievers for many years but they are not guard dogs so I switched to German Shepherd the last few years. I found German Shepherd to be almost the perfect dog for the family. They are highly intelligent, loyal and obedient. Normally my dogs are gentle and socialise well. However , they can be very protective and in our absence very fierce!This is MATA our male dog . He is big, strong and friendly and also a very good guard dog. When our bitch CIKU was on heat last season, he was the hero and the champion for after several weeks we got a litter of beautiful puppies.On 7 July 2010, CIKu gave birth to a litter of 10 healthy puppies. I spoke to a professional dog breeder who had been my mentor on breeding dogs and he told me this is "beginner's luck"!. He told me it is extremely difficult to mate German Shepherds. I can vouch this for I had been trying to mate CIKU several times without success, each time paying a big sum of money. That is why I consider my dog MATA to be the champion! These puppies were very cute and I can see the big bones in them. This photo is taken at 2 days old .

At two weeks old these puppies are beginning to show their true colours..alert, intelligent and active.
Of course they still need their mother's protection. CIKU has been fiercely protective of her puppies. Even MATA gets bitten when he tries to get near the puppies.

However, CIKU does not mind anyone of us in the family to handle and play with her puppies.

This photograph is for CIKU's family album.

The puppies are offered for sale to good homes. Readers of my blog will get a discount if they quote my blog when coming to purchase a puppy. This is a chance for dog lovers to own a good dog with a long history of excellent temperaments and intelligence.

WE HAVE DECIDED THAT PART OF THE COLLECTION FROM THE SALE WILL GO TO AN ORPHANAGE.

Durian Season Again!

2010-07-09T22:57:00.012+08:00

The season for the King of the Fruits is on again. I have "sufficient" fruits in my orchard this year to feed me, my family and guest.The short cut to my farm is by crossing a big river. This man here, En Bakar has been helping me in my orchard since the time when I bought the land in 1986 (a blog on that later). From the river we have a make shift jetty very cleverly constructed the Kampong style so that we do not have to wade through the mud during low tides.

My orchard is located on the banks of the Kemaman River and I take pride to maintain a clean outdoor park atmosphere in my orchard. You can almost play golf in my orchard.Most of my friends who followed me to my orchard gets excited by the fruits hanging from the trees. If they are lucky, some fruits will drop when they are around and we can have a feast of fresh durians.These are some of the designer type durians that I have. The variety at the time when I planted was supposed be the best but nowadays there are a lot of other very good variety.Not bad for day number 1 of this year's season!Most of the time I do not go by boat but drive in so that I do not have to carry the load of fruits up and down the boat. Easier to just throw in the boot!Being the orchard owner also mean I am the chief coolie..I have to open the fruits to serve my guest but money cannot buy the happiness in me when I see them enjoying my fruits. The extra fruits are hygenically packed into plastic containers and deep frozen. In this way, even after a few months we can have some fresh durians. Also those in other parts of the world can taste some kampong grown organic durians when they come home! Just too bad that my Mat Salleh friends do not know how to enjoy durians. One of them told me eating durian is like eating custard in public lavotary!

Building Flat Panels for the Catamaran Hull Bottoms

2010-07-05T17:20:00.010+08:00

I am now in the second phase of building my Gypsy catamaran. This phase involves the construction of the hulls. I had chosen to build the hulls out of foam composites . The reason I had chosen Woods designed catamarans is that the hulls can be built from flat panels which is ideal for a "one off" boat. No expensive moulds are required. So, PVC foams had to be purchased from DIAB who has a branch in Thailand. What I cannot comprehend is that while they sell the foams in Thailand, they do not keep stock of the BONDING PASTE that is required to bond the PVC foams to the glass. After serious consideration I decided to get the bonding paste from DIAB in Australia instead of using substitute as the hull is a very important part of the boat and I do not want any delaminatons later on. However, I am still sore with this "Poor business practice" which resulted in me spending a lot of hard earned money for transporting the 3 pails of Divilette 600 bonding paste . Total weight is 60 kilos and it is classified as dangerous goods !

The mould for the flat panels are 16 mm melamine chipboards. These boards are 8 ft by 5 ft in size and I am building half a panel at a time. Catamaran length is 28 ft so 2 pieces of melamine board joined together is enough for half a hull length.

The dimensions of the bottom panels as per the plan are marked onto the melamine board using a water based marker pen.

The two small pieces of 3 mm melamine wood strips are added to make the flanges. This makes it easier to join up with other panels later on.The bottom panels of the catamaran does not call for any PVC foam or gelcoat. The layers are 300 gm CSM followed by 3 more layers of 600/225 biaxial mat. These materials are bonded together using polyester resin. I had purchased BQTN resins which does not have a layer of wax and is la ow Low Styrene laminating resin.

It takes me about 3 hours of work to get one panel ready. The panel is then left overnight for it to cure (solidify).

The manufactured panels are easily separated from the mould. I had finished building all the panels for the bottom of the Gypsy. It is a good experience and I will move on to building the panels for the hull which would be more interesting as this is where the PVC foam will be used.

A trip to Rainbow Waterfall in Sg Lembing

2010-06-24T15:00:00.008+08:00

My partner in crime Cheong is around and we decided to make a trip to Sg Lembing , an abandoned mining town. There are many natural attractions in this sleepy town so we decided to take along two bicycles and camping equipments. We started late and arrived sleepy Sg Lembing in time for a good dinner at the only Chinese restaurant in town. After dinner we decided to head towards the river to set up camp for the night. On reaching the end of the road towards the river we decided to set up camp for the night.Equipped with folding camp beds we had a very good night's rest. The air was cool (about 18C) and after some bullshitting around the campfire we dosed off.Next morning at dawn we heard distant sounds coming towards us. We quickly got up and there was an approaching truck. Without us knowing, we had camped in the middle of the road!. The trucks would just drive through the river to cross the other side. Upon enquiring from the truck driver we were told of the Rainbow waterfall which is just over an hour's drive away. We decided to look for a safe place to park my car and ride our bicycles to the waterfall.My car was parked near this river and we cooked a good breakfast so that we have energy for the ride.The simple meal of canned tuna, eggs and rice tasted very good in a place like this.The ride in was undulating and there were a lot of stones on the road. I was not equipped for a ride like this so I had to dismount and ride on many stony sections or when it gets too muddy. We were feasted with views like this so there is no complaints about the ride. After all this is not a race so we took it easy and enjoyed the ride.

At the end of the bicycle ride it was a hike up to the waterfall. We had to cross a stream and hike parallel to the stream. I believe during the rainy season the water level must be high.
The hike up took us about 45 minutes. On some parts we had to go through the slippery rocks.
The were a lot of good pools along the way for a dip and a spa massage nature's way.Soon from a distance we could get a glimpse of the waterfall.But before reaching we have more slippery rocks to climb.And this is how the waterfall looks like . We could not catch the rainbow as we were late but because of the spray of water hitting the rocks at a certain part of the morning a hugh rainbow could be seen across the waterfall.

The water droplets acts as a prism which refracts the light into its 7 colour spectrum.It was a good outing and weekend. As usual, not much money was spent for the trip. With fuel for the truck and food, possibly only RM 50 was spent.

We had consumed a lot of fresh air and oxygen but most important we had left nothing except our foot prints and took nothing except photographs for the trip. The place is still clean and relatively unspoilt and is worth a go.

My Shih Tsu dog is now blind!

2010-06-19T23:29:00.016+08:00

Three days ago my wife noticed some blood on our veranda and remarked that our Shih Tsu bitch could be on heat. I went around the house to look for her so that I can isolate her from the other dogs.When I found her to my horror I saw her eyes dangling out of the socket! I yelled to my wife to call our vet immediately to do whatever I can to save her sight. There had been a similar incident like this a few months back when I was away in East Timor. I felt very sad and helpless!This Shih Tsu was purchased by my wife last year and when she came home i noticed that it had weak sights and also bad hearing. Googling on the Internet shows that this breed of dog tends to have bad sights and hearing. As a result of its bad hearing I nicknamed the dog "STUPIT" because it does not respond unless we shouted. Over the months STUPIT grew very attached to me and my daughter Alicia. Although it was their dog, I was the one doing the feeding and trimming to make her look pretty.

Seven months after the arrival of STUPIT to our family I decided that we needed another guard dog as our Alsation bitch CIKU seemed a bit lonely and needed a mate. So MATA, an Alsatian puppy was bought. STUPIT was the elder sister to MATA and they get along fine, always involved in some dog plays. They were just like brother and sister.

MATA grew fast and in no time it became a huge dog . The doggy plays continued. One of their favorite plays was STUPIT trying to bite MATA's mouth. Very often the whole of STUPIT's small head was inside MATA's head. They can play like that for hours and kept each other entertained. My other Alsation bitch CIKU would never join in their doggie play. On the night of the incident I believed MATA could have applied a little bit of extra force and it s teeth could have bit the eyes. I believe this is how my STUPIT sees the world now.......Dark. We have to cage her so that she does not get sand into her eyes . The first two days she would be still wondering around and bumping into obstructions but today she just sits when she is out of the cage. Poor thing!

