Farther south.
18 February 2014 | Palau Tinggi, Malaysia
Bill
We pulled up the anchor this morning after a rolly night in the anchorage. The wind finally slowed down but the swells just kept on coming throwing us around quite a bit. Tracy ended up sleeping(sort of) on the port settee in the main cabin while I stayed in the stern cabin. I can tolerate if a bit better than she can. As we headed south around some islands, we came upon two tugs each pulling a barge north. One full of trailers or containers and the other coal. One had on his AIS while the second didn't. We changed our course and allowed the first to pass on our port side. Once he was past us, the wind had come up enough that we could roll out the genoa sail at the bow to give us a bit more speed. We wanted to get across the seconds track so we could head for the island(Palau Tinggi) where we were planning on spending tonight. With the genoa sail out and engine going we cleared him with lots of room to spare. He was several miles away from us when we started crossing his track. We shut off the engine and were making about 5.5 knots under just the genoa so that was just fine and lot quieter. It took about 4 hours to make the crossing but we got in safe and sound to the harbor on the south end of Palau Tinggi and dropped the anchor in 20 feet of water. Tracy defrosted some hamburger and we had barbecued hamburgers done on the grill on the stern. We have found a second reason to go to Brunei other than their cheap fuel. The Sultan owns one of the largest cattle ranches in Australia and imports a great deal of his beef to Brunei. The chubs we bought run about $4.10 Brunei for 500 grams of beef. That's works out to about $3.30US for a bit over a pound of hamburger that is so lean that you have to hold it together to try and turn it. It's hard to even turn it over to salt and pepper it before it's cooked. We had found that beef is hard to find in Malaysia, especially hamburger(called Minced Beef here)so we bought a good bit of it but it's going fast. Sure hope mainland Malaysia has some. Chicken and fish are the main staple of life here in Southeast Asia.