12v Fridge Suggestions Kota Kinabalu

[mico]

Heading up to Borneo in a couple of weeks - first of many trips back and forth prepping our new home for her sail back to OZ. Everything going well so far apart from the fridge.

Looks like its given up the ghost and we're looking at some fallback options just to get us back to Oz where we intend to put in a complete new 12v system.

One option is just to purchase a large capacity engal or waeco fridge for the trip back but so far I'm having no luck on the net finding any supplier in Borneo. Happy to purchase a second hand one or something we could gerry rig up there as I don't think I'm going to be able to take one from Oz as hand luggage

All suggestions, contacts and thoughts most welcome


Fair winds,

Mico

[redbopeep]

Wow. A bit of a pickle. Seems like you'd be able to find one of those portable 12V refrigerators/coolers used for fishing there.

Other choices--does the boat have an icebox at all so you could use block ice? That won't last long, but is a choice if you've got a box.

We don't have refrigeration on the boat but we're able to keep things in a cool bilge and we have a (very seldom used) 120VAC icemaker (gotta run the generator to use it of course) for those times we want to fill a cooler with meats or things which require ice. I don't think you're going to have such luck with warmer water temps there.

We're so used to not having refrigeration, we'd just deal with it--if you want tips on things to do on that end, let us know. Else, I hope you can get info on a supplier for the fishing boats in the area.

Fingers crossed.

[JeanneP]

Mico, it's just been so long since we've been there that everybody we knew is retired or gone. but.

Can you find some of the expats in Brunei? There's a very active sailing community there and they don't skimp on gear. Maybe somebody there could help you find something.

KK is a pretty nice city - you might find a local who can act as an agent for you to send stuff from Australia. Lots of Chinese merchants.

Not much help, I know. Sorry.

[bvimatelot]

Hi Mico - I'm in KK at the moment waiting for a water pump pulley wheel - hopefully it arrives tomorrow but I'll ask around.

Do you know what the problem is? Compressor? Loss of Gas??

Where's the boat? I'm in Sutera Harbour Marina: a bit pricey!!

Tony

[mico]

Hi Tony,

Life is a constant mix of change and reorientation I'm finding of late! Just got of the phone with a company here in oz called ozefridge - Home

They make a wide range of freezers and plates and I have been looking over a few vessels in the marina here who have them installed - they certainly seem to be the go.

I mentioned the issue of a failing fridge in Borneo and needing something to limp back with so that when we get back into Oz, we can do the job properly and install a completely new system. The guy said why would you do that? We just delivered 3 of those units to Kota Kanabula last week. We can have the complete unit there on your boat for you to install within a fortnight - no problem.

What more can I say? I think our fridge issues are over. The fact that I am sending an Oz made fridge there and sailing back should exclude me from the current Oz Custom charge of $400 to import the gas within a fridge or aircon from an overseas vessel - only this time I'll have the units I want rather than a stop gap.

< grinning ear to ear here

What you may be able to help with is we're interested in purchasing the following for the trip back:

2 x second hand scuba tanks
12 x 20lt plastic jerry cans for on deck fuel haulage to extend our range

The other thing we are working through is our medical stores. On Mico we carry a full international kit with adrenaline and a number of restricted medical drugs that we have clearance to carry as part of our Australian registered ships stores. We have had no problem entering any country with these aboard. The difference this time is we'll be flying in to Borneo as passengers and then sailing out. I don't think we'd be allowed to arrive at the airport with a case of adrenalin and a host of other drugs in our carry on luggage along with our duty free Jimmy Beam. What do you do for medical stores up there? Especially in relation to Malaria and strong antibiotics? I'm going to contact the Borneo embassy this week and see what they suggest but I'd be interested to hear from others about how they handle this.

When we were in Vanuatu having all that gear aboard was a life saver for some of our fellow cruisers who became seriously ill with coral infections etc.