As the head of my family I had to gather everybody together and talk about responsibility. During this period we have to show extra love and affection to the poor dog. Are we going to abandon one of our family members just because he/she becomes disabled in an accident? Th e answer is NO. Alicia is trying her best to cheer the dog. Right now she is playing the piano with the dog underneath. But as I had mentioned earlier her hearing is not too good as well but she does seem to treasure the moments under the piano. I can see her limp ears tweaking a little at a time What a dog's life she had. I am very disappointed. I hope STUPIT recovers and be happy again even though I know it may be impossible.

She may never be able to be accompanying me like she used to but I hope her other senses will grow stronger.

Question: What would you readers have done in a situation like this? Please comment generously!

First Customer for my Caravan Park

2010-06-15T17:06:00.005+08:00

Ok , first of all I do not own a caravan park(yet!) but I have a big garden that can accommodate one or two caravans. So if friends who have caravans/motor homes who happen to pass by they are welcome to use the facilities. free water and electricity is provided and they have maximum security with my two German shepherds guarding the area. One of my sailing friends, Cheong had just purchased a VW Royale and he decided to drop in for the night. This is his pride and joy.

However in the Malaysian environment it is too hot to stay inside his motor home without an air conditioner. This is the first time Cheong is using his motor home so I prepared for him a camp bed and mosquito net PLUS I had the adjourning guest room opened just in case he needed the room.

It turned out he had a pretty good night's rest in the camp bed and later moved in to his motor home in the early hours of the morning. He was still able to work with the free wi fi that I had provided. He is a stock broker so all he needs is his hand phone and internet connection.

I am quite impressed with the VW royale but I think it was designed with the cold weather in mind so I would rather build one that is more "tropicanised". maybe a teardrop trailer camper will be ideal here. Got to stop dreaming or I will never be able to finish my building my catamaran!

Completing the Cuddy of my Gypsy 28 catamaran

2010-05-13T12:02:00.007+08:00

After my tour of duty in East Timor I had 4 weeks Off. Now, this is a good time to continue my boat building project. From my last Off days I had finished constructing the cuddy. Now comes the not so difficult but labour intensive part..SANDING down the layer of glass to get a good finishing.

The spirits were high. I wanted to make this boat the smoothest and best looking Gypsy around. BUT the work never seem to end!

By the time I get a reasonably good finish I had already sanded too much..almost to the wood. So it is repair time again.apply another small patch of glass cloth and epoxy and then carefully sand it down again. However, the skill level improves as I get along.

I had a local fisherman Yee to help me a few days in the sanding work when he was not at sea.

But it is still a long and tedious process. I used a Bosch orbital sander to ease the process.

From the top to bottom....

At last I am almost satisfied with the smoothness. I always remember what Richard Woods (The designer of ths catamaran) told me about building a 50 ft boat....Build a boat that will look pleasant to the eyes from a distance of 50 ft! I used a 2 pot mixture PU paint from International paint.

The actual painting is actually quite easy .With a high quality roller the job can be completed in half a day.

Painting the top of the cuddy.

Hmmm it turned out to be quite nice. Feels good too.

I had to employ the services of my bitch Ciku to guard such a master piece.

The interior looks good too.

Overall I am happy with my work . Now the next stage is getting interesting..laying up the composite foams and building the hulls.

The Day my Cat Sailed Off

2010-05-08T21:59:00.015+08:00

Well, actually it is now my previous catamaran. I had owned this Strider 24 racing catamaran for a few years and have had a good time sailing it. It was sailing this catamaran that prompted me to build a bigger and more comfortable catamaran. Over the last two years I had hardly used her as I was busy planning and building my new catamaran , a Gypsy 28 which is 4 ft longer and has a central cuddy. I passed the word around that my catamaran is for sale and there were quite a few interested parties but it was finally sold to Phillip Tinker and his wife KC in January this year. As they had to go back to Australia to settle some domestic problems, they will only take delivery of the catamaran only in May 2010. Presently they are in Malaysia on the M2H program (Malaysia my second home).The catamaran has been moored amongst the fishing boats near the bridge at Bukit Kuang so everyday when I pass by it is reflex action that my eyes will automatically turn toward the boat to see that it is still there. Actually I had appointed a local fisherman En Yee to look after the boat and nothing had gone missing the last few years. Well done and Terima Kaseh Yee. Yee was helping out in the loading of the provisions for the trip. The Tinkers are sailing the catamaran all the way back to Lumut on the West Coast.It is a journey of about 500 nm and they plan to cruise back in about 14 days.Phillip and KC Tinker.. a wonderful couple. They have a combined age of 126 years old and I thought I was a rugged and tough person BUT after seeing the Tinkers, I am no where near their category. Nothing seems to worry or scare both of them!The local fishermen were kind enough to allow us to use their jetty and also to use their boats as a pontoon.This makes our life a little easier but the sun was merciless!Fuel, Food water , maps, charts, radios etc had to be loaded up the catamaran. The boat will be home to this couple for about 2 weeks.All the items had to be stowed in its appropriate position. A catamaran is very sensitive to loading and Cof G. Riggings had to be checked.They used to say the happiest day is when a man buys himself a boat and the second happiest day is when he sells it. Well, in this photo both the seller and the buyer looks very happy! Phillip's wife KC looks happy and is looking forward to the trip. To be honest Phillip and KC are no strangers to sailing in Malaysia. They had owned and raced in a Young 88 sailboat named Mutz B Nuts in the 1980s.

The Suzuki 8 Hp started with just one pull. Ahem ..a good omen for them.Alright..bye for now..The mooring rope was then untied. Today is the 4 of May 2010 and according to the stars it is an ideal date to start a long journey. "TAKE CARE OF MY EX..." These were my parting shouts. I will meanwhile remain on land and shepherd their progress and giving local knowledge advices when required. That ends one era of my boat ownership. I looked back and saw an empty mooring lot. My new boat under construction will need another 2 years before it can get wet.

Traditional Boats in East Timor

2010-04-06T21:26:00.009+08:00

Boats have always facinated me. In East Timor I observed that almost all the boats used by the local fisherman are traditional wooden boats and all of them have out riggers. These boats are really the fore fathers of the modern trimaran.The average length of the boats are about 10 ft long. Most of the fisherman uses the boat in the protected lagoons and the calmer coastal water within a km or so from the shoreline. It takes about 4 person to carry the boat into and out of the water.

Basically they either go out alone or at the most with one other friend.

This is the season where they can catch a lot of sardines using a small drift net. I bought some of these fresh and delicious sardines to be deep fried with curry and chilli powder for dinner. mmmm ..its delicious!I suppose it is child's play to handle one of these narrow "trimarans". The two out riggers really adds much stability to the narrow canoes.

Basic designs for the boat are a narrow sharp nose and tail.I do not see nails being used to make the out riggers. These pieces of wood and bamboos are just lashed together. If anyone of you know anything about Wharram cats, they are built almost exactly like these...ropes are used to lash the hulls together.
Pieces of flattened bamboo are then laid inside the boat to be served as floor boards. again these are just lashed on to the boat

This 30 footer is only powered by a 15 hp Outboard engine. It can achieve a spped of about 16 kts.

In my opinion, these are very well built boats with a proven design which some modern boats are even trying to emulate!

Evening Walks in Dili, East Timor

2010-04-02T22:09:00.009+08:00

The highlight of the day in Dili is at 1715 hours. This is the time that if I do not go cycling I will go for my evening walks.
At first it was only Capt Binh and I who does the hill torture but slowly it has turned to a company event! Almost everyone (Everybody mean two Malaysian Pilots, Two Vietnamese pilots, Two Vietnamese Engineers and our Malaysian enginner) comes along for the walk..which is a good sign because I believe exercise keeps our body healthy and fit. Fit crew under me mean less trouble and less work!At the start of the trip all of us looks cheerful. Even the oldest in our group, LAE Cheng is in good mood. I must have played the pipes well to get the followers to come out and sweat!

High spirits on level road. The start of the climb. Still not bad as it is gradual and it is on good road.
Getting steeper now......Soon we reach a small church that was built like a cave.Then we have to climb about 365 steps..up up and up....This leads to a trail. At this point some of them might decide to put in the "reverse gear" and these two friends are quite good at it!There are many Crosses along the trail and this is the first one. Everyone was posed as a Cross for this picture.At the top of it we are rewarded with a good view of the airport and the Banda Sea.
More photos....And a few minutes of rest.After this it will be a kilometer of walk on the ridge of the hills.With Capt Binh a Vietnamese pilot.

The "highway" can be quite busy too with locals coming up the hill to collect firewood.

How can we complain about our walk when these people have to do the same trail but with a load on their head

The highest point on the trail is 880 ft as per my GPS readings. After that it is downhill all the way. Gotta be very careful because downhill is when people hurt themselves if they slip and fall!

For those of you who want to follow our trail on Google Earth, click to this file:

walk.kml

From the Pope to Jesus in East Timor by Folding Bike

2010-04-02T19:45:00.014+08:00

Well, you can go from the Pope to Jesus by folding bike if you happen to be in Dili, East Timor. The statues are placed on the Western and Eastern side of the town along the coast so it is a scenic ride esp on a Sunday when there is less traffic. In Dili I stayed in Timor Lodge which is close to the Pope so I always ride up the hill to the statue.This will then be followed by a downhill ride to the coast. It is usually a very pleasant ride if one starts early enough. The sunrise is always so romantic.This rock here marks the Western boundary of the town. Beautiful coast line along the way.

Timor Hotel, one of the prominent landmarks in the centre of Dili town. See,...no other vehicles on the road.

