The Malacca Straits

We had an uneventful (that's good) run up the Malacca strait to Langkowi. Mention the Malacca Straits to many people and their immediate response is "Pirates!" Since 2006, the straits have been dropped from Lloyd's of London's list of "dangerous waterways" - so that's the worry about pirates dealt with, which just left squalls, shipping lanes and suicidal fishermen.

The straits should be a delightful area to sail in, with winds blowing from either the south-west or north-east, depending on the monsoon season. There is however that tricky transition from one monsoon to the other, during which winds can be light - unless you are run over by one of the numerous squalls. These nasties could arrive at any time of day or night, with blinding blasts of lightning, deafening thunder, gusts of over 30 knots and torrential rain. We specifically chose this transition season (no wind) between monsoons to try to sneak across the top of the Indian Ocean in calm conditions.

 

The Malaysian coastline does not offer an abundance of secure anchorages, so we decided to opt for a mix of day trips and overnight passages. Yachts are advised to head north in a virtual channel between the official shipping lane (filled with fast moving tankers and container ships) and the 10m depth contour (beyond which lie fleets of small fishing vessels). Sounds like a good theory, but it does place small fragile yachts in the same waters as behemoth tugs towing vast unlit barges. Night watches required considerably more vigilance than we're used to with the E-Reader and MP3 player being replaced by radar, AIS, binoculars and the hand-bearing compass.

Our first stop was Pisang Island and we specifically chose this short trip so Tom could have time to don the SCUBA gear and clean the bottom. He did clean the prop and keel cooler, but with 10 inch visibility and some fast current, he came back aboard to try another day.

Our next day trip took us to the Water Islands near Malacca (that we had visited by bus). We had a slightly rolly night and left early the next morning for Admiral Marina in Port Dickson. There we met Tiger Balm again and swapped some notes. We enjoyed a nice dinner out, swam in their pool and enjoyed a cool cabin from the air conditioners as we slept.

We chose to overnight the next 140 miles to bypass dirty Kelang and anchored in a nice bay off Pankor Island. The fishing boats fish at night too and lay a long net with a blinking (or not) light (or not) at one end of the net and keep the boat at the other. With one boat showing on the radar and the tiny blinking light one mile away, it is child's play to decide not to drive between the two. It gets harder with 5 boats and near impossible when we counted more than 30 boats on our radar set at 4 miles. Sometimes they will motor towards you at high speed and/or frantically wave a light to try and get us to steer one way or the other. At a couple of really heavy fishing areas, we diverted more than 5 miles off course to avoid getting tangled. Only once did we catch something in the prop (with no boats or nets close by?) and our speed dropped from 6 knots to 4. We just slowed, backed up and the knife cutters on the prop shaft must have cut through whatever it was. We never saw anything floating and our speed went back to normal.

 

We safely anchored at Pankor just off a beautiful resort where we watched rich folks being delivered by helicopter.

We used the free WiFi signal to find out its name and phone number. A quick phone call and they came out in a small launch to collect us and bring us ashore for lunch. We were given a private tour of the island and spa and told we could enjoy all the facilities. We had a scrumptious but expensive lunch and spent the entire afternoon by the enormous lap pool drying ourselves with their fluffy towels.

 

Our next day trip took us to historic Penang Island and we took the last available slip at Straights Quay marina. Clustered around the marina were several nice restaurants. We had a nice meal and took a bus to explore Georgetown the next day.  Georgetown was clean and pretty with 3-wheeled rickshaws, Chinese temples, beautiful fabrics and friendly Muslims.

 

 

We enjoyed two more cool nights and then made our last day trip to Langkowi.

I believe that this group of islands has been strategically placed at the end of the Malacca Straits as a reward to cruisers. After cruising through the archipelago, I could understand why this has become a long term hang-out for many sailors.

Langkawi is an example of limestone karst scenery - which translates into a plethora of steep sided islets, many with sheer rocky cliffs which seem to be melting via stalactites into the jade coloured sea. The waters around Langkawi are all fairly shallow, which makes for some interesting navigation, but also enabled us to anchor close inshore, under towering rock formations. We chose an anchorage called the Fjord and it was special. We were greeted by a massive soaring eagle which was appropriate since Langkowi has taken this bird as their symbol.

The next morning we motored the 9 miles in Rebak marina for our last week of provisioning. The marina is on a private island and connected to a 5 star resort. We pay about $25 per day for dockage, but can use the swimming pool, spa, restaurants and free ferry to Langkowi.

While there, Tom changed every engine fluid he could find while Kim bought every frozen meat, can good and fresh vegetable she could find. We bought 3 more 20-liter pails of engine oil and a few more assorted filters. Tom also finished cleaning the bottom and got all the SCUBA tanks filled. This is a duty free port so we also managed to find room for about $300 worth of wine, beer and spirits. That actually is a lot since beer here is about $10 a case and a full liter bottle of Absolut vodka is $11! Why are we leaving?

 

For shopping, we took the resort's speedboat ferry for a 10-minute ride across the harbor to Langkawi, where we shop, do errands, and sightsee. We rented a wreck for $15/day from Mr. Din on four separate days, the unsmiling Chinaman who has his fleet of cars parked at the ferry dock. We rush to get one of his "luxury" cars for an extra couple of dollars as they're usually in better shape. One of them even had automatic gearshift. We pay in cash, no driver's license requested, no paperwork, no insurance. (If a foreigner has an accident here, it's his fault. Driving on the left and risk is all part of the adventure of third world travel.) The first thing we do upon leaving the parking lot is to gas up, since the fuel tank is almost empty. About $5 gas takes us all day. Mr. Din is rumored to siphon off any extra fuel when cars are returned, leaving his customers just enough to get to the nearest gas station.

One car rattled our teeth when idling and would dump copious amounts of cold water from the A/C on Kim's feet every time I made a right turn. The second car was so infested with ants that we stopped at a hardware store to buy and empty a can of insecticide at the scurrying creatures!  But the car air conditioners were both pushing out frosty air and somehow we found everything that we needed.  We visited several museums and we saw batik being made and bought a few more pieces.

We only had one extra beef tenderloin that Kim could not jam into the full freezer. That got cut in half and jammed into the icemaker!

So it was with a full freezer and refrigerator and fruit hanging in nets aft, diesel fuel sloshing out of the overfilled tanks, we push off to sea. Next stop is about 12 days to the west in the Maldives. I've been watching the wind and seas for a month and have never seen any wind over 15 knots (mostly 5 knots and below) and seas always below 2 meters. This weather is a sailboater's nightmare and a trawlers dream…we shall see. Stay tune dear reader to see how it all works out.

Tom
Posted via SSB on passage

PostScript- To make things interesting for our last night on land, we heard the reports of the nearby 8+ earthquake and feared another tsunami was on its way toward us. A quick check on the internet showed it west of Sumatra and unlikely to affect us. It was however, almost directly on the route we plan to take at sea. My engineering background tells me that being at sea over an earthquake would be OK since tsunami damage only occurs as the waves near the shore, but still… In any event, the crew of Emily Grace did not feel a thing and we appreciate all the concern from friends and family.