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It’s Saturday afternoon and we are on the arrivals pontoon in Batu Uban, on the Island of Penang, back where I started this adventure with wanderlust back in January.

We decided to leave Langkawi on Thursday as the weather was predicted to be rubbish for a week or so, slightly better to the south, and as we had planned on doing sightseeing in Langkawi, it seemed more logical to get down to Penang and enjoy the festival here then head back to Langkawi when the weather improved.

So yesterday we paid our bills and headed south, it’s a long slog (12+ hours) to do the journey in one go, especially as it’s risky sailing at night here, the risk of collision with a fishing boat/net is high as they tend not to be lit. So we broke the trip up by spending the night at anchor behind the island of SonSong. This is a lovely little spot, but before we could get there we had to deal with some big squalls, the worst occurred just as we were approaching another island called Pulau Paya, I could see it approaching, and with the help of the radar and a little bit of trigonometry I calculated that by dropping our speed to 3 knots it would pass ahead of us, which it did, which was nice. We still got soaked and rocked around a lot, but missed the worst of it. In case you don’t know, a squall is like a mini thunderstorm, you see them on the horizon as an ominous large black cloud, getting darker and bigger as it approaches. Once it gets near, the sea whips up and the rain chucks it down, and there is a very strong wind, sometimes 30-50 knots. Visibility is also very poor. They can take 30 minutes to a couple of hours to pass depending on the bigger weather picture. Most of the squalls come from the SW during this monsoon season, so we anchored on the North East side of the island at Palua Songsong.
It was a very pleasant evening, not too hot, the monsoon wind kept us cool on the boat and Kathy cooked up a lovely pasta dish for dinner.

I slept in the cockpit, we had all the windows open and the boat was lovely and fresh. Accuweather had predicted 70-80% chance of rain during the night with their prediction peaking around 2AM, which is exactly when the rain came. I was in the cockpit, and was woken by a strange sound getting louder, it was in fact heavy rain falling on the sea, and approaching, by the change in volume I could tell it would be big, and soon. I chucked my pillow and sheet down the hatch, jumped in and sprinted around the boat shutting portlights, by the time I reached the front of the cabin where Kathy was just waking, she had been drenched by rain pouring into the boat. within minutes we had the boat watertight again, and Kathy was back asleep. I couldn’t sleep, I was expecting wind to arrive with the rain, and we were very close to the shore. Also this was my first time I had used the new Spade anchor in any kind of real test, so I was worried if we had a problem we could be blown onto the beach. I was also curious as to how this would play out, I ended up watching the rain and wind from the cockpit until 4AM when I fell asleep in the rain. By morning things had improved, but it was still wet and windy. At 9AM the wind started to pick up and was now from the East, so I decided we should leave as we were now on a lee shore, meaning we were being blown towards the beach and if the anchor gave we might have problems.
Just as we got the anchor up I noticed a few fishing boats racing directly towards us, I did wonder why, one of them almost hit us, the other close behind, and I was still bringing the anchor on board, they waved and smiled but I didn’t understand what they were saying, which was a shame. We waved and headed off. We had just cleared the island when I realised that they had all been heading to our spot to take shelter from one mother fecker of a squall that was hidden from us, but heading up from the other side of the island, and I had just motored right into it. This was at least as bad as any Force 8 I had been in, thankfully we had no sails up at this point. I managed to swing the bow around and head back to the anchorage, where I waited for 30 minutes to let the worst of it pass. After that we headed onto Penang, but more squalls came and went, we were in poor vis, rain and rough seas for the next 3 hours. At least the boat held up well. I got a headsail, the Staysail, up and that pushed us along at about 6 knots, The Radar helped me see more squalls, but the AIS is of limited use around here as many commercial ships don’t seem to use it.

As we approached Penang the squalls abated and the sea calmed, by the time we went through the old bridge it was turning into a lovely day, hard to reconcile the hot air, blinding sun with the soaking wet oilies and clothes scattered around the cockpit.

Just a word on AIS, if you are following us on AIS you need to be aware that AIS wasn’t designed for the internet, it’s really a ship to ship safety thing, so ships broadcast to each other beacon signals and it’s just like radar, but with more information like GPS Position, name, callsign, speed, course, and some physical boat details. Coast guards and harbour masters also use AIS to monitor shipping, and actually can generate fake AIS signals to simulate hazards for ships to be aware of.
We have the cheapo version AIS-B, which doesn’t give destination, or whether we are anchored/steaming etc.
Also the Internet sites like “Marine Traffic” and “vessel finder” don’t have many listening stations, if any. They rely on feeds from people who have setup AIS receivers and connected them to the internet, these are mostly hobbyists, or universities and consequently coverage can be scratchy. I think there are two different sources of AIS data for the internet in Penang, one of them can’t see me in Batu Uban, but the other can. There are sites like AISHub who merge data from various reporting sites / organisations and then syndicate it back to them
The main point here is that if you don’t see me on AIS then don’t be alarmed, it just means Im not in an area monitored by an AIS internet connected receiver (or possibly we have sunk, in which case you can be alarmed). I would expect when we hit the Pacific, you may not see another AIS signal from me again, other than the fake ones I can generate from my iPhone when I have a signal.