Fair winds,

Mico

[mico]

Hi Jeanne,

Sorry - I missed your post there but I do appreciate your input. As you can see from my response to Tony - it looks like we now have the problem in hand However - I still doff my cap to you for sailing without a fridge. I know it can be done very successfully and we sailed with a couple of yachts to New Cal who did just that. Unfortunately we've long succumbed to the dark side of comfort and the chink of ice in our G&T's under a tropical sky. :P

Fair winds

Mico

[JeanneP]

Mico,

Of all the things we did without, a refrigerator was NOT one of them! Though when in the Solomons and PNG particularly, it wasn't run very much since there wasn't much to put in there once our Oz supplies ran out.

Coral cuts - in my Cruiser's Dictionary I comment somewhere that I was not afraid to experiment on myself, and one of those experiments was with coral cuts after one of my own cuts got badly infected in spite of carrying an unexpired supply of Neosporin (or, the combo - whatever that was back then).

The next time I had a run-in with a bunch of coral, I marked the areas so that on one large area I used the antibiotic and another one was cleaned, and swabbed daily, with vinegar only. The vinegar treated cuts never got inflamed or infected, and scabbed over cleanly in a day and healed very quickly. The antibiotic salve cuts did not heal correctly and became infected. I cut the experiment short because healing was more important than having a gruesome photo to prove my point.

A different time, different infection, I was very, very thankful that we had a strong oral antibiotic on the boat (the predecessor to Ciprin, name forgotten at the moment). We had been hiking to a fresh water lake somewhere, and my ankle got chafed and, apparently infected. I first recognized it as a problem when I noticed eruptions of infections on undamaged parts of my body - a hint that my blood was infected. One just can't be too prepared, IMO.

I hope you can take your time returning to Oz; we loved Borneo, returning there from Singapore 3 times to different places, different experiences. Like our trip to Sandakan. At that time we'd been cruising for 15+ years, you would have thought we would be a bit smarter. But what a great adventure it was.

[Coyote]

I've gone months at a time not only without refrigeration or an icebox, but without even a cool place to keep stuff. It just requires a different frame of mind. Fresh stuff gets eaten first and fast. After that concentrate on food that doesn't spoil.

I can tell you from first hand experience that hard boiled eggs are edible for 6 days stored at 100 degrees. Tortillas are good for 8 days, but eventually you have to knock the green parts off. Fresh ranch cheese is good for a week even if you accidentally soak it in salt water a couple times.

OTOH, I never went more than 8 days without an opportunity to resupply as my water capacity was just 8 gallons of fresh.

I'm happy to hear you have solved your problem, though. I consider cold storage a luxury, but it is certainly a nice luxury.

[redbopeep]

Originally Posted by Coyote

OTOH, I never went more than 8 days without an opportunity to resupply as my water capacity was just 8 gallons of fresh.

Coyote--your experiences with no refrigeration sound familiar.

However--what's with only 8 gallons of fresh water? We carry that much in the 2 liter soda or Simply Orange (tm) bottles that we keep and store fresh water in the bilge with! We're extremely skimpy with our fresh water use, but even so we like to have plenty aboard. For drinking: 20 or so 2l bottles, four 6 gallon jugs, two 5 gallon jugs. For washing and emergency drinking (lead soldered copper tank...thus don't drink from this tank) we have a 63 gallon tank. Back up includes a 13 gallon bladder tank that I don't fill unless we'll be on a very long trip because one of the caps leaks slowly.

We don't manage to go through all that drinking water in a month. However, it is nice to have it.

[Coyote]

My first adventure boat was a kayak. :-p I had mostly two liter diet coke bottles for water. I did a thousand miles in baja california in her. Her name was bad girl. This was a few years before I bought Coyote.

[mico]

Hi Tony,

It just occurred to me that you are probably tied up alongside our new home right now. The yacht's name is Australis.

I'll be up there on the 5th of May for 12 days. If you are still about - we should share a few ales!