This is to remind the public that sea crocodiles are present in the coastal water in Timor. So it is swim at your own risk!

A typical Timorese architecture just before arriving the statue of Jesus.

More statues along the beach. And this is the statue of Jesus Christ. The ride through and fro is just over 30 km. I did this route several times and the photos in the blog are from several trips.

On the return leg, I always try and buy some fish . This is the season for sardines and they are delicious if deep fried with chili and some salt.

The Dahon comes with a rear carrier and I have no problem hauling this fish home. The spanish mackeral in this photo cost me USD 30.00 which is quite expensive.

The Dahon curve is a great and versatile bike for trips like this. I had just sold the bike this evening to a keen cyclist and I hope the new owner will have as much fun as I had with the bike.

From Dili to Liquica (East Timor) by Dahon D3 Folding Bike

2010-03-25T14:02:00.014+08:00

I am on my second flying tour in Timor Leste now. This time I had brought along a Dahon D3 flding bike. Wighing only 10.5 kilos I managed to take it along without having to pay any extra luggage to the airlines . I had had bicycleinflamatolosis the last trip I was in Timor. Every time I see a cyclist or a good route I my legs would itch .This Dahon D3 is a newly accuired toy, my third addition to my Dahon collection.....
So, here is the bike all ready to be unfolded for the ride. It unfolds in 15 sec and by sunrise last Sunday I was on the road. I had selected the route from Dili to Liquica for my initial exploration trip out of town. Of course nowadays with Google earth I can almost preview the route before I embark on the journey. Seeing on the computer screen is one thing but nothing can beat the trip by bicycle. With a bicycle I can SEE, SMELL, LISTEN and FEEL the Timorese !With the sun behind me it was a very pleasant ride when I started off.After a few km the road became deserted. I almost had the whole road for myself. This gate here is the limits of Dili town. Passing this gate leads on to the countryside.Generally the road is very good for cycling but very bad when one is in a car as there are a lot of pot holes and is generally narrow. Of course ther are hills and going up these hills can be quite a strain on my leg muscles especially on this bike where I have to work on only a 3 speed hub gear.BUT what is there to complain when there are beautiful unspoilt views like this along the way. I am not in a racing mode but rather in a EYE FEASTING and PHOTOGRAPHY MODE. It is absolutely amazing when I get to see unspoilt nature.

Every few km there would be a small settlement. These houses are built from the leaves and stems of the palm trees.

This man told me the palm leaves last more than five years so every five years or so he has to build a new house.

A communal well is the place to get drinking water. There are also "shared" tube wells in some places. A few families would share a common water point.

In this part of the world water buffaloes are stilla symbol of wealth. I was told if you want to get married to a girl you will have to give a dowry of 10 buffaloes to the girl's family. These are then shared between the girl's relatives. So you can see plenty of "Living Wealth" in this mud pool!I definitely think the dowry is worth it as the womenfolks here have to work very hard. How many of our wives are willing to collect firewood for cooking? Don't even think about it!Maybe it is easier for the mothers to look after their children here. Most of the kids I see here run around on their own and play noisly with the other kids. Never mind that their football is half flat but most important they are living like the way kids should be. CAREFREE without much worries for tutions and homework.There is a big lagoon just before the halfway point. The locals named it TASIK TALO. I was told that there are some very good dive sites in the vicinity of the lagoon. I hope all these will not be spoilt by tourism.

These boats are not traditional fishing boats but I believe it must be from some government aids to the fishermen.On weekends even the fishermen take a rest.

On my left it is mostly rolling hills and I have the Bonda Sea on my right.Don't this picture reminds you of some scenery from Monte Carlo? The road here is just by the side of the cliff . This makes a trip by bicycle so unique and interesting.

There is already some developments in this area. Very nice hotel/lodge is seen on the slope of the mountain overlooking the sea.

BUT if I am on HOLIDAY MODE, this would be my choice of accommodation! Cheap, close to nature and natural.And this would be my mode of transportation on roads! Cheap and relaible and the credits from the peddling goes to my health account.

Another well fed wedding dowry grazing happily by the beach.Being a mischievous guy, I challenged this man for a race. I could see a hill about a km ahead. This man willingly accepted the challenge! Of course it was not fair for him for he is carrying a big box behind. After a couple of minutes I reached the top of the hill and expected him to be pushing his bicycle but no, he peddled all the way to the top.

We became friends and started chatting . He stays in Liquicia and bakes bread to sell to the villagers . I examined the contents of the box behind and it was empty meaning he had had a good day. These home mede bread sells for USD 5 cents and the bigger one USD 10 cents. On a typical day he gets about USD 17.00 and he gets to cycle about 10 km selling the bread .On the outbound trip the villagers collects the bread from him and when he rings his battery operated horn on the return leg they come out to pay him. I don't know if he has any bad debts.

Here is another home made log cart. Every home seems to have one.

While I waited for the bread man to reach the top I taught a boy how to take pictures with a camera and this is the result. Notice the steep slope behind me.

On nearing Luquica this "house" caught my attention. Seeing the courses they offered I went in and was suprised that a Malaysian lady by the name of Jenny is running the place. I did not get to meet her as she had gone to the village church.I managed to have a chat with the students here . They spoke suprisingly good English. SOL means Seeds Of Life, a NGO trying to improve the lives of the people through education.These boys were excited about my Dahon and a few of them had a joy ride with my bicycle.I headed for the only reataurant in Liquica and this lady owner told me they are closed on Sundays. Luckily I had prepared a packet of fried rice for this trip otherwise I would have been very hungry.

On the way back I met this lady selling fruits by the roadside. I purchsed these two sour sops for USD 2 and she offered me some home grwon bitter gourds free. I did not bargain but people here are good.

So the journey home I had to carry these two fruits in my back pack and it must have weighed a few kilos!

It was a good weekend ride and I only managed to spend USD2 for the trip. Even the restaurant do not want to make money from me. The total distance covered is 60 km and I was at home just before noon. Not bad........anyone wants to make this trip? I can assist......

Completing the Cuddy of my Gypsy Catamaran

2010-03-18T13:05:00.011+08:00

I had been pretty "busy" travelling the last few months and also partly because of the wet monsoon in Terengganu my Gypsy catamaran had been delayed. In fact since this picture was taken in Oct 2009 nothing much had been done. I had just gone back from an interesting assignment in East Timor and have a good 4 weeks Off. I made full use of this period to continue my boat building.
I arrived home on Chinese New Year's day. After some brief visiting I decided to do the difficult part of the cuddy. One of my brother in law's worker, Fauzi is around. Sensing that he had no work during this festive season, I roped him in to help with my boat building. I had known him for some time...he is ever willing to learn and is a good worker.I had tried to make the roof of the cuddy before. Trying to be smart, I did it all wrong. In future I will following strictly to what is written in the plans. Plan called for "Cut oversized wood". I did not. I cut almost exactly the size required and by the time the wood was "bent" it was an inch under sized!. For future Gypsy builders, this was the amount of "oversize" that I made. Try not to be stingy for eventually it will cost you more when it does not suit after fitting!Now the over sized panels had to be trimmed off. Another time consuming affair . I began to fear the word "bevel" in the plans. It means hard work trying to shape pieces of 2" by wood at angles to accept the next piece. It takes time and patience to get it right. The two small upper side panels looks easy to build but in realty it took us about 2 daysto get it right.All the gaps are filled with an epxoy filler so that it looks even. Sort of like hiding small imperfections. At this stage the curvatures can be seen and I get a great sense of satisfaction.It looks nice....Looking from the rear,,,,,,Fitting the top took me another day. Again the time consuming process was to trim off the oversized wood panel. The cuddy had to be sanded and more fillers applied. those pesky epoxy gum that had flowed down had to be removed with a grinder and then finally sanded.

Next I had to glass the cuddy with 300 gram cloth. Epoxy is used to bond and fuse the 300 gram cloth to the marine ply. I got hold of one of my shop workers Azmi to help out. This job calls for an extra pair of hands. A day after the glassing the extra bits of cloth are triimed off. The joints between each sheet of glass cloth must be "hidden"..sanded down and "levelled" so that it looks like one big piece of cloth covering the wood

By the next day the surface is lightly sanded and another thin layer of epoxy gum applied. This is to smoothen the surfaces so that less sanding is required before painting. By now it looks and feels nice. I had put in more than 100 hours of work to get that small portion done.

I am writing this from Dili, East Timor. In 3weeks' time I will be back home again and I look forward to more work on my boat.

A Long Lost Friend in Singapore

2010-03-14T21:54:00.009+08:00

I had a half a day to spare while transiting through Singapore. I suddenly remembered that I had a classmate who is residing in Singapore now..someone whom I had not met the last thirty five years. He is Goh Wai Lim. We were together from the express class days in Primary School and was together in scouting in 1972, 73 and 74. After that we parted , each going our way to make our fortunes...he taking up finance and banking while I joined the RMAF to fly. In this photo, I am on the extreme left while Wai Lim is 4th from the right. This was taken in 1973 when we were Rover scouts in Form 5.

Another picture taken around that period. On the right is another of our long lost friend, Chan Kin Yan. I still don't know his where abouts.

Of course we had camps together. He must be enjoying the mess tin of food !

Another photo taken in Fraser's Hill, 1974
That was us together again after a lapse of 35 years.And along with his wife and another friend we had a good dinner at a Japanese restaurant in Orchard Road. Arigato, Wai Lim for the dinner. The next round is Wantan Mee and it will be on me. We had a wonderful time recollecting the mischievous things that we did together in our formative years. I am glad we had managed to meet up.

