But, back to the beginning. We were excited to leave Rebak Island Marina and for the first night out headed to an anchorage just a few short miles away. It was idyllic. We sat on our sugar scoop stern and dangled our feet in the warm water. There was a light breeze blowing, picturesque fishing boats were anchored in the bay and we looked forward to our first night at anchor on our new boat.
It wasn't to be. We had three 'sumatras' blow through in the night. These are sudden, short squalls usually lasting no more than an hour, but, they can pack fierce winds, up to 50 knots. The first blew through around 8 p.m. and we watched the deluge with mild interest. Around two a.m., when the wind generator started whining like an aircraft's jet engine, we knew this squall was going to be a little different. The wind only went to about 35 knots, but, it was enough to whip up a good swell and we started to drag. If it had gone to 50 knots, we probably would have dragged right across the bay. As it was, we went about .3 of a mile. Luckily, we had the sea room. Replacing our ground tackle is near the top of our list for a number of reasons, but, this just confirmed it should be done sooner rather than later. The current primary anchor is a stainless steel CQR which must have cost a fortune, but, stainless steel or not, from past experience, the CQR design just isn't efficient. It's shaped like a plough and even though we'd set the anchor well and backed it down, when the wind picks up, a CQR just acts like the plough that it is and makes a nice furrow as it travels along the bottom.
In the morning we did our usual boat checks before leaving. Part of this was checking our DC isolation switch. To our horror, instead of two pretty little red lights glowing, one was flashing on and off each time the boat rolled in the swell. This was not good. An aluminium boat, if wired properly, has a floating ground which means nothing is grounded to the hull. Two red lights are good, meaning there is a continuous circuit. One light means that something, somewhere, is shorting to the hull. Stray current corrosion like this can cause the hull to corrode very quickly with results no aluminium boat owner wants to think about.
We opened the panel to see if maybe it was just a loose wire and to our even greater horror, four wires came loose and just dropped out of their slot, number 102. We tried to put them back where we thought they came from, two wires touched and there was an arc. The first obvious result was that the battery monitor had gone dead. Then, after trying a few things, we realized that all our 12V devices did not seem to be getting the correct voltage. We traced this to our 24V-12V DC/DC converter, but, it wasn't obvious what was wrong with it. After all, it had been working fine the day before. At this point, we weren't sure what the issue was and decided, rather than risk further damage, to proceed the old-fashioned way, without electrics, until we could get to the bottom of it. Out came the paper chart and hand-bearing compass and we limped our way into Kuah Harbour. We anchored there while we tried to find a qualified marine electrician which seemed impossible in a place like this. However, we got a line on one at Telaga Harbour marina, about twelve miles to the north and we set off the next morning. We arrived Friday, they were so busy they couldn't even come to look until Tuesday. We settled in for a quiet weekend and tried not to worry. Anyway, to make a long story short, Manu and Wolfgang, from Blue Shelter - Langkawi Yacht Multi Services, very quickly got to the bottom of it. Both the 24V-12V converter and isolation switch had been wired incorrectly at some point in the past. They were able to rewire them both and check that all the voltages were ok etc. The battery monitor and converter weren't 'fried' and they both came back to life.
Then, the bad news, there really was a short to the hull and they didn't have time to find it as it could take days, so, we were left to find it ourselves. We were extremely lucky and found it right away. The start battery for the new engine had been loosely installed and with the boat rolling the connection must have come loose causing the intermittent fault.
We were thrilled when we got our two lights back!
So, it all turned out for the best even though it didn't feel like it at the time. We got a much better understanding of our electrical system which is what a shakedown cruise should be all about, this one was just a little shorter than planned.
Further research on Phuket sounded like it wasn't really our kind of place anyway. One of the popular beaches needs to have a beach traffic controller, for all the day boats disgorging tourists onto it and they were charging a landing fee for each body landed. The cruising guide descriptions for all the scenic locations mentioned lots of rolling, boat noise and wakes. We decided we'd rather spend any extra time we had in Indonesia, rather than Thailand. So, we're heading south immediately.
Never a dull moment! Do you have a full photo of the Gjoa to post?
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