Tomorrow we go hunting for a berth with electricity and move the boat there, before we head off into town for Kathy to experience the joys of Penang.

Paul C.

 

We did our first ‘big shop’ on Monday evening. A big part of it was soft drinks. I think I’m going to seriously deplete the island’s stock of soda water while I’m here. It’s only available in small cans, and there are no bottles of sparkling water to be found anywhere. I get through litres of the stuff, and not just in wine!  Neither of us are eating very much at the moment – not because we feel ill or anything, it’s merely because the heat takes away your appetite.  It will often be well after midday before we’ll have some fruit or toast.  For this reason we bought staples such as bread, eggs, cheese, fruit, pasta, tinned goods and some fruit and veg along with all the cans of soda, diet coke and mineral water.  I like to think I’m not unique in the enjoyment I derive from browsing other countries’ supermarkets. It’s fascinating to check out the variety of different and intriguing foodstuffs and local specialities.

A few products different enough to mention are:

bananas; they are delicious – smaller and creamier and sweeter (possibly due to the fact that they aren’t chilled before sale). We get through lots of them. The apples are nice, too – paler, with a ‘melon-like’ flavour.

coffee; try as we might we have been unable to find ground arabica coffee without the added ingredients of ‘creamer’ and sugar.  The preference here is for white, sweet coffee and the aisles are full of all kinds of brands with 2-in-1 or 3-in-1 variations of this.  Paul did manage to get some beans ground in a nearby Starbucks, but we’ll be bringing packets back from home when we return in January.

bread; disappointingly, the only loaves we’ve found are sliced, and all the varieties, whether wholemeal, seeded or wholegrain are rather sweet and doughy.  I’ve seen butterscotch and chocolate chip flavours, too. Hopefully Paul will keep to his intention to bake some soon :).

Those are minor details in the grand scheme of things, however. Life here continues to be laid back and relaxing. We’ve enjoyed refreshing evening swims in the pool, drinks in the bar ‘watching the world go by’ as well as the antics of the monkeys.  Last night we walked into town to check out a street market that Paul had spotted being set up. It had cooled down by then and it was a nice walk in the dusk. The huge statue of the eagle for which Langkawi is named loomed large on the way, and it was a lot bigger than it seemed in the pictures of it. We also passed a mosque and for the first time (other than on tv programmes) I heard the call to prayer from its loudspeakers.

The market was a delight! The smells emanating from it reminded me of music festivals and the food the vendors were selling looked delicious. We tried some ‘pancake-like’ snacks that we were sure had no meat or fish in them, which were a bit stodgy but nice enough, and some fried potatoes (cold but tasty). I also saw, for the first time, the famous durian fruit which has a reputation for tasting delicious but smelling awful.  I can vouch for the smell – I will report on the taste another time when I feel more brave.  Here’s Anthony Burgess on the subject of the durian from his excellent book ‘The Long Day Wanes’ which is set in Malaysia:

‘Over all presided the fetid, exciting reek of the durian, for this was the season of durians.  Nabby Adams had once been to a durian party. It was like, he thought, eating a sweet raspberry blancmange in the lavatory.’

On that note, I’ll leave it for this entry and finish with some pics of the day.

 

Yes, up early before the heat/rain to get another coat of varnish on the port side. Im now at the bottom of the tin, and thanks to the couriers varnish detecting algorithms in their cargo handling equipment, I wont be getting a delivery anytime soon. I went to the local hardware store to find that the tin I bought a few months ago had not been replenished, and they didn’t plan to. Sometime I just don’t get how they do business here. It seems they stock the shelves randomly, and when it sells they restock with a new random selection. I did manage to get fuse holders and some LED bulbs, so back at the boat I rewired the fans with better cable and fuses in line.
The problem I had, as the surveyor pointed out, is that the previous owner had tacked lightweight cables supplying the fans into the heavy duty cabin lighting connections. Should a fault occur on the fan, like a short, the wire could catch fire before the heavy duty lighting circuit trip kicked in (or out to be precise). I have fitted fuses to two of the fans, two more to go.
Yesterday I re-routed the furling line for the genoa, this is the line you pull on to put the sail away, when I last tried it for real, it was so stiff I had to use a winch, I wasn’t sure at the time how much of this was down to my inexperience with such a huge sail, my weak shoulder, or a problem with the line. Anyway, I think it was a bit of all three, but the line now runs very free, and I have re worked the jerry cans at the side so the line doesn’t rub on them. Can’t wait to get out and try it for real.
We took a walk around Eagle Square later and Kathy took pictures of the God Eagle, I so would love to know what all the little eagles make of it.

