Tuesday, 2nd June 2009

Last Wednesday at Tioman we had a leisurely day having a look around the little village of Teluk Tekek, checking in with the Harbour Master etc. and then attending the welcoming function for the Rally participants which consisted of a few speeches and a light meal. After the function several of us found a nice bar for a cool beer and then wondered down the street to find a reasonably priced eating place.

The next morning the Tioman Development Authority organized local games for the rally participants with the locals. As I wasn't well I had a quiet day on board and Dave caught up with a few little jobs.

The following day we did our Port clearance with the Harbour Master, Customs & Immigration and at 3.30pm we up anchored and had a lovely sail (a rarity) 7miles further north to a lovely bay and anchorage for the night at Tulai Island where a group of us had sundowners ashore on a nice little sandy beach.
Next morning, (30th) we were up and away just after 6am as we had a long haul to the
next rally event so we virtually motored the 54 miles to an anchorage just north of the
Pahang River along with about dozen other rally boats, arriving just after 5pm. At 8am we ran into a storm for an hour or so and had between 25-30 knots on the nose, heavy rain for awhile and thunder but no lightning that we could see. One of the boats in the rally has had to go back to Singapore as they got hit by lightning on the day we arrived at Tioman and lost all their electrical equipment. Fortunately they are insured and there have been quite a few boats we know who have been hit. It is one of my biggest fears so we try and disconnect everything when we see lightning close by.

On Sunday we motor sailed the 17 miles up to the next anchorage off Teluk Chempedek, Kuantan for the next rally event. Twenty of the 40 yachts in the rally have come further north, while the remainder have opted to stay around Tioman and meet up again in Kuching, Borneo. All 20 boats of us were ashore at 5pm for the official welcome by the Pahang Tourism Board and the State Minister of Tourism and we were given a lovely meal, with some entertainment under a marquee just along from the Hyett Hotel. A motor cycle club, called the Marshalls was also at the function and afterwards gave some of us a ride on their bikes to see a little of the town. I was on the back of a great big Honda which was pretty comfortable! Most of the bikes were pretty classy ones, including quite a few Harley Davidson's. Five of us then found a little Irish pub up the street from the beach where we had a nice cold beer.

Kuantan town is 6km from Teluk Chempedak so yesterday morning we went in a taxi with Graeme, Lorraine & Alice from Katani 11 to a shopping mall in Kuantan and we girls had a look around while Graeme & Dave went off and did the man thing trying to find boat and hardware stores. We were back at the boat just after 1.30pm for a sandwich, swim and then had to be ashore again at the Hyett for an hour's bus trip to Sungai Lembing which had the largest, longest, deepest subterranean tin mine in the world. The deepest tunnel was 700 metres below the ground with the overall length of the tunnels being 322 kilometres! The mine was owned by a British company but closed in 1986 when tin prices collapsed. At one time there were 1000 tin mines in Malaysia and now there are only three. We visited the museum which in its heyday was the mine manager's residence which is a lovely building. After spending an hour in the museum we were then given a light meal and sweet tea (the Malaysians sure like the sweet drinks).

We had a great tour guide on the trip and he was certainly a mine of information. Kuantan is the capital of Pahang State which is the biggest state (or province as we would call it in NZ) in Peninsular Malaysia. Kuantan is still only a town but has a population of 420,000 and is reputed to be one of the cleanest cities in Malaysia.
It has lovely trees and gardens and borders the Kuantan River. We arrived down by the jetty on the Kuantan River and were hosted for dinner by the Kuantan Municipal Council with two of the principals of the Council at our table, one of whose son is a 2nd year student at Otago Medical School. He won a scholarship and the Malaysian Government is paying for his university fees there, approximately 1,000,000RM. We had a nice meal (dinner starting at around 8.15pm) and were entertained by a male & female singer who were very good and then a performance for about an hour by a local dance group doing some of their national dances etc. The costumes were amazing, the girls were beautiful and they were very polished and we all enjoyed watching them. Finally beat the surf and the roll to get back to our boat at 11pm.

As we were anchored off the beach and there was a bit of a roll at Chempedak we decided to move on this morning and we have had a mixture of motor sailing and sailing and along with three other boats we are now up the Kemaman River for an anchorage tonight having arrived at 3.45pm. Nice and calm but very muddy so no swimming today but we are all having sundowners on Baker Street (Dave & Barbara) later on.