A Typical Working Day in Dili , Timor Leste

2010-02-07T10:54:00.019+08:00

It is still dark and the local time at Dili, Timor Leste is 0530 hrs. I always wake up a couple of minutes before the alarm goes off. I have 20 minutes to cook some Quaker oats , shower and get dressed up to go to the office. Today is a scheduled flight day and the helicopter departs Dili with a load of passengers that comes in by a chartered Metro turbo prop aircraft from Darwin. By 0600 hrs we would have arrived Dili Airport. Yes....I am flying an aircraft belonging to SSFC of Vietnam that is on contract to us. We have two Vietnamese pilots and two Vietnamese engineers in addition to our crew. On each flight there will be one Vietnamese pilot and one Malaysian pilots so this is a real "international" flight. The first thing I have to do is to check the weather via Internet and get the flight planning including flight plans done.By 0620 it gets bright. The helicopter would have been towed out of the hangar for pre flight checks by the engineers and pilots.Passengers from the fixed wing aircraft arriving from Darwin normally comes in by 0645 hrs. Their bags are checked and there will be a drug and alcohol test for the passengers going to the rig.If there are no delays we would have the passengers boarded and the aircraft started for its 195 nm journey to the Ocean Shield which is a semi sub vessel employed for the deep sea exploration.Dili airport is located at the foot of the mountains. within 10 nm from the airport the mountain rises to about 5000 ft so after departure from the airport we have to climb like a home sick angel to our cruising altitude out which is 7000 ft. In the mornings normally the weather is not too bad but there are always clouds covering the mountains.On a clear day this is what we get to see after leaving the airport. The flight to the rig normally takes one hour and thirty minutes.This is the semi sub that I have to bring the passengers to. From a distance the heli deck looks like a small postage stamp. With modern aircraft and electronic navigation systems, it is not too difficult to locate the rig. The crew change takes about ten minutes on the heli deck. A quick turn round of the aircraft is done and when all the home bound passengers are on board we take off for the journey home. Once we have establish the cruise, there is time for some snacks. Ocean Shield normally serves us a healthy sandwiches and a cold drink. the sandwich is Australian sized and it takes me more than 10 minutes to eat it!The return journey will normally be uneventful until the last thirty miles. This is where the clouds building up at the mountain range greets our arrival with some "rock and roll"! However most of the time by the time we are overhead Dili airport it will be clear as Dili is located just at the coast.This is Capt Quan one of the Vietnamese pilots flying with us.Once we have landed, the engineers busied themselves with the post flight maintenance. Every component is meticulously inspected for any sign of wear and tear.Oil levels are checked and the aircraft is equipped with a Health and Usage Monitoring system. all the flight datas are downloaded to check if the pilots had exceeded any limitations and to scan for any unhealthy component trends.The aircraft is then towed back to our hangar.There are only three scheduled flights a week but there could be nonscheduled flights. During the cyclone evacuation there were three flights in a day! The aircraft and pilots are always ready for any medivac flights. So, what do I do on non flying days? Plenty.....I have to run safety meetings and clear off any outstanding safety issue, do my regular paper work, liaise with the client, keep my headquarter people informed on my outfit....phew it is hard work!BUT I am blessed with very motivated people under me so it makes my work as Chief Pilot easy. The local Timorese staff are hard working and the Vietnamese pilots and engineers are a joy to work with.
Like soldiers who are constantly training for war, I like to get my crew well trained in the technical aspects of the helicopter. Refresher training by engineers on aircraft systems are conducted to enhance our knowledge to the highest level.Most evenings I like to run up a 1000 ft hill at the back of the Timor Lodge. It is quite a long run/walk/climb and we can get a good view of Dili town from here.

Capt Binh, one of the Vietnamese pilots normally comes along for the run. He is a very fit man.

Life in Dili is not about working only. we do have organised company dinner every month at a local restaurant.The families are invited as well so this is a good chance for me to know them better. Good food is usually served.

SO you can see that I am having a great life with great people around me and a great place to work!

My Hotel in Dili,Timor Leste

2010-01-24T09:03:00.009+08:00

In Dili, I stay at The Timor Lodge. It is somewhat similar to some caravan parks in Australia. In fact the owner of this place is an Australian.This place was selected because it is only 5 min drive to Deli airport and about 10 mins to town(if there are no traffic jams)There is good security..The whole place is fenced up with double layered high fencing and the gates are closed all the time.Security guards are posted at the entrance. Normally there are 2 guards at the gate while the rest patrols the property. So you can see how "safe" this place is. There are villas..these are the higher cost homestays.

If it is a hot day, there is a swimming pool in the hotel. Adjacent to the pool is the F and B outlet. Food here is pricey eg a large pizza is $13.50 USD.

For those on a budget, there are container rooms available, I think it cost about $30 USD for a no toilet room. One container has 5 rooms. Only the centre room has a bathroom attached

I have not visited their toilets yet so I cannot tell you if it is full of shit or very clean .

All the units are equiped with a satelleite antenna to recieve TV shows. It is perfectly legal here.

I am seated in front of my Villa. Looks like a low cost bungalow but my unit was actually the lodge owner's unit and he is away . We even have lovely fruit trees in the compound. Just cannot wait till it is ripe!

Here I am inside my Villa trying to get this blog through. Internet service here is BAD. It gets disconnected very often..almost to the point that we cannot work. In my office I have 4 different internet service provider to ensure that we get at least one working so we have to keep switching! Power failures are a everyday affair. Our hotel has its own diesel generators to keep things going (including the air conds!)

So....it is not too bad a life here

A Sunday Morning Stroll Through DILI, Timor Leste

2010-01-17T18:01:00.013+08:00

I am in DILI, Timor Leste now and since it is a Sunday, I decided to take a stroll down to DILI town armed with my digital camera. Timor Leste was formerly called East Timor and they were under the Portuguese rule for many years. Later, the Indonesians governed this island nation and in the year 2002 after some violent objections from the Indons, they became independent. So, it is a "New Nation" so to speak and the UN people could be seen everywhere. I arrived here yesterday and when I did my shopping for some food and groceries I found the prices to be exorbitant. So this morning I decided to go where the locals go for their marketing and also to have a good appreciation of the city. A bicycle would be the best option but since my trusted Dahon is not with me I had to walk.The Comoro river which flows from the mountains down is dry most of the time. In fact Timor Leste is quite dry but there could be thunderstorms for a short period.This man is bringing his products to the market. Petrol here is .90 USD per lit so transportation is pretty expensive. Not many locals own cars. Motor bikes are quite normal.This 100 cc motor bike's engine must be overworked carry so much more than it is designed to do.Little vans called "MICRILETS" forms the main public bus transport system. I have seen people packed like sardine (about 15) inside one of this. The conductor is the guy who stands at the door to collect money and also to push more passengers in! In the local street market all types of food could be purchased. The moment they know you are a foreigner, the price goes sky high.I know it because I crept behind some locals bargaining for some tow foo . They got 6 tow foo cubes for 1 USD and I only got three. When I questioned the seller, he said to get six just cut the tow foo cubes into two! Three times two equals six!

I also dropped in to Landmark Plaza owned by Mr Tan from Singapore. Here one can get most of the items required but at a price! If he cannot make more money here why should he sacrifice the good life in Singapore to stay here!

A Boy Scout from Timor Leste. He was doing a public service at the local church. I spoke to him and he told me he is 15 so that puts him to be a Senior scout. I shook hands with him..using my LEFT hand to tell him that I had been a scout too.
Today is Sunday and I am surprised that a lot of Timorans are dressed in their best for the church service.
Instead of ice creams, this little kid had a local donut for coming to church. He cried after I took his picture. He must be scared of me!

If you have a tyre puncture the shop has to start a fire to heat up an old car piston. A small patch of rubber is then forcefully melted to mend the puncture. A smart idea.

Don't throw away your old shoes. There are alot of road side cobblers around here.

Sometimes when there is excess meat, they will come house to house to sell the meat.

This boy has six eggs to sell and the whole morning nobody wants to buy from him. Six eggs cost USD 1.50!

Adding a Water Feature To My House

2010-01-14T00:23:00.008+08:00

The designer of my house Yap Hock Seong has put in an air well in between the main house and the guest room. It was my intention to plant it with carpet grass but after 3 years and three attempts the grass still refuse to grow no matter what fertilisers I feed to them. The two Alsation dogs and my wife's Tsi Tsu dog are forever playing hide and seek and burrowing in this part of the house. It is now high time to renovate this portion of the house. Initial idea was to put in a composite wood deck with pebble wash along the perimeter of the rectangle. One thing leads to another and suddenly everyone agrees that a water feature will be the best bet for the location.
We were very lucky to get hold of a "sifu" (grand master) in building water features. He is Ah Sang, a very motivated tiler and holds high self esteem in his work. Work started on 30 Dec 2009. First, the floor had to be re leveled. Then the concrete base is made. All the parts of the wall that are in contact with water had to be water proofed with water proof cement. Old paint had to be scrapped off. That is a lot of hard physical work involved.