Talking of which there where lots of Eagles and Monkeys out and about tonight.
We went into town to a street market, which was fun, lots of food vendors and the usual market stuff, but everyone seemed very happy and the overall mood here is one where everyone seems to be on prozac. Taxi drivers often burst into laughter telling us about life here.

I think tomorrow we have to make plans to get down to Penang before the arts festival there ends.

Paul C.

 

Despite my scepticism about the concept of jet lag, I have to admit I’d been feeling a bit ‘spaced out’ since we arrived here. I thought I’d slipped fairly smoothly into a new sleep pattern considering the time difference and the long journey, and I put my lethargy down to the change in climate.  On Sunday, however, we were both amazed to discover it was 2pm when we woke up. I think I can say I was officially jet-lagged!

The rest of the (short) day was uneventful, and well…lazy (in my case anyway). I spent most of it reading, and researching events taking place in the George Town Festival in Penang, our next port of call.  Paul did some work on the electrical systems on the boat and a few other tasks while Radio 6 music entertained us in the background.

Today we were up at a more respectable hour. Paul got on with some varnishing on deck before it got too hot, while I continued sorting, stowing and throwing in the main cabin. When I went up to help drape a canopy over the boom (to protect us from the sun) that Paul had been repairing (see pic below), I felt the full force of the heat and humidity: I was drenched with sweat in less than a minute! About an hour later though, it went very dark, the wind got up and the rain pelted down for about 20 minutes before it was hot and sunny again. Such squalls are common…and refreshing.

Later in the afternoon we took a taxi into Kuah town to do some shopping. It’s hard to describe how different the shops in the main streets are here. The words ramshackle and higgledy-piggledy come to mind, but they are a delight to go in and browse.  Langkawi is a duty free island so there are shops with huge sections selling chocolate, alcohol, cigarettes etc.  Smaller shops are treasure troves crammed with gifts, houseware and electrical goods.

After picking up a few things (including wine because alcohol isn’t sold in supermarkets),we had a meal in an Indian restaurant. It was a self-serve buffet with the veggie bit separate so I was able to have a tasty vegan meal. We’ll be here for a few more days before travelling to Penang.

 

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Up early, mostly due to the last of the jet-lag, and up out and varnishing. I now have it so I can get the whole of the port side varnished in under an hour.
Next up a trip downtown to show Kathy the shops, I was also able to drop off my old UK iPhone for repair. Kathy chose cutlery, crockery, sharp knives ( a bit worrying) and a plastic bread board, which was the best we could find here. I would hope a nice block of hardwood will come along at some point to replace it, after all we are in the middle of dense tropical rainforests!
From the shops we headed onto dinner at what is claimed to be one of Langkawi’s finest Indian eateries, the Hotel Malaysia, which is an altogether grander sounding name than the place appears. Still lovely food. I had a decent meal there with Tim last time we were here.

After that onto the supermarket for a big shop and taxi back to the boat. All in all a boring day, but last night I did manage to wire up a lot of my NMEA signals, so now my radar knows which way we are going and can give me compass bearings for targets, and the Navtex will only report data for the local area. I had planned to feed the NMEA into the iKommunicate system, until I remembered it’s not here, at the last minute I got scared it might be seized by customs and posted it ahead with some other bits. sadly that parcel never made it out of the UK as it has been rejected by the carrier and is being returned, at a snails pace, to my UK abode. Goodness know when I will be able to get that back here.

Paul C.

As most of yesterday was taken up with getting the boat shipshape, we didn’t venture out until evening.  It’s surprising how quickly a day passes when it’s spent sorting out cupboards, stowing clothes and rearranging bookshelves.  Just before the sun set we went for a drink at the yacht club bar and sat watching the party boats return from their beach jaunts. These are lit up with fairy lights and the dancing and cheering continues on the top deck until the boat is tied up.

