Sorry, it has been a while since the last blog. We are in Malaysia, participating in the Sail Malaysia Rally. We are not rally people par se, but we have met a lot of really great people in the Sail2Indonesia Rally and decided to keep going with the group through Malaysia. It was super cheap to join the rally and has been well worth it. We have however been very busy, so here is a brief overview of what we have been up to since the last post.

Malaka: Malaka was a fun little town that we anchored off of for 2 nights. We went to a few museums and did some shopping. I think we may have spent a bit too much time shopping because the boys were all a bit frustrated by the end. Dean bought all the kids bird whistles and I think it was a revenge thing. The whistles were super annoying, fair enough. Malaka has lots of small restaurants and we went out for a nice dinner with Allure, Dream Maker, and YouYou. During the evening you can rent a tri-shaw and be driven around town. They are totally decked out and have blaring music. Some themes we saw were Hello Kitty, Super Heroes, Frozen, and Minions, there were many more and although we didn't do it it did look like fun.

Port Dickson: We went into the marina at Port Dickson. We just felt safer leaving the boat during the day. On this part of the Malaysian coast storms can whip up fast in the afternoon and be quite strong. That and the marina was inexpensive. It also had a pool which was great as the heat during the day here is almost unbearable. We spent a few afternoons swimming. One funny thing was that this area is very Muslim and there were signs around the pool for appropriate swim wear. I'm not sure if it was fortunate or unfortunate that my one piece made the cut. The rally sponsored a great day tour to Kuala Lumpur. We started at a Hindu Temple in a cave. Really interesting and with 270 steps some good exercise as well. We spent a few hours at the Petronas Towers shopping and also some time walking around China Town. A nice day and the bus was air conditioned. We did another tour with the rally which turned out to be a bit of a dud, due to some heavy down pouring of rain, but we did have a nice lunch sponsored by a local village.

The next rally stop was Pangkor Marina. The owner of Pangkor Marina actually gave each boat 5 days of free dockage. Extremely generous. He also sponsored a lovely dinner complete with a live band. Kudos to Pangkor Marina for extreme generosity. We had decided to haul Flour Girl out for her bi-annual bottom job. The haul out was one of the most reasonably priced in the area and the yard is clean. The big issue is the heat, it is HOT here. We were scheduled for a 2pm haul out but there was a big tour to an island the same day. Ron from Always Saturday was not going on the tour and volunteered to help David with the haul out so that Zack and I could go on the tour. The tour was great, a Buddhist Temple, a boat yard building local boats and the most amazing lunch. Lunch was at a local restaurant on the beach. It was all seafood but beautifully presented as courses. It was amazing, there were at least 8 artfully presented courses and it was a shame that David wasn't there to enjoy it. Totally wasted on the vegetarian. It was great but it took to long for the kids to be able to sit and enjoy. They made it to course 3 and then went to play on the beach. Zack and his buddies were having such a fantastic time that we decided to stay an extra 2 hours so they could play. David got the boat out fine and over the next couple of days we put 3 coats of bottom paint on. It was our quickest haul out to date and we were back in the water 3 days later with a clean bottom and the max prop back on. There was a bring your own barbecue pot luck that same evening. It was 2 of the cruisers birthdays so I baked a cake for the party. Andy on Quintessa hired the band from the previous night to play as it was his wife's birthday and a great time was had by all despite the torrential rain. James, the manager of Pangkor Marina came out and was even cooking up some bbq for the cruisers. We will have to highly recommend Pangkor Marina to anyone following us.

