After a relaxing three months at home to enjoy the holidays, friends, and family, I boarded my flight to Southeast Asia to join a new boat called SV Millennium with the crew of Expedition Drenched.
Before arriving, Nate, the captain, shared with me a brief history of the project and boat. Expedition Drenched was started by Nate as a project to bring the underwater world to everyday people through YouTube to raise awareness and interest in ocean health and conservation. In 2019, he purchased his first sailboat, SV Sylfia, and cruised the South Pacific until COVID hit, then spent the last couple of years circumnavigating Australia. In 2022, he purchased a second sailboat in Malaysia called SV Millennium, with hopes of joining both boats to do cruising and chartering in remote areas off the coast of Australia.
This new crew would be a mix of the old crew from SV Sylfia and a few new people mixed in, including me. The plan was for SV Millennium to spend a couple more weeks hauled out in the shipyard in Langkawi, Malaysia doing some minor repairs and repainting, then splash the boat and cruise Indonesia on the way to Australia, over 6 months.
My flight into Langkawi, Malaysia arrived at 9:00 pm and I was picked up at the airport by Nate. Then, we drove to the restaurant where the rest of the crew was finishing up dinner, saving a dessert for me. It was overwhelming to meet so many new people at once, knowing we would all be living together in the coming months. The crew was comprised of the captain, Nate (40) from Utah, Amy (24) from South Africa/UK/Australia, Aitor (35) from Spain, Will (29) and Joni (31) from Belgium, Angi (29) from Spain, and Rob (36) from Australia.
After finishing up, we all crammed into the rental car with my bags and drove a short distance to the Northern Shipyard which, for some reason, is located on the southern end of the island. Having just come from spending two weeks in the Fiji shipyard, living a couple more weeks hauled out didn’t sound too bad until I saw the number of ferries and commercial ships, realizing this was no place for cruisers. This was a working industrial shipyard with only the most basic facilities.
At nearly 70 feet long (almost twice the length of SV Sierra Wind), SV Millennium would be the largest sailboat that I’d step foot on. So large that most travel lifts in a normal marina are too small which is why it ended up in a shipyard designed for servicing ferry boats. Standing at the base of the ladder, the boat felt massive, but the crew helped me get my bags all the way up on deck and Nate showed me my cabin. I would be sharing a two-person bunk with Amy which was great given that her petit, 4’10” frame didn’t take up much space, and there was plenty of room to store my belongings. I was thankful to not be crammed into the 4-person v-berth.
The next morning I was woken up at 6:00 am by voices blaring on a loudspeaker nearby. Unable to go back to sleep, I got up to see what the commotion was and found Rob and Aitor already awake, sipping their morning coffees. Since Malaysia is a Muslim country, prayers from nearby mosques are broadcast throughout the cities and towns. Lucky for us, the shipyard was between two mosques and we would receive double prayers throughout the morning, day, and evening.
Since I was already awake, Rob invited me for a walk and I was grateful for the friendly gesture. Rob had met Nate in Australia a few months before and was recruited to come on as the engineer, having worked on commercial vessels before. We walked out of the shipyard and down the road. It was easy to notice the level of poverty in the shanty towns that surrounded the shipyard. There was an overwhelming stench of trash that filled the air as we passed the local trash dump being picked apart by stray dogs and monkeys.
After returning to the boat, we all gathered around the table with coffee and tea as Nate began going over the plan for the day and what still needed to be done before we could splash. I was tasked with helping to remove the rust from the frame that supports the roof above the table at the back of the boat. As I looked around at the condition both inside and outside of the boat, I knew one thing was for certain: we definitely wouldn’t be ready to leave the shipyard in two weeks!