Today’s boat trip around the islands south of Kuah was a good chance for me to get the feel of Sister Midnight and to learn the differences in her steering and navigational instruments after the familiarity of Lady Stardust’s equipment.  The only concern I had was that I found it harder to see ahead because of the height of the spray dodger. Luckily, it was so calm, it was easy to spot the jetskis, pleasure boats and fishing boats. It felt great to be back on the water, especially in such a beautiful place. Kuah, like many places in Langkawi, has a legend to explain its name. Apparently, in a Romeo and Juliet-like scenario, a union between a couple was refused by the girl’s parents, and in the resulting family feud, pots and pans were thrown at the island of Belanga Pecah (broken pots). The gravy jug landed at Kuah, which means gravy. In the end, the fathers of the feuding families were turned into mountains, and they are quite beautiful to look at so that all worked out well.  The lush, mountainous islands have eagles soaring over them constantly and as we motored past them, I noticed several pretty orange flowers (in my limited knowledge of all things botanical, I thought they looked like orchids) floating on the water.

After lunch at anchor in a shallow bay in the lee of those mountains, we set off on our return journey.  Apart from a slight worry about possible uncharted rocks in the water, it was a relaxing and enjoyable trip back. The breeze was refreshing, the sun was warm on my skin and it was just too tempting not to lie back and doze for a while.

When we got back, I went to the shower block to wash off all the greasy suncream. The first thing I saw when I entered was a beautiful green lizard on the wall above the sink. It looked just like the ornamental ones people have on their walls, but it scuttled off when I got near.  When I came out of the shower, I was convinced one of the monkeys was about to come in. The noise was so near the door and was just like the sound monkeys make (although when I tried to replicate the sound when explaining it to Paul, he said it was nothing like a monkey). When I looked outside though, there was nothing there. I think whatever it was had moved onto the roof of the block because I heard scampering sounds above me. Things like that really emphasise the feeling that this is an exotic and amazing place to be. Below are some pics of the day.

Up early today for a motor around the the island. Langkawi is made up of loads of smaller islands, and just to the SW of Kuah, where we are berthed is the large island of Dayang Bunting. This in itself has scores of smaller islands off it. So we left without event, a calm slightly dull day, but a light breeze to cool us. We went anticlockwise around the island as shown below.Kathy steered us out of Kuah and soon got the hang of it. Notice the freezer bag used to protect the iPad, our main chart plotter right now.

Later Kathy put together a lovely lunch while we lay at anchor on the new Spade Anchor.

We motored up the eastern side of the island, and this time I took the inshore route, the last time with Tim we stayed offshore for safety, I realised why when I noticed a few uncharted rocks had been marked on the chart ( I know this technically makes them charted, but as they were added by users of the charts, not the makers, one has to be careful assuming how accurate they are. Also if there is one uncharted rock, there might be more! ) As it turned out we missed them all and arrived back in the marina about 5pm.
My first attempt at berthing failed, I was just a little to far off the pontoon for Kathy to feel safe stepping ashore, so like a pro I reversed back out the slip, and had another go. This time I over compensated and almost parked the boat on the pontoon finger. All was well, and thanks to the fact these pontoons have nice plastic fender strips all along the edges no harm was done, we just slid along and Kathy stepped ashore and tied us off. I need to work on this, the problem is I just cant see the pontoon finger from the helm once I get close. As Mr Wilde might have said in these circumstances, either that spray hood goes or I do.

Just realised I didn’t explain the title, I lost the bucket overboard while getting water to flush the anchor chain down. The deck wash pump didn’t seem to work, but thinking about it now, I may have turned the seacock off for it (Duh). Anyway, we set about the bucket overboard drill and due to the fact the water was calm and warm, the bucket survived, it only took 3 attempts. I wouldn’t have fancied his chances back home though.

Paul C.

Had a nice lie in today before tackling the new AIS antenna, I had to route the antenna cable through the boat to the chart table. This is not as easy as it sounds, and involves clearing out the quarter berth and also the stern lockers, and quite a bit of crawling around in confined spaces. Thankfully the job is done, but I’m unable to check it works here as there are no AIS stations collecting the data and putting it onto the net. This won’t be a problem once we travel a bit. I can see enough of the other boats in the area to make me think all is fine.

The old anchor sits on the pontoon waiting for me to find a new home for it. I’m thinking of putting it in the bottom of the stern locker, keeping the weight low is best, however it’s hard work to get into that space, and when I next need the anchor, it will be in a storm situation and probably not the best time to be emptying out lockers and hauling a huge weight around. I hadn’t appreciated how big it was until I had to manhandle it.

We are still spending lots of time stowing stuff away, Kathy has been re-arranging the galley, I have been assigned lockers on the port side of the v-berth, I have two lockers in which to keep all my clothes for the next 4 years, so that’s the first locker sorted, not sure what to keep in the other one 😉

Last night we saw a gang of monkeys traversing along some overhead power cables, I was hoping Kathy would be impressed by seeing some monkeys here, I had no idea they had planned such a turnout to welcome her. I have a bit of video below.