The basic shape of the pool is constructed with bricks. Here Ah sang (in short pants) is working with his partner Ah Leong.This small "pit" is made to accommodate the wooden deck made from composite wood. The top of the deck is made level and the bottom of the floor made to allow water to flow out through an outlet.Electricians had to be called into fix the new lights for "effect". By the second week the pool was ready and the leak checks were performed to all systems. If there had been any shoody work, it will show out now.By now the beautiful composite wood that had been pre cut arrived. Installation of the deck was as per the instructions provided.It is almost ready now. just add in the feature plants and the carp.

It looks cool at night with the lights working overtime. Now I hope my dogs do not discover the joy of swimming in the pool. It is ok for them to quench their thirst but my Mata is a good fisherman a swell...esp for big gold fish!
See..both the builders looked very satisfied with their work. Of course we are happy as well and would not hesitate to recommend their services to anyone who wants to get a pool done in their house.

Growing Grapes in Kemaman

2010-01-01T11:59:00.004+08:00

When we mention grapes we always visualise that they are grown in some Mediterranean countries. Very few people know that it is possible to grow grapes in our country. I have a friend Soffian a retiree who stays in a hobby farm near to Kemaman and he has been successfully growing grapes for the last few years. Of course growing these grapes are not commercially viable but it does add some sense of excitements when visitors see bunches of grapes hanging down. And he has never bought any grapes since growing his own.

Soffian takes great pride in explaining the cultivation of grapes in Malaysia.
He grows the grape under a plastic shelter and has a drip watering system.I think he told me that the species of grapes grown is the Isabella variety. Don't these bunches of grapes look tempting?

As for the taste you got to ask this sweet looking girl. She seems to be comparing these grapes with the Australian variety!
Besides grapes he plants a whole lot of other vegetables and fruits. His durians are also very good.

Monday Hash Runs.....Every Mondays

2009-12-14T22:39:00.011+08:00

Monday evenings are my sacred days. yes.. for whether it rains or shine, a group of like minded people will meet up at a pre arranged place for our "hash run" at 1800 hrs. We are members of the Kerteh Hash House Harriers, a group of wild men and ladies who are in this running club with a drinking problem. The run sites are normally in the jungles and plantations within half an hour's drive from Chukai. Hashing origionally started in Kuala Lumpur many years ago and has spread to all corners of the world. Each week a different "hare" sets the run. When I began hashing in the late 1970s while I was based in Kuching we had a "Life hare" system where the hare sets a paper trail only 2 hours before the run. If the other hashers catch up with him the dinners will be on him. So we have devised a system of false trails, checks (where the trail ends and hashers will have to search for the trail continuation) and back trails to "slow" down the fast runners and allow the rest to catch up. Nowadays, it is much easier..the trail is normally set two days before hand.
Normally by 1730 hrs the crowd starts to build up. An average of 60 members turn up for the run. The "On sec" normally calls the chatting crowd to order for announcements 5 min before the run. The next week's runsite is also announced.

Sometimes I bring guest to the run ..like in this week's run I brought my daughter Alicia and nephew Jian Siang along

The trail is normally laid with square or shredded white paper. Sometimes, flour could be used. Normally the first km starts on good grounds to facilate the runners to warm up. Then it is uphills, down hills, through jungles and estates. Sometimes if the hare is a bad guy the trail could be set on a wild boar route and that includes crawling through a wild boar tunnel!

If it is the rainy season always be prepared to get wet. There was once in Kuching many years ago when the run site was in a flood prone estate and there was a heavy down pour. I remembered swimming out as it was too far to turn around.

Downhills can be tricky. We have had many humty dumpties.....

Hill climbs are always on the run menu.

To keep the runners know where you are you are expected to shout "ON ON" as you run.

Normally the the first runner comes in by 1900 hrs and the last runner 20 mins later. The hare is responsible for helping the strayed runners back.

We have a system of signing OUT before the run and SIGNING IN when we return so we know who is missing.

After the run it is going to the ON DOWN where a good dinner and beers are organised. Sinners who had taken short cuts, stolens fruits along the way are punished here. The punishment is drinking beer while standing on a chair!

So you see, this is good life again and it only cost us RM4.00 per run. We get pewters for completing 50 runs. I had done about 350 runs with this group. It is always an enjoyable event even though I do not drink nor do I attend the ON DOWNS ( ai yah will get fat lah).

My perfect host in Melbourne (Nov 2009)

2009-12-07T22:39:00.014+08:00

About 2 weeks before our departure to Melbourne, Cheong told us that one of his long lost classmate from Malacca by the name of Max Tan would like to host us while we are in Melbourne. I was a bit skeptical at first because we are strangers but Cheong asssured us that it is ok. Max Tan like myself had been a scout in his school days and had done a lot of back packing in Europe in his younger days. So I started to correspond with Max Tan by emails to get to know him better. I used google earth to locate his house which is located in Bundoora and is on the Bundoora Park itself. Perfect location! After several emails we were talking like old friends and we seem to be on the same wavelength.

Armed with my Garmin Nuvi GPS we managed to locate his house at 16 Prospect Hill, Bundoora. Max and his wife Jeannie had even prepared some good food for us. It was really wonderful.

Max and Jeannie has a son Jonalton. He is 13 years old (the kid under the bed) and he seems to get along with all our kids.

Max managed to locate a few of Cheong's school and class mates residing in Melbourne to his house and we had a pot luck BBQ. Most of them have not met each other since they left school 30 odd years ago. They are all very successful and some of them have became Australian citizens

Max, the host was also the chief cook for the occasion. I believe he enjoys cooking for a crowd! But of course there are the ladies helping out too .

The kids too had a gala time with all the good food.

This is the crowd that was hosted by Max. We are very thankful to him and his wife for hosting us during our stay in Melbourne. Max, you have been a perfect host. More on our trips around Melbourne in my later blogs.

Flying to Melbourne, Australia by Air Asia (Nov 2009)

2009-12-07T21:45:00.008+08:00

"Hey Wong, Would you like to go down to Melbourne for a holiday at the end of the year. Air Asia is having some fantastic offers".....Sunny Cheong my brother in law called me one fine day somewhere in June. Yes please but first I will have to get my leave approved. By the time my leave had been approved a few days later, the fare was not so cheap anymore. I had to pay RM 7900.00 for a family of 4 for all inclusive return fares. So, on 22 Nov 2009 three families (all our wives are sisters) flew to Melbourne for a vacation.
This is the first time I travel by Air Asia and of course the first trip to the Low Cost carrier terminal in KLIA. I would say I am quite impressed with the LCCT. The food here is much cheaper as compared to the main terminal. There seem to be a lot of bargain hunters around this "low cost" terminal. I tried to ask the taximan who brought us to the air port for a "low cost" taxifare but I was unsuccessful!

I was rather suprised that there was no delay for this flight as I have heard about their frequent delays. To be on the safe side I had actually purchased a travel insurance so that I can get some money back if there are delays. but of course when you have bought insurance everything will run smoothly so that no claims can be made!

The flight from KLIA to Tullamarine airport took about 7 hrs 30 mins on the Airbus 330. One thing for sure is that the seats on the Airbus 330 is most uncomfortable. It cannot be reclined and for the flight outbound I was "trapped" in the middle. However Air Asia has made plans to improve the seating on the 330s by next year.

When I was a bush pilot in 1985

2009-11-04T00:31:00.000+08:00

A bush pilot is a pilot who flies a minimal aircraft (helicopter or light fixed wing) normally doing charters to satisfy the unlimited desires of the charterer with his limited resources and aircraft performance. The terrain that bush pilots flies through are normally most inhospitable. On top of that we are expected to make money for the company. See, it takes someone with the ability of almost of a superman ( a man wearing red underwear on the OUTSIDE) to fit to this category of piloting. At the end of my Air Force service in early 1985 I was a bush pilot flying for a Singapore based company named HELISERVICES. This company in turn operates in Malaysia under the banner of Pan Malaysian Air Transport. The life of a bush pilot is an exciting one. One day we could be landing on top of Gunong Gagau (like in the photo above) and another day we could be flying VIPs. There is never a dull moment.The helicopter that I flew was a Bell 206 B, a single engine 400 shaft horsepower 5 seater helicopter. Our missions consist of aerial filming/photography, checking the rainfall and climatic conditions in the interiors of the country, timber surveys, medivac and bodevacs. In those days even the ministers and VIPs had to use our machines as there were not many charter companies around.Due to the maneuverability of the helicopter, very often we are required to land in landing pads deep in the jungle. This photo shows one of our typical landing pads. In those days, there were no GPS invented yet so navigation is by a 1:250 000 maps and sometimes when the weather is marginal it can be a challenge trying locate our destination.