Next stop Panang. Panang is a big tourist destination in Malaysia. We all anchored out and proceeded under the bridge as a flotilla early in the morning. It was a sight with around 50 boats coming up the river and into the anchorage together. There was lots to do in Penang and we spent the first day walking around Georgetown looking for Penang's famous street art. It's a cool little city and there is art everywhere. most of it is random and there are maps but it is fun to just look and discover it. Penang is also famous for its street food and we had a delicious lunch at a side walk street hawker. We made it back to the marina just in time to get ready and head in for the welcome dinner. It was held at a fort and unfortunately our bus got there a bit late. It was also raining so we missed the tour of the fort. Zack and the rest of the kids had a great time running around exploring the fort and acting like pirates. The dinner was well done with lots of tiny intricate appetizers and lots of options. There were even 2 street food stations set up to showcase some local foods. It was pouring rain so we caught the early bus back and called it a night. Maria and I took the boys to Escape Adventure Park. It is a zip lining course park. We had done a similar one in New Zealand and Zack loved it. The courses combine zip lining with other activities like walking a tight wire or crossing rickety bridges at high altitudes. You are clipped in with a harness so it is super safe, but if you pretend that you are not harnessed it is fun. Our first go was on the flying trapeze. You are harnessed in with a belt so again safe. You were meant to swing out and hook your legs under the bar and then dismount with a back flip. Easy enough, but none of our group was able to do it. Given a next shot the boys would have gotten it but there was other adventures to be had. We headed over to Monkey Business which was a tower with 8 different zip lines. We got our harnesses on and watched the safety movie. You have to choose your course so Zack chose course 3, the most difficult. We went up and the guy running it didn't want to let Zack on it because he thought he was too young. I told him that Z has done lots of zip lining and he eventually let him on when I promised to help him. Zack went first and it was obvious that he did not need any help from me. We did the slides next. Supposedly it is snow sliding on a track with no snow. You have to haul up your tube which is a lot heavier that a real sledding tube. It's a fairly long, steep hill and once was enough in the hot sun. We did go back later to do the second track. We went to the maze next but after waiting for half an hour for some girls that were lost in the maze we gave it up and moved on. The local Malaysian girls don't seem to be the most adventurous lot and there were a few occasions during the day when we had to wait while they freaked out on the challenges. Frustrating to watch because the entire park was extremely safe. Next up jumping off of a 12 meter tower. Looks super scary because you climb a tower and jump off. That and there was a local girl standing there screaming for 5 minutes before she jumped. (I will give her credit because she did eventually jump.) You are in fact harnessed and the descent is slow and controlled. Zack, Luke, and George all walked up and jumped straight off, no drama. I have a fear of jumping from heights so as I was being hooked in I told the guy that he may have to just push me off. He pushed me before I even knew what was happening and I was off and on the ground in a few seconds No problem. We went to do the Flying Lemur zip line next and poor Zack did not make the 40 Kilo weight limit. He was pretty upset as Luke and George were able to go. We went and did the Tarzan Swing, FUN and then went to the other zip line. You needed to be 60 kilos for that one and I don't even weigh that. So back to the zip line tower at Monkey Business. We headed up to level 2 to do the other course and after that met up with the Allure crew. We went up to level 3 to do another course and the attendant would not let Zack on it because he was too small. Poor kid was pretty frustrated by now. We re did the same level 3 course and Zack was pissed so he took off and did the course in about 5 minutes. I think he just wanted to prove to the guy he could do anything, which he can. The boys then headed over to the climbing wall and we finished the day on a happy note and all was good. We took the bus home and as we were walking down the road, hoping for a long hot shower, we met the rest of our crew heading for the hawker markets to eat dinner. We turned around and off we went to dinner. The food markets are great and we are eating out almost every night . A nice meal is about $1.50 each and there are lots of choices from Asian to Indian and even pizza. Over beers at dinner we decided to meet early the next morning to take a train up to the temple and hike down. We got to the train we saw the temple, It was lovely and up in the clouds so nice and cool with a great view once the clouds cleared. We started to hike down the road and Zack found a dead snake and a gnarly centipede which was alive. The walk proved too long and hot so we flagged down a truck and jumped a ride. We ended up at a botanical garden and had some ice-cream while trying to keep the monkeys at bay. They were pretty aggressive. We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring another Buddhist Temple. It was huge and the most intricate temple we have seen as yet. Another great adventure with some great friends.