Aboard again at Admiral Marina

Hi everyone,
Yesterday Robert and I flew up from Perth to Kuala Lumpur and took a taxi from the airport to Admiral Marina in Port Dickson. Twas pleasant not to have to do two flights to get to the boat.

Zen Again was in very good order apart from a lot of underwater growth on the hull. No mould below and only a slight accummulation of dust on the deck. Interestingly there was fur and droppings on deck. Perhaps a friendly rat guarded the boat in our absence!

Yesterday afternoon we went for a swim to start cleaning off the growth. Lots of barnacles unfortunately but we're getting rid of them in stages. I'm not surprised at the growth since the boat has been static for the over six months with only a couple of in-the-water cleaning sessions. The PropGold applied by Precision Shipwrights at Boat Lagoon is working very well - less growth than on the hull around it.

After the working swim we retired to the resort pool to recover. That was good! Then we further retired to the bar, which was even better. Like they say, cruising is yacht maintenance in exotic locations. Nice that this location has a pool and a yachty's bar! ;)

Between all the relaxation we've also been into town to reprovision the boat. We had plenty of canned food but needed to get milk, bread, fresh veggies etc. Last night we sorted through all the food aboard and prepared "meal bags" - ziplock bags with a can of stew, a can of veggies and a can of fruit which comprise our main daily meal.

We replaced the ATF lubricant in the engine gearbox, then checked oil and coolant levels and ran the engine for half an hour. All good. We printed out the final version of our CAIT, which arrived via email from Isle Marine Services. We obtained copies of some of our outwards clearance forms from the marina office and filled them in and scanned everything for future reference.

We are gradually going through our "prepare for sea" checklist which, in addition to the above, has so far included:
- mount/check all safety gear (lifering, lifesling, liferaft, EPIRBs, PLBs, torches, knives, jackstays, lanyards etc;
- riigged the boom brake and reaching sheets, and unlocked the headsail and staysail furlers;
- inflated the dinghy on the foredeck and lashed it down;
- checked all electrical systems including instruments, autopilots, VHF, HF, laptop, iPad etc;
- checked fuel and water tank levels;
- washed down the deck and cleaned the solar panels; and
- hoisted our ensign and courtesy flag.

Tomorrow morning we'll go into town to clear out of Malaysia. We plan to depart Admiral Marina late tomorrow morning. There has been a sailing breeze for the last two days - during the day at least - and we hope there will be tomorrow too.

Trust all's well where you are!