Finally into Langkawi
03 April 2014 | Island of Langkawi
Bill
After 456 miles, we are finally anchor off the coast in the south area of Langkawi. We pulled up the anchor this morning after a late night of lightening and thunder. Started looking really bad about 2200 so we put up the sides of the bimini and dodger and closed it off. We knew the rain was coming just not when. We were anchored off a nice little island called Palau Bidang(05 44.936N 100 17.453E), at least that is what it is called in one of our books, Another book calls it something else. As we came into the island yesterday, it looked the perfect spot for a house with a nice sandy beach and lots of coconut trees. We saw where someone had built a couple of houses but all was now deserted. Oh, for a couple of hundred thousand, it could be a great place for a hide a way. Someone had even built a retaining wall to keep the ocean from chewing up the land along the coast. With the flat area along the east side, it was even protected from the western blows that can ravage the area. You could even get cell phone and internet there.
We headed northwest into a breeze for several hours before the wind slowly made it's way just enough out of the southwest to allow us to sail and sail we did. As we came close to the south side of Langkawi, we were greeted by a flotilla of close to 20 fishing boats. We'd dropped the sails and were motoring in the last couple of miles past the fishing boats when one decided to be a jerk and kept trying to hit us. We tried turning to port and he would turn to starboard so he could come closer to us. We'd turn to starboard and he would turn to port, again to scare us. What a jerk, In the end, he was lined up to hit us broadside as we made our way in. Tracy held her course and eventually he backed off and turn to port and passed behind us. Not a nice way to end the days journey. As we came closer to the island, another boat just had to speed up and cross in front of us instead of just maintaining his course and pass behind us. In the end though, we found a nice place to drop the anchor and settle in for the night. We are a bit exposed to the south but since we have found that the winds drop off at night, we should be just fine.
Last night was a late night light show with lightening and thunder crashing around us. Some less than a quarter mile. All the computers were put in the oven to protect them should we get hit. No reason the take a chance of loosing them. Once the show was over, the rains started and they went on till the early morning. Our decks were nice and clean by sun up. We had thought to explore the island but with the light show last night, we decided to just pull up the anchor and move on. We can stop in there when we head south in a couple of months.
Tomorrow, it's time to explore Langkawi.