11/29/2008, Kuhla Lumpur
We'd sailed 2 uncomfortable days with the wind and current on our nose and expected the same out of Port Dickson. But the current was with us and after 2 hours of 4 knots Sora sped up to almost 10 for the rest of the day and made our 60 nm to Port Klang by 2PM. We'd dodged numerous fish traps and nets - had to turn 180 and head for the big boys' (large container ships) channel 3 times when we were surrounded by nasty little white buoys marking the nets. But we made it without mishap 'cause we had young eyes on watch for their flags, sticks, buoys, bottles, and Styrofoam markers. We were happy to make the port early only to find it filthy with the Yacht Club on the other side of the river from our pontoon slip. We're at the mercy of the little launch that runs on the hour sometimes whenever we wish to leave Sora.
You can tell that we are in the big city. The club is run down with a gym consisting of 1 machine covered with cobwebs, a shower that drips instead of spraying and no towels, pool with plywood deck, but it does have a lovely huge dining room open on 3 sides that offers good reasonable food with a little bar nestled in the corner. The employees are not friendly and their English is more difficult to understand than all the other places we've been in Malaysia.
No matter, Jeni is having a blast - so nice to have appreciative youth for us oldies to play with. She brings a fresh dynamic to our music games and is a better window shopper than I. After a fast spin through 2 huge malls, we were fortunate enough to wrangle tickets to the Skybridge at the Petronas Towers, once the tallest buildings in the world. The Captain's mention of the fact that we'd traveled 16,000 miles to visit these vertiginous twins must have prompted the official to part with just 3 more tickets. We ate heartily of Korean Barbeque grilled right at our table in the mall beside the towers and emerged into the night with the buildings, fountains, and pools lighted and twinkling as if it were New Year's Eve.
Cheers to cosmopolitan cities, magnificent views, and SHOPPING, KK
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11/25/2008, The Straits of Melaka
Melaka retains the architectural styles of the Portuguese, Dutch, Indian, British, and Chinese to form the true "soul of the Malay nation". By the beginning of the 16th century, tiny Melaka's population had grown to 100,000 with 2,000 ships in port thanks to the spice trade and her strategic location between India and China.
What a hidden treasure Melaka is! Thanks to our buddies on "Barefeet" we enjoyed a couple of nights at the Puri. This was formerly an old Chinese Rubber Baron's mansion at the turn of the century that had been remade into a boutique hotel keeping the charming parts of antiquity while affording us the modern conveniences. There were lily pads and koi pools in the breakfast room, a wall of water in the open air bar, flowers bushes and plants everywhere especially hanging from the exposed hundred year old brick walls - Fung Shui you know.
We not only read every piece of information in their "history room" but visited at least 6 other museums in town, remaining at the Cheng Ho location for over 3 hours - now that's an accomplishment for the Captain.
I'd have expected him to linger in the Maritime museum but since we'd read the book, "1421", (a fascinating treatise proving that the majority of our known world was discovered by the Chinese explorer, Chen Ho, in the early 1400s) we enjoyed this museum immensely. 'Course we had the perfect guide - a Chinese gentleman with a cultured British accent who had not read the book and was very impressed that we had and the fact that we were circumnavigating.
When we museumed out, Jeni had a blast shopping down the alleys of the village and visiting the ornate temples of the Buddhist, Hindu, Taoist, Confucianism, and Muslim mosques.
Harpers Restaurant, wonderfully situated in an old Chinatown godown was strong on character and atmosphere as well as offering the best food we've had in Malaysia so far! We'd found a local pub on the East side of the river where we'd seen a baby monitor lizard swimming as we sipped the local Jaz beer so it didn't bother us that we didn't see the huge 6 foot lizard that lives below Harpers. But we did watch a diver searching for coins just across the river where they were excavating the 600 year old river bed to build another museum. We'd thought he was looking for some delicacy for dinner but our waiter said he'd found valuable coins and the day before and was looking for more.
Cheers to history, civilization, exploration, and fine food! KK
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11/15/2008, Johor Bahru
Sail Malaysia began their first event. What a class act they are, just the opposite from Sail Indonesia! Had a briefing Friday afternoon where we received gift bags with t-shirts, hats, flags, and a burgee as well as very detailed information about sailing up Malaysia's west coast and her marinas. And they fed us at the briefing - beverages, sandwiches, noodles, and mystery desserts!