This is how a landing pad may be like. The location here has just been prepared and in the 1980s we were called in to assist in the location and construction of the ATUR (Automatic telephony using radio) stations. That was way before we had Maxis and Celcom.This photo s not taken in deep Africa but in the interiors of our country. The Negrito tribes normally lives in bamboo huts in the Main Range of the country. And most families tend to have a lot of kids!The Drainage and Irrigation Dept keeps a record of the rainfall in the country. Every month we have a flight to the many stations deep in the jungle to collect the datas and also to change the batteries required to operate the instruments. This is one of the station in the Main Range.Sometimes we are hired to do construction work. Here we were fixing an antenna to one of the high rise in Kuala Lumpur. This particular job was flown by my chief pilot at that time, Capt Eddy Yong. Of course we were also hired to send personnel and mail to passing ships on the Straits of Malacca. We had a contract to send in marine pilots to guide super tankers passing the Straits of Malacca.On long trips away from base I normally carry along an engineer to help service the helicopter. The man in blue coverall was the engineer when I was in the company. He is Pheh San Choon, a very good engineer and I always call him Babi Hutan (Wild Boar). If he tells me the helicopter is good enough for flight I will have no doubts about that.Most of my customers are good guys but the gentlemen inthis photo Mr KM Partells is one guy that I will never forget. I was tasked to fly to Tasek kenyir to transport several tons of timber to a forward base to be used for building an office. Upon my arrival to meet up with Mr Partells of Testeel (India) Ltd Co I found that he had already tied all the timber into several piles each about half a timber ton. I said I cannot lift the lot as it is too heavy. Every word that came out from him was "But you boss said youcan lift half a ton..". True AMOST half a ton over a short distance and not half a timber ton (Timber ton is based on volume and is MUCH heavier than 500 kg!) . Only with a lot of persuasion that he agreed to retie the bundles again and the job requires many more trips that he had anticipated.

See, I told you all that I have had a very good life. I had enjoyed my tour as a bush pilot very much..maybe I may go back to bush flying later but for now it is flying modern twin engine machines over the South China Sea for the oil and gas industry.

European Tour With a Dahon Folding Bike (Oct 2009)

2009-10-25T15:51:00.012+08:00

OK, Before I proceed, please note that it is a European Tour WITH a folding bike and not BY a folding bike. The original plan was to tour the Alps and cycle down to Southern France but due to the HINI scare the trip was delayed and by the time of my journey the area is getting too cold. Nevertheless, I brought along my Dahon Mu 8 bike so that I can tour the cities that I will be visiting. Reasons why I wantd a bike are that I can save quite a bit on transport, the ability to mix and mingle with the local people and it is great fun. With a bicycle one can blend in to the locals and if you travel with a nice looking bike like the Dahon you always get stares and admiration from people around! The sight, sound and smells are much better when one is on a bicycle.

This is what my baggage looks like. The bike is folded and checked in as luggage and I use a haversack instead of a suitcase for my personal luggage. The Dahon weighs about 12 kilos and the haversack another few kilos so I still have a lot of weight to spare. One must learn to travel light.

My first destination is Rome in Italy. It is always a good idea to deflate the tyres about 30 % when air transporting bicycles due to expansion and contraction as we go up and down. Most of the airliners have their cabin and cargo areas pressurised to 8000 ft. Upon arrival at Rome, I have to unfold and inflate the bicycle.This picture will make a good sales promotion for Dahon bikes!Navigation around the foreign cities is primarily by tourist maps (free) and I had brought along my Garmn Nuvi 200 GPS. The wonderful thing about having a GPS is I can wander around where I like enjoying the sights and the ride without having to worry about the way home. At the end of the ride, just turn on the GPS and follow the way home. This is cyber age exploring.

On Sundays in Rome the roads are closed to all private motorised vehicles to the major tourist destinations. The only vehicles on the roads are tour buses and horse carts and of course bicycles! Make sure if you only have one day in Rome it is a Sunday. Because of it's Mediterranean climate influence, Rome is relatively warm compared to the French and English counterparts.

With a bicycle it is easy to know that Rome is built on a hill. Going away from the city centre (Termini Roma Area) is so easy..no need to pedal. Coming home is another story but with my 8 speeds on the Dahon it makes life a little easier.

From Rome I took a night sleeper train to to Aixen Provence in Southern France so in goes the bike to its bag again. Before I forget, I fold up my bicycle after every ride and keep it in my hotel room. A peace of mind and another advantage of a folding bike.See, my bicycle gets to sleep with me. How convenient! And the bike goes along for free too.I met a lady postman (or is it post woman) on this interesting bicycle just outside my hotel at Citardine, Aixen Provence. That place is quite hilly and I wonder where she got the strength to do her rounds. I convinced her to "loan" me the bicycle in exchange for delivering some letters nearby for her. To my suprise, the bicycle can easily be pedalled. It has a small "electric motor assist" which boost the pedal power when speed or uphill power is required. The cost of the bike is about 2000 Euros (RM10,000/). It handles very well even with a load. just like driving a super motor bike!I spent a few days in this part of France. It is beautiful and I like the rural setting. Most days I ride to the Ville Centre and explore the surroundings. I push my bike into shops to do shopping and ride along with the locals. It is so easy to make friends on a bicycle. By the third day I had became a familiar sight to some of the shop keepers ( I always buy fresh fruits to provide fuel for riding bicycles). The temperature is about 12 C most ofthe days and sometimes the "Mistral" blows. Mistrals are strong wind with speed up to about 110 km/hr. Under these conditions it is very difficult to ride.Going to the open air markets (Pasar malam) was no hassle with a bike. No worries about parking. Just push the bike along.I spent the last three nights of my tour in London. London is quite bicycle friendly too. One can bring a folder along in the underground trains FOC provided it can be folded. In London it cost 32 pounds to rent a bike and my Dahon cost almost twice of what I paid in Malaysia (580 pounds). Hmmm ...must start a Dahon bicycle export business to London.!

I am sure all these "tourist" attractions looks very familiar to most of you.

Even in all the parks in London a bicycle is welcomed. If one were to walk it may take hours to explore Hyde Park but with a bike it is just "a walk through the park"!

The real horse staring at my iron horse at Horse park in London. I think my iron horse has got more "horse power" and is more manageable!
See, I told you..my bicycle is light.

This policeman came along after the previous picture was taken. He wanted to know if I was doing a commercial for the bicycle by lifting it up for a photo. Anyway, I politely invited him to be in the picture for a commercial too and that is how this photo was taken with the policeman

After 14 days of good life, it is time to go home again. More adventures coming along...life is an adventure on a journey!

My French Connection

2009-10-25T15:21:00.015+08:00

About 5 years ago when my company decided to replace the ageing S61N fleet with the modern Super Puma L2 helicopters I had to do a simulator training on the SuperPuma L2 at Helisim in Marseille. France. Helisim is equiped with the state of art simulators and during my training I met a very interesting French gentleman by the name of Michel Zing. He was ex French military and had flown for Bristow Helicopters. We found that we had many common interest ..from sailing, farming, dogs and not afraid of getting our hands dirty to get a job done. I got to know him much better on my second trip two years later. We had been in contact all the while through emails and I had been brain digging him on a lot of flying matters. He had unselfishly been sharing his knowledge with me. I was invited to have dinner and to stay in his house which is in Rognac. Rognac is quite remote..just like our kampong and yes he is staying in a farm surrounded with olive trees and fruit trees and is quite self sufficient with vegetables too.His girl friend Anne Marie cooked us a delicious French dinner..complete with cheese and ice cream at the end of the meal. Now I know why the French people are so healthy. It is the low carbohydrate food and the daily dosage of wine which they consume.
This is the farm house which they are staying..just like in the story books. Most of the things are very well preserved in the house.

There is plenty to do staying there. The heater for winter utilises log and fallen timber from the property. A tractor is always handy.
So last week when I went to France, I was invited to stay in his little guest house. next to his house. I had planned to arrive his place well before I start "work" on the simulators.This time I brought along another of my friend Capt Eric Ng. We were catching up until well into the night. Capt Eric with Michel and Anne Marie
Fruits just outside the little guest house. We helped ourselves to a few fruits each. This time of the year is cold ...about 12 C day time so the fruits are like just out of the fridge. And they are yummy too...

I suggested that the next night we will cook a Malaysian Dinner and have it in his house. We had brought along some special ingredients for this occasion. I will cook the famous pork rib soup..BAK KUT TEH while Eric prepares curry chicken. At the same time we were trying to explain to Anne Marie about our cooking..see it is quite easily done! Unfortunately we were so busy eating and talking that we did not take any photos during our dinner. I think they must have enjoyed the meal because the left over curry was kept for the next day!
I had brought along my Dahon bike and had a lovely ride round the Rognac neighbourhood. The mistral wind (up to 110 km/hr) wind died off in the morning otherwise I will be blown backwards!

These olives are about ready to be harvested in 10 days time. How I wish I could stay back and help. It should be fun.So hope to see Michel and Anne Marie again soon. Next time I will cook satay and maybe some Tim Sum.! Thank you for the hospitality and the good time we have had had. You have been the "perfect host"!