Fair winds,


Mico

[redbopeep]

Originally Posted by Coyote

My first adventure boat was a kayak. :-p I had mostly two liter diet coke bottles for water. I did a thousand miles in baja california in her. Her name was bad girl. This was a few years before I bought Coyote.

Ah, we digress...but that makes more sense! We've done long wilderness canoe trips. There, 8 gallons fresh water would be a huge amount to carry. All in perspective!

[mico]

Wow Redbopeep - just read your post about Sandakan - excellent!

I'm sure we're going to have a lot of questions to throw at you over the next couple of weeks re your experiences there.

Great stuff and thanks heaps!


Fair winds ,

Mico

[bvimatelot]

Originally Posted by mico

Hi Tony,

Life is a constant mix of change and reorientation I'm finding of late! Just got of the phone with a company here in oz called ozefridge - Home

They make a wide range of freezers and plates and I have been looking over a few vessels in the marina here who have them installed - they certainly seem to be the go.

I mentioned the issue of a failing fridge in Borneo and needing something to limp back with so that when we get back into Oz, we can do the job properly and install a completely new system. The guy said why would you do that? We just delivered 3 of those units to Kota Kanabula last week. We can have the complete unit there on your boat for you to install within a fortnight - no problem.

What more can I say? I think our fridge issues are over. The fact that I am sending an Oz made fridge there and sailing back should exclude me from the current Oz Custom charge of $400 to import the gas within a fridge or aircon from an overseas vessel - only this time I'll have the units I want rather than a stop gap.

< grinning ear to ear here

What you may be able to help with is we're interested in purchasing the following for the trip back:

2 x second hand scuba tanks
12 x 20lt plastic jerry cans for on deck fuel haulage to extend our range

The other thing we are working through is our medical stores. On Mico we carry a full international kit with adrenaline and a number of restricted medical drugs that we have clearance to carry as part of our Australian registered ships stores. We have had no problem entering any country with these aboard. The difference this time is we'll be flying in to Borneo as passengers and then sailing out. I don't think we'd be allowed to arrive at the airport with a case of adrenalin and a host of other drugs in our carry on luggage along with our duty free Jimmy Beam. What do you do for medical stores up there? Especially in relation to Malaria and strong antibiotics? I'm going to contact the Borneo embassy this week and see what they suggest but I'd be interested to hear from others about how they handle this.

When we were in Vanuatu having all that gear aboard was a life saver for some of our fellow cruisers who became seriously ill with coral infections etc.

Fair winds,

Mico

Yep - Australis is 5 boasts down from me - looking fine!

If I knew how to add photos to these posts I'd send a couple - Mods/Someone - How to??

[redbopeep]

Originally Posted by bvimatelot

Yep - Australis is 5 boasts down from me - looking fine!

If I knew how to add photos to these posts I'd send a couple - Mods/Someone - How to??

When you reply to a thread, you'll see a little menu above the text box. The menu starts with symbols for Bold text, Italic, Underline, Left justify..and so on...follow it across and you'll see the hyperlink button, the break link button and you'll also see a little button which looks like a mountain like this--

Just click on the little mountain and paste in the link to the location of the images. You will have to host the images somewhere. You can add the images to your albums here on Cruiserlog if you don't already host images somewhere else online. There, go to your profile, start an album and upload the image. After you've done so, you can link to it with the little add photo (mountain) button I mentioned above.

I hope that's helpful.

[mico]

Yep - Australis is 5 boasts down from me - looking fine!

If I knew how to add photos to these posts I'd send a couple


Well - I'm told that the new fridges have arrived at the marina - now all I have to do is get there myself Currently enjoying the spartan comfort of Sydney airport after Qantas ran late and I missed all the connecting flights to Kota. Another 6 hours till the next one - and I nearly opted out of the travel insurance

I'll now only have a 2 day handover before the previous owners fly back to the states so I'll be taking lots n lots of notes. I'll come by and say hi when I get there tomorrow if you're still there

Fair winds