Gust Ghost
12 May 2016 | Approaching Chukai
May the 4th be with you.
Thursday 5 May 2016
Shayne on Champagne Charlie blabbed over VHF that we were going to a dive hotspot on SW Tioman Island and six other boats showed up. Never mind, we all had a great time splashing around in the water looking at lots of sand and a bit of rock and coral aswarm with hoards of itty bitty fish. The diving was pretty blah, but there is a rather nice resort on shore where everyone went to support the local economy and have a great time. We all head into the big town of Tekek, a Rally rally point, tomorrow morning where at least some of us will dive several wrecks in the bay.
Friday
Rod Featherstone (Feathers) on Psycho Puss, who found a $1200 drone for only $800 (no worries, it's Aussie dollars), rousted us out of bed this morning at the unconscionable hour of 0815 to say he would be taking an aerial shot of the fleet at 0900. Man, what one does to avoid everyone discovering he's a misanthrope. Anyway, the little mosquito sounding thing got so far away that he was asking if anyone could see it. Jan honed in with her bat-like hearing to point it out. Hope the pictures are good.
Sunday
Engaged in what was billed as "jungle trekking" to a waterfall with cool (as in temperature) swimming hole. True as far as it went: hot, steamy, not a breath of wind and jungle complete with monkeys. However, most of the 2 1/2 hours necessary to finally enjoy chilling our wobbly bits was spent climbing at a 30 to 45 degree angle up the side of a mountain. But for the pickup truck that brought us back home we might still be bobbing about, afflicted with terminal pruning, but happily reveling in hypothermia.
Wednesday
Despite Tioman being a fun, laid-back place (not to mention having duty-free adult beverages), one good snorkel and 3 pukey dives in the bay inspired moving on so we motored (has anyone mentioned that, concerning wind, there is zero, nil, naught, zilch, nix, zip, nada, diddly-squat, none?) 7 NM north to Pulau Tulai where was excellent snorkeling at Coral Garden and diving at Malang Rock: blue water with vis 15+ meters, swim-throughs, cool fish, lots of coral and a green turtle.
Thursday
En route to Chukai, good news: found 4 star dive site, Tiger Rock, in open water which was, oddly enough, right where published Lat/Long indicated it should be, with help of dense swarms of fish above it. Bad news: Although current was just manageable, visibility sucked, badly. Canyons amidst the rockpiles hurried departure in case diving to free them would be necessary.
Karma, no doubt wanting to balance the scales, then gave us a completely unexpected 8 - 10 knot breeze on the starboard beam justifying carrying around those big white flappy things. Only sounds were from wind, wave and unmuffled engines of trawlers that took aim at us. At least they can't sneak up.
Friday
Now approaching Chukai at daybreak, ghosting along at 3.5 kts. No rush as the river is shallow and it's just past low tide. Except for 3 hours during second watch when shift occurred from port tack to starboard, sailed all afternoon and night. As there is no wind in Malaysia at this time, investigation is underway to determine cause.
Jack