So todays work stopped us getting out, hopefully tomorrow we can go for a motor/sail around the islands.

Paul C.

 

It’s all been rather wonderful so far.  I was expecting crippling heat and humidity but although it’s hot (31 degrees) there is enough of a breeze to temper it. Paul says it’s decidedly chilly compared to how it was when he was here last.

For most of the journey here we were in air conditioned environments, so it wasn’t until we arrived at Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday evening that I felt the temperature for any length of time. The hotel we stayed in that night was to be a treat after a 24 hour journey with only sporadic periods of sleep.  For no apparent reason, other than he ‘must have liked the look of us’ according to Paul, the receptionist upgraded us to an open plan suite at no extra cost. Five star splendour indeed.

We only had a few hours before we needed to leave for our flight to Langkawi, so after making the most of the wide range of fabulous-looking dishes on offer for breakfast (six different flavours of porridge, dim sung, sushi and miso soup to name but a few), we headed out into the city.  Kuala Lumpur is a bustling, noisy and traffic-choked capital city.  It was quite a feat to cross the busy main road outside the hotel, even with the aid of a crossing – and the petrol fumes were overpowering in the heat.  We set off for Chinatown, about 20 minutes’ walk away in the old part of the city, being careful to avoid the deep chasms next to the pavements which act as drainage gutters. No one seems to worry about health and safety here.  On the way, we paid a visit to the Hindu Temple below. Inside the peaceful courtyard, incense was burning and people were praying – a welcome ambience after the crowded streets.

From here we walked to Petaling Street in the heart of Chinatown.  It was late morning by then but Paul said it was nowhere near as busy as it would get later on.  Still it was a feast for the eyes, ears and nose. Vendors were selling food of all descriptions. I saw the frog porridge Paul had put on an earlier blog entry, as well as other unusual (to our eyes) fare.  It’s common practice here for pet cats to be kept in cages.  The two we saw had signs on them informing people that they were not for sale – they were pets!  Later we discovered that this is done to keep them safe from predators and to stop them running away. I guess the signs were to stop people getting the wrong idea.  The pic below shows the narrow, chaotic and wonderful street that I would loved to have had longer to explore.

At about 1pm, a taxi took us to the airport for the hour long flight to the island of Langkawi. On arrival, laden with a trolley full of heavy luggage (we’d had to pay £8 excess baggage for being just 1kg overweight), we looked for a taxi to take us to the marina.  The way this works here is that you go to the taxi stand within the airport, tell them where you want to go, pay for the journey up front and receive a piece of paper with the driver’s registration number on it. Outside, you wait in a line while a member of staff offers help to anyone who might be bemused by the operation. It was quite amusing to see everyone clutching their little pieces of paper and bobbing up and down to see approaching cars’ number plates.

We arrived at the marina at about 6 30 and made the most of the daylight (it gets dark at 7 30 all year round here) to get our stuff on to the boat.  Sister Midnight, our home for the next four months is wonderful. She’s a lot more spacious than Lady Stardust and Paul has worked so hard to make it clean, inviting and comfortable.  I was delighted to go down in to the air conditioned cabin and check out the facilities, the galley and all the extra cupboards and lockers – mentally planning where to put things. This is an ongoing job but luckily there’s no great rush at the moment. After a quick trip to a nearby supermarket for basic provisions, and a light snack as it was getting late, we did just enough sorting for the night’s needs before a much-needed sleep. Below is a picture of some monkeys I was thrilled to see on our way out this evening. There were several more following them and Paul managed to get them on video.

 

Well we are back at the boat now, Kathy seems to like it, the journey was fine. I was very relieved to have got everything through the customs without issue, it was all supposed to be free of duty, but they can be difficult with boat parts sometimes. I also had bags of wholemeal flour which looked well dodgy in their clear plastic freezer bags. The boat was just as I left it, AirCon running, no smells, and no sign of life. By the time we had unpacked and picked up some basic stuff from the local supermarket it was nearly midnight, so off to bed.

This morning we collected the new anchor from the marina office and I fitted it, now I have made two new problems, where to put the old 60lb CQR, and how to make the new Spade anchor not rub on the whisker stays.

Getting the old anchor off and the new one on was hard work on my poor broken shoulder, either I’m becoming an old man quickly or 60lb is a lot of weight to dangle on a chain.

I will leave the details of the trip so far to Kathy who is writing her blog entry as I speak.
Paul C.