Friday, August 28, 2009

Canoeing Down Sg Jengai and Cycling Back


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?

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Progress on building My Gypsy 28 catamaran

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.