Tail rotor malfunction on S 61 A 4 Nuri Helicopter

2009-10-08T00:24:00.008+08:00

Many of my friend asked if I have ever experienced a real emergency while flying. The asnwer is a YES. I have todate about 18,000 plus hours on helicopters and another thousand on light fixed wing so the law of averages catches up once a while. One very serious emergency happened to me 29 years ago when I was serving in 7 Squadron, RMAF Kuching. The date was 9 Oct 1980 and I was a new "C" category captain on the Sikorsky S 61 A4 (Nuri) helicopter in the Royal Malaysian Air Force. Looking back at my log book I had just accumulated 1000 hrs at that time. On that eventful day, I was tasked to do a training flight with a co pilot. This is the time when we polish up our flying skills and in those days every pilot has to do 3 hours of training flight per month.
The sortie was a running change with my squadron commander. Running change means the aircraft has been started and flown and I just hop in to take the aircraft to continue my flight. When the squadron commander handed me the aircraft he told me the aircraft had some vibrations and I will have to enter the defect in the tech log after my sortie. So away I went to the training area in Santubong , North of Kuching airport. One of the exercises that we practice is an autorotation..you know just in case both the engines flame out together. I selected an area and did a practice autorotation aiming for that cleared patch. By 500 ft above ground level, I initiated power to recover from the autorotation. Suddenly, there was a "cracking" sound and the whole aircraft and the controls vibrated violently. Pedals vibrations were severe and there was limited control and instruments could not be read. I lowered the collective level and re entered into autorotaion and this time to land. Things happened very fast but suddenly everthing seem to come in slow motion. Flashes of family and boyhood seems to come and go. Several MAYDAY calls were made and it was acknowledged by an MAS aircraft.
What seemed like a nice carpet of grass at 1000 ft now looks like a swamp and worst of all there were a lot of abandoned poles sticking upright. These poles were for the pepper farm and it is solid hard wood. Using all the skill that I had been taught in the Air Force, I managed to avoid the poles (otherwise ity will be a satay helecopter!). Of couses, my co pilot Lt M (u) Kamal (at that time) and Sgt Sharom played an important part in the sucessful forced landing.
After securing the helicopter we found the tail rotor blades had self destructed leaving only the spar. In those days, the tail was made of several rib pockets but after my incident (maybe a few more in the world) the blades were changed to honeycomb structures type .
The man in this picture is the first person to come over to the aircraft after I force landed. He gave us some hot Chinese tea which was very much appreciated. I revisited hima few days later and took this photo. Within an hour another Nuri helicopter came to our rescue and we were flown back to the base. In oreder for me to maintain my confidence, they made me do another flight the next day..a good idea.

The department of Flight Safety recognised that I had done a very good job and awarded me the Green Endorsement. This is the highest award for display of airmanship and skill in avoiding major disaster. I had been truely very lucky. However, throughout the later years I had several engine failures (seven in multi engine helicopters) and many more emergencies when I was flying microlights. I will write about it in this blog later. What all these emergencies had done to me is to make me a more matured and conservative pilot and not to take things for granted. In flying, there may be no second chance and as pilots we must take our chosen profession seriously.

Gypsy 28 catamaran building (Sept 2009)

2009-09-16T16:46:00.009+08:00

The last few weeks I had been busy building the furnitures inside the cabin. It is not too difficult but I discovered that even though I am the son of a carpenter/furniture maker Ivcannot cut straight and square. This means a lot of time is spent fine tuning the squares. The inside of the cabin actually does not require to be glassed but I feel it looks and feels better so I have decided to glass the marine ply with 300 gm cloth and epoxy. The pieces are then glued together using epoxy. A lot of clamps are required when joining the pieces. I have in my pocession only 14 clamps of various sizes.Most nights I put in about an hour and a half after dinner and having fed my dogs. A rechargeable head lamp is a must at night. I try to avoid using the power tools as much as possible at night. I do most of the marking, measuring and planning at night.The actual cutting is normally done in day light..hopefully I can make a more accurate cut.This is the port side of the cuddy. It houses the cushioned seat which has a large storage space behind. These bits of furniture helps to strengthens the boat structurally. This is the starboard side of the cuddy. It is supposed to house the fridge and the cooker. However I may choose to put other items here. Notice the use of a long clamp to get a better joint between the pieces of wood. A car jack is also extremely useful as it can help to force the floorboard up slightly thus closing any gaps.For budding boat builders a good grinder is very important as it is being used almost on a daily basis. Most corners require a bit of fairing.The back of the cabin is being built here.It has to be framed using red meranti 2 in by 1 inch wood.The back of the cuddy is finally up. Now there is a" door" which I will have to use to enter the cabin.

Cycling up to Fraser's Hill (4100 ft)

2009-09-16T14:53:00.007+08:00

Fraser's Hill is a hill station located about 90 km from Kuala Lumpur. I have been told by Min Chee that the trail leading up to Fraser's Hill is one of the best riding trail in the world. In fact it is a hidden jewel for budding cyclist. This has been confirmed by many of his oversea friends who rides up frequently. I have to attend a wedding dinner in Kl on Saturday night so I decided to come a day earlier so that I can do the ride on Saturday morning (12 Sept 09). I took along my Dahon Cadenza 26 inch folding bike for the ride. These folding bikes are really handy...you can see that it is neatly tucked behind the last row of seats on my Nissan Serena.
My RV with Min Chee was at 0700 hrs at the Shell petrol station in Bandar Utama area. He came along with his Volvo and took us to Kuala Kubu Bahru about 50 km away. This is the normal starting point for people going up to Fraser's Hill.

Of course we must have a good breakfast before our ride. Food in Kuala Kubu Bahru was cheap and very tasty. Soon after breakfast we were on our way. we have to ensure that we reach the Gap by 1100 hrs so that we do not have to wait. As the road from the Gap to Fraser's Hill is very narrow, you can only go up during the odd hours and down during even hours. I counted not more than 20 cars along the way so the road is quiet most of the time. As we were ascending and coupled with the shades from the big trees along the road it feels quite cool. The temperature was between 24 C to about 22 C at the top. It is like riding in an air cond room so it was very pleasant. The twist and turns of the road makes it interesting too. There were a few waterfalls along the way. This picture shows one of the larger one.At the Gap we were a few minutes early so it was an opportunity to give the tired legs a chance to rest. When it was time to go we waited another 10 minutes before we continued our ride up as we did not want to inhale vehicle exhaust in such fresh air!. From the Gap to the top of the hill is 8 km . The road is narrow and we had some steep gradients to work the heart up to its max permissible heart beat!So here we are at the top of Fraser's Hill. We had some hot tea in a coffee shop and started our return leg.

This is the MCA building located just at the entrance of Fraser's hill. When we were scouts we used to stay at a community hall i this building. It looked the same as itwas 35 years ago

After the ride up, the trip downhill was most enjoyable. We coasted down for almost 30 km using the stored potential energy of our uphill climb. yes....it is indeed a jewel . I had enjoyed the ride very much and this will not be the last trip but the beginning of more trips to come. Thank you again Min Chee.

A Cycling Trip To Kg Air Jerneh

2009-09-04T21:11:00.008+08:00

Aha..another day OFF from flying. I have just purchased another Dahon Folding bike and it has not completed its 1000 km running in. I need to ascertain certain parameters for the bike..things like Vno (Velocity Normal ops), Vne (Velocity nver exceed), gear changing capabilities etc. I have also got to check any squeeking noise esp on hill climbs. With that in mind, I went for a 55 km riding circuit. Start from my house, go on main road to Kemasik, turn left to Air Jernih and from there go by the inland road to Kg Ibok and back home. I have my GPS logger with me and the route taken is downloaded to Google mapThe thing I like best about morning rides is the cool air and the natural misty conditions on the road. Just got to make sure that the rear red flashing light of the bike is on!This is my Dahon Cadenza 26 inch wheel folding bike. The bike is having a rest while the owner went inside the bush to answer a call of nature.The Cadenza is the 2009 model and has 16 speeds. My bike is fitted with slim road tyres but it can adapt easily to fat off road tyes.From Kemasik I made a right turn to Air Jernih.Immediately we have this snaky sign. It is cycling haven..winding and undulating road. The hills are not steep but just nice for a work out.This is the only photograph I took of myself. The camera was held in my right hand to capture this shot.Soon I arrived at Air Jerneh town. Actually it is just two rows of shop houses and it looks like a cowboy town. Along this row of shops is a coffee shop that sells good breakfast. There is no menu and patrons to the shop have to accept the chef's choice for the day!For today we have shredded chicken porridge with century egg. I had the porridge and a cup of coffee and it cost me RM4.10. Not bad..reasonably good food.HER restaurant serves excellent wild boar curry.It was one of our Hash House Harrier's favourite joint.After the coffee break, the journey continued inland to Kg Ibok.A traditional village house in Kg Ibok.I had always wanted to take a photo of the name of this shop.It has a very funny name. Translated in Chinese it literally means LEE FxxK LIM! What a name!
I was home before 1100 hrs and had a good rest before I comence the second part of my weekend...boat building.

Canoeing Down Sg Jengai and Cycling Back

2009-08-28T22:03:00.012+08:00

I have been told that there are a lot of good fishing grounds for Ikan Kelah and Sebarau in Sg Jengai. Sg Jengai is a small tributary of Sg Dungun. This weekend my comrade in crime Cheong is in town so we decided to have a go at canoeing down Sg Jengai to explore for ourselves the luboks and to also to have a nice relaxing trip going with the current down the river. There was only one problem......how are we going to come back to the launching point 18 km away after we have reached Kuala Jengai? To solve this problem, I took along my Dahon Mu 8 folding bike and canoed with the bike on the canoe. At the end of the trip I will unfold the bike and cycle the 18 km back to my Ford Ranger and then drive the truck to Kuala Jengai to pick up the canoe.