Saturday we boarded our A/C luxury bus at 8 AM for a whirlwind tour of the area - with a police escort no less. Felt extremely privileged traveling with sirens holding traffic while we ran red lights. We were photographed on the steps of Sultan Ibrahim Administration Building with local dignitaries and visited museums, a national park, a gorgeous Muslim mosque built in British style, a colorful Hindu temple, and had prawn lunch in Kukup, a fishing village in the Southwest point of Malaysia's peninsula.
Then in the afternoon we visited a tapioca cracker factory (had snacks), a bee farm (ate fresh honeycomb with wax), and were entertained by traditional dancers at a home stay while we had "tea" with delicacies prepared by the local ladies. Our terrific tour guide was Eeleen who made the country live for us as she described the country's agriculture as we drove through it and discussed the distant mountains where we might see Sumatran rhinos, clouded leopards, tigers, sun bear, honey deer, black panther, wild elephant, hundreds of birds, 6 types of monkey, and the orangutan of course.
Got back just in time to clean up for our barbeque dinner! The welcoming ceremonies took only 5 minutes. They were smart enough to feed us as the entertainment began - more traditional dancers alternating with a rock band. Chicken and shrimp on the grill, a huge salad, Malay rice and noodle dishes, and FREE beer. If they keep feeding us like this, we can cut provisioning in half.
The entire day we were treated as if we were royalty, enjoying their hospitality with no surprise hidden costs to us as we'd experienced before. Sail Malaysia photographed and interviewed 120 very happy cruisers who I'm sure will be included in their "Visit Malaysia 2009" brochure.
Cheers to new countries, cultures, and gastronomic treats! KK
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11/02/2008, Singapore
But to get there sailboats must play "Frogger" crossing the Singapore Straits with the 250 gargantuan ships moving into and out of port at any time of day, plus many times that number anchored awaiting their slots to enter. So we had to identify those moving and those waiting - no mean feat dealing with the strong currents running between the islands either assisting or slowing our passage.
Amidst towering skyscrapers and hundreds of shopping malls we found incredibly weird statutes, parks, nature preserves, lush tropical greenery, and wide sidewalks teeming with flowers along the boulevards. Consequently we walked for days visiting Raffles Hotel for an original Singapore Sling (best to hang out there photographing the tourists drinking the concoction which tasted like red Kool-Aid but built up a bar bill of S$170), museums, electronics malls, Little India, Chinatown, restaurants nestled by the river, and the world class zoo. Two days after we visited the zoo a deranged man entered the White Tiger enclosure with a bucket on his head and became tiger dinner. So the tiger exhibit is closed until further notice!
We spent 2 weeks berthed at Raffles Marina being spoiled by daily newspapers delivered to the boat, free WIFI on Sora, huge free form swimming pool with boulders and waterfalls, gym, bowling alley, showers, Laundromat, efficient helpful employees and a choice of Bistro, Pub, or full service restaurant all within a few minutes' walk from Sora. To ease our journey downtown a complimentary bus took us to the nearest Mass Rapid Transit station where we were whisked every 4 minutes to the interior of the city for pennies.
We reveled in the luxury of this tidy city but are looking forward to the start of our new adventure in Malaysia, another melting pot of tradition and culture. KK
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10/17/2008, Kumai
I didn't realize that cruisers were a superstitious lot but they are, perhaps with good reason. We remained in Darwin an extra day to sail on safe Saturday and had a great week's sail to Bali. We left Lovina on Saturday successfully missing the hundreds of fish traps between Bali and Bawean. We forgot and left Kumai on Friday!
Weather reports said that we'd have no wind for the next 3 days so we were prepared for a nice long motor sail. Within 15 minutes of lifting anchor we had enough wind to raise the sails and sped downriver until the jib blew out - the head strap broke and ripped out the bolt rope. After dragging the jib from the chocolate brown river, Terry raised the stay sail and we were off again. Meanwhile S/V Barefeet, our friends from Boston with whom we were traveling, dropped their main when they lost its twist shackle. By now we were in the mouth of the Kumai where the river currents fought with the Java Sea agitating the water like a washing machine for hours making boat travel unpleasant to say the least.
After 2 days of rough seas, in which Barefeet's spreader ripped her head sail, a 35 knot thunderstorm flattened the waters into the Caribbean colored South China Sea. We sailed comfortably for the next few days with only huge containerships and barges traversing the shipping lanes to worry about. Conditions were so pleasant we were able to make repairs and receive a few hitch-hiking birds that remained with us for days until we sighted land again.
We caught our breath at Nongsa Point Marina where we checked out of Indonesia and made preparations to cross the busiest container channel in the world, The Singapore Straits.
Cheers to never initiating a journey on Friday! KK
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