Back in Malaysia again.
22 May 2014 | Langkawi, Malaysia
Bill
We are back in Malaysia again after about 6 weeks north in Thailand. We made it to Telaga and dropped the anchor outside the harbor and spent the night planning on heading in to the marina in Puff to get checked in the next day. Instead, we pulled up the anchor and headed for Kuah, the main city on Langkawi. We needed to do a bit of shopping and get our Celcom phone back up and running as well as our dongle for internet. We dropped off Puff at the Royal Langkawi Yacht Club(8 ringitt fee) and walked down to Immigration, Customs and the Harbor Master offices. All were located at the ferry dock so checking in was easy. Strangely, when we were in Thailand, they never stamped our passports in or out. They stamped a separate piece of paper and stapled it to the passport. We grabbed a cab and headed for Celcom. We had him wait as cabs can be scarce. Once settled, we headed back for the local grocery store--Billion. A sorry excuse for a grocery store with absolutely horrible veggies. We'd forgotten that once we check in to a port, we have to checkout for our next port. So, while Tracy shopped, I had the cab driver take me back to the ferry dock and I did the checking out procedures listing our next stop at Johor Bahru. We may stop along the way but not normally at a city big enough for a check in. We planned on taking on diesel at the yacht club but after seeing what they have as a fuel dock--stuck in amongst all the boats and occupied by a big motor yacht with wind blowing across it. Given it's bad location and with all the boats around it, we decided to go back to Telaga(three hours) the next day and get our fuel there. We would be needing about 400 liters. The fuel at the Royal Langkawi ran $3.20 ringitts per liter. It was only $2.95 at Telaga and they have a better, much easily accessible dock. Yes, we chewed through three hours of fuel--about 2.5 gallons, but we just didn't like the dock at the Royal Langkawi Yacht club. We spent the evening in the harbor downloading episodes of Survivor, Castle, and the final episodes of NCIS and the Amazing Race. We had more things to watch once the Sun went down. We pulled up our muddy anchor about 0830 and headed off for Telaga getting there about 1130. We loaded up our tanks--me outside with the fuel filter and Tracy inside watching it come up in the tanks with our dip stick. No fancy gauges with buttons to push to see how much fuel we have. Just unscrew the port on the top of the tank and stick in a wooden dowel. Works every time and no chance of it breaking. When the tanks were full, I headed for the fuel station above the Marina and paid our bill and got several bags of the all important ICE. We headed out about 1230 making our way southeast for a special anchorage we found on our way north during our first time here. We are wedged between a tall long island and shore with a nice channel that is quite protected from bad weather and with the hills on both sides of us being so high, we only have Sun from about 1000 to 1600. A blessing as it is still hot here. We spent the night watching TV in the cockpit while having snacking on Sour Cream and Chive Rice crackers topped with Smoked Salmon, Cream Cheese and Caviar. It's not all rough out here. Oh, we had a nice bottle of Shiraz to go with it. Thank you Christine for the recipe and the caviar. Early this morning, another fishing boat arrived. This one uses nets to get fish. With three men on board, one motored in and then stopped and rowed(like in Venice, Italy) while another of the fishermen dropped the net overboard. The third man took a long bamboo pole and slowly beat the water in front of the net, driving the fish into it. The man at the engine, slowly revved the engine along the way around to further drive the fish into the net. They slowly went around in circles till they had gone around twice. Then they stopped and slowly pulled in net pulling out what fish they caught. Those went into a bucket.. We didn't see them catch to many fish. Off they went about an hour later. Fascinating to watch the steps they do as they fish. Another boat just left and all they did was drop the net overboard and let it drift and then pull it back in. We plan on being here till Saturday since it's bad luck to start a voyage on Friday and we want to visit a great shell beach we found on our first time here plus I need to put on my scuba tanks and clean the propeller again. This time, I'm taking down some Lanocote to put on the propeller. It does a great job at keeping the growth off.