It had been raining every evening for the past few days and the river is not clear but a little yellowish due to the rain. This is where the river intersects Km 19 Jalan Pasir Raja and we decided to launch our canoe from this point. The bridge is quite high over the river so we had to look for a place to go down.A track through this orchard leads us to the side of the river. There were a lot of ripe mangosteens in this orchard and we helped ourselves to a fruitful feast before the start of the journey.Thank You, Mr Farmer....The canoe and other supplies had to be carried about 200 meters over some bushes to the launching point. This place is infested with leeches and several of them feasted on our blood.The Dahon folding bike had to be carried to the canoe as well.This is the starting point of our canoeing trip. By the time we started it was almost 1230 hrs. The total river journey is about 12 km. and I anticipated we shall be taking about 2.5 hrs to reach Kuala Jengai.Notice the blood from the leech bites on my leg. The trouble with leech bites are the itch that comes along with it and they often leave a mark on the body.Along most of the way we have big trees on the river banks and this provides us with shade. In fact it was quite cooling as well.There are some lovely sandy beaches along the river bank. We saw a lot of wild boar prints on the sand. of course there are a lot of monkeys monkeying up on the trees above.The only obstacle that we encountered along the way was a damaged raft blocking the river. We had to squeeze through a small opening under a fallen tree to continue the journey.It looks like the kampong folks have better family bonding. Here the whole family including mama and the kids goes fishing when papa decides to go fishing. This rarely happens to town folks!On one of these sandy and shady beaches we stopped for a dip in the river and cooked ourselves a simple lunch. The ambience was nice and the maggie mee with tuna tasted very good. Music was provided by an orchestra of birds. By 1500 hrs we arrived at Kuala Jengai.

After this I unfolded my dahon bike and had a nice ride for 18 km along the undulating road back to wher I parked my car. Within an hour I was back in Kuala Jengai and that ends our trip.Malaysia has a lot of beautiful places to be explored. Would you like to join me for the next trip?

Progress on building My Gypsy 28 catamaran

2009-08-15T13:13:00.005+08:00

fTime seems to fly..The last 30 days I managed to assemble up the cuddy sides of the Gypsy.I then made the furnitures for the cabin. With only a dozen G clamps,the framing of the 1 by 1 wood to the panels had to be done slowly. Next,a layer of 300 gm glass cloth with epoxy is applied to the floor of the cuddy. I can see that my glass laying skills are improving but still there is a lot of rooms for improvement to make a piece of perfect laminate! Never mind..what I have done will not show in the finished boat because the cushions and furnitures will go on top of the glass!It took me a few days to build a very important component of the catamaran..the central mast beam. For that I selected the best wood available..the Kunin tropical hardwood.All the joints are epoxied and a generous coating is applied to the internal part of the beam. When the catamaran is completed, this beam supports the whole weight of the 11.5 meters mast and the forces generated during sailing so i am extra cautious and careful when I built this beam. The beam is then attached to the floor of the catamaran as shown in this photo.

I am also making the cuddy back which has a door opening to enter the cuddy.It is getting interesting as I can see the bits of puzzle joing up into a picture. I hope to complete the cuddy in 2 months time before the monsoon sets in.

Ultralight Flying (1983 to 1985)

2009-07-31T15:11:00.010+08:00

I looked back at some old photo albums and found some photos of me flying microlights so I feel obligated to write something about this sport as I was one of the pioneers in the sport.

Ultralights were a craze in the early 1980s. The Americans call these tube and dacron chain saw engined aircraft ultralights and the British called them microlights. Technically, these flying machines must be foot launchable (yes..you have to run with the machine to take off and land while running .Only done during the certification process), not more than 254 lbs and a stalling speed of not more than 20 kts. The max speed should not be more than 55 kts. These were the figures as far as I can remember in 1983. Given these figures there were a lot of innovative designs..some safe and some not so safe! A lot of ultralight magazines reporters ended up as being "test pilots" for the brand new machines that they evaluate for the magazine readers and quite a few ended 6 ft under ground!

In Malaysia ultralights were brought in by Capt Moid an ex commando officer who made a lot of money teaching civilians sports parachuting. Under the company name of Para Aviation Sdn Bhd, he brought in 2 twin seater Eipper Quicksilver MX2 and 2 Single seater MX. Albert Anthony and Capt Hussein of DCA went to the US for the initial training. In 1983 I was doing a staff job just prior to leaving the Air Force and I was based in Kinrara, KL. Being a guy who cannot sit still on ground, I volunteered to be an instructor for them. Some training was given and I was given an instructor's licence for ultralights. My licence number was 004 . The other instructors were Capt Hussein, Albert Anthony, Capt Nordin (MHS pilot, later became FOM) and Low KC. From this small group of us we trained a lot of pilots and instructors.

The original flight park was gazetted in Bangi, Selangor. After a year, I formed up a company called Micro Air Services to operate a flight park in Pandermaran, Port Klang. My partners were Mej Johnny Loo and Wong Kim Hoong and we had a two seater and a single seater Quicksilver. The aircraft was registered under 9M WYF (Me) and 9M WKH (Kim Hoong). It was fun flying these flying lawn mowers....low and slow but the 2 stoke Rotax engines were inverted and we had a lot of engine malfunctions in the air and on the ground. Due to its slow stalling speed and low inertia a forced landing is almost an uneventful event! We need a few hundred feet of cleared area for landing. Of course for brakes we had to use our shoes to provide friction with the ground, Flintstone style....on the average our shoes last us a month only!

My wife always followed me and ended up as a ballast for a lot of ferry flights.

1983 was a bad year. The economy was bad. On National day the RMAF could not afford to do a fly past with their jets and helicopters . We volunteered and flew Ultralights with 50 ft Gasser Banners over the city of KL. A very scrry experience to fly these machines over the city. BUT we were young, dashing and never think much. I would not do it again now even if I were to be paid. We never got a cent from that flight!

It was very cheap to fly those days. We charged RM 700 for a new comer to start flying until he goes solo. After that he flies on the single seater at the rate of RM1 per minute. A total of 25 hrs is required for a Microlight pilot's licence (Group D PPL). I think today the ultralight operators charge ten times more. THAT was one of the reasons that our company went bankrupt 2 years later!

An Mx single seater. the only instrument that we had were an Air Speed indicator which is the plastic tube with a small diaphram .

Decision to Build a Gypsy 28 Catamaran

2009-07-22T12:24:00.009+08:00

It has been said that building a boat is like childbirth..there is going to be a lot of pain for the pleasure! I have been toying with the idea of building my ideal catamaran for a long time. In fact this idea mooted out after meeting several people who have built their own boats.My group of water minded ex Air Force friends had also shown interest(all of us are boat owners and sailors). And amongst us , Robin Tan, had already DESIGNED and BUILT his own 24 catamaran , a RobinShark24 many years ago. He is a wizard with boat building and knows his stuff when it comes to composite materials. And he has agreed help us if we go ahead with our project.Spending hundreds of hours on the internet and communicating with complete strangers and asking a lot of questions on forums makes it look like a viable project.

Some of my personal considerations for building my own catamaran were:

* Cost saving..I can have a bigger , better and a new boat for the same amount of money as buying a smaller used boat
* Knowing the boat so that when repairs are needed in some remote islands I can attend to it
* I don't have to take out one lump sum of money at once.
* Keeps me and my mind busy for a while!
* Pride and a sense of PERSONAL achievement for the project.

I had narrowed down my boat to a Woods designed Gypsy 28 catamaran after reading a review of the boat on Practical Boat Owners magazine. The thing that attracted at first was this boat is a much bigger and more comfortable version of my existing boat , a Strider 24 catamaran AND Richard Woods designs good catamarans that are meant specifically for the homebuilders.

I bought a study plan for the catamaran and drove many hundreds of miles to meet up with my "water minded" group. Various people have different ideas..some wanted to make the Gypsy into a Speedy Gypsy (fast on power), some wanted to add many inches here and there!This went on for a few years.

Finally Richard Woods announced that he will be increasing the prices of his plans by 30 %. This is it....I must buy the plans before paying 30% more and so somewhere end of last year I bought the complete Gypsy 28 Budget Ocean Going Catamaran Complete Building Plans and within a few minutes the e copy was emailed to me. I spent many many hours starring at the plans and material list. Getting boat building material is never easy. Even marine plywood I had to spend a few months sourcing them. Luckily we have the powerful tool called the Internet and sourcing for materials is a little easier.

I have decided to build the cabin first. In fact for this catamaran you can build either the hulls first or the cabin first and later at the end of the project the two hulls and the cabin are assembled together.

Malaysia exports Meranti marine plywood but since there is no local market it is very difficult to buy a small quantity. Their normal answer is how many containers do you need? It is such a shame. Through a brother in law of mine I managed to get BS1088 standard marine plywood for the project.

To play it safe, I boiled many hours and cooled a small piece of the marine plywood when it arrived. This process was repeated several times to ensure that the plywood does not delaminate.Next came the drawing and cutting of the bulkheads. I do not have a big space for storing the plywood . I made a 4 ft by 8 ft flat panel using polyester and PU foam. This was a practice session so that when it comes to making the hulls I will have some experience. PU foam cannot be used for boat building. In the real boat I will have to use PVC foam which has to be imported from Australia.Eventually I built a 20 ft by 20 ft canvas shed in a corner of my house. By then I had completed quite a few pieces of the panels required to build the cabin. As I have a full time flying job and some small business to run, I have to work at nights sometimes. As you can see, even my dogs seems to be excited about the new boat!

A lot of my friend wanted to know how long it will take me to complete the boat.Richard Woods, the designer says it will take about 1200 hrs to build this catamaran but I have spoken to people who has taken 3000 hours for the catamaran. And this does not include the time spent starring at the plans and wondering what to do. It will probably take about 3 years for me BUT I have not givent hem the starting date yet! Maybe from today ........

If you want to know more about this catamaran go to:

http://www.sailingcatamarans.com/gypsy.htm