Tanjong City Marina
Hi All,
We left Puteri Harbour Marina on November 28th early in the morning and have traveled every day anchoring each night. Our Kiwi friends Kathy and Peter on Wave Runner have been our traveling mates. They’re also heading to Langkawi for December. We’ve known them for years now since we first met at our last stop in Indonesia in October 2008.
It has been an interesting passage with calm fast days, rolling days, long days, storms, fishing nets, faulty fuel level gages, and off-key karaoke till 2 am. We’ve had to regain our sea legs and relearn all of the things we did so routinely. But it is like riding a bike, you never really forget. Our meals are basic with boiled eggs, tomato, and cucumber for lunch and vegetable soup for dinner. We nibble on plain crackers all during the day. I had made a pot of what was to have been chicken – vegetable soup the day before we set off. But, unfortunately, when I opened the 3 packages of chicken breast I’d bought in JUSCO the day before, they all smelled so strongly of rotten eggs there was no doubt that they were bad. So a can of chopped up turkey spam went into the soup instead. By the end of a cruising day we’re tired rather than hungry so soup is just the thing and easy to re-warm.
On our third day about half way to our anchorage off Port Dixon, something about the way the engine sounded wasn’t right. Then there was no sound at all, which is the worst possible sound there can be while you’re cruising along. Luckily for us we had passed the small fishing boats and their flag markers, we were in deep water, the sea was calm, there was lots of visibility and best of all Wave Runner was coming along about a mile back in case we had a real problem. Randal checked a few things and then decided that our fuel gage was off and we were out of fuel in our cruising tank. He immediately started pumping fuel from a holding tank into the cruising tank and the lovely sound of a working engine was soon reaching my ears up on the fly-bridge where I was keeping watch and staying in contact with Wave Runner who had called when they noticed we’d stopped moving. Our fuel gage had tricked us once before, amazingly then too, on our way to Port Dixon. Randal says it’s totally coincidental, there’s no possible mathematical or mechanical explanation and I’m an idiot for thinking otherwise. And no, we won’t go into the discussion that led to that last statement! Randal denies that he said I was an idiot. He said that no one in the entire universe could possible look at it the way I did = idiot to me. Anyway, the fuel problem was fixed and we anchored pretty peacefully that night.
It poured early the next morning but luckily quit before we had to pull up anchor. However, the seas were rolling making Randal seasick so I drove most of the day. Good practice for me though I do get nervous and eat too many crackers. Randal was better by mid-day and he negotiated the channel up the river at Port Klang to our anchorage. We’d anchored there once before and though storms were around us we’d had a calm, quiet night. Not this time! At 3 am we were moving the boat while 35 mile winds from a Sumatra blew us towards Wave Runner. Our anchor had begun to drag and we didn’t want to chance getting too close so I put on my rain jacked and went out on the bow as Randal pulled up our anchor ( we do it mechanically, not manually.) It was my job to let him know when the anchor was out of the water. Then it was my job to tell him how much chain we had put out when we dropped it again. About 10 minutes after I had come in and changed into dry clothes we realized we were still dragging so we did it all over again. This time it held. Then I dried off and went back to sleep. Randal sleeps in the pilot house when we’re at anchor so he can check on things like our anchor dragging. This is what I wrote in my journal about the following day; “I was really tired all day today and it was a long 70 mile day. But I’d fed Randal some Stugeron (seasick prevention pills) so he didn’t get sick and we made great time arriving at our anchorage at 5:45pm. We’d left Port Klang at daylight at 6:45 am.” As we were cruising along a small flock of what I’m guessing are terns started following closely behind. At first we thought they mistook us for a fishing trawler because with our Paravane arms out we look like one. Since we had no fish dragging behind us I thought they’d take us for really bad fishermen. But what we soon realized was that our propeller was churning up the water and bringing tiny fish close to the surface and the birds were diving for them. They followed us quite a while and then just flew away.
Thankfully our night’s anchorage on Burnham River lived up to the rave reviews we’d given Wave Runner. (Of course we’d raved about the Port Klang anchorage too!) It was calm and quiet and we had Internet access through our DiGi 3G phone.
Pankor Island, our next stop was more rolly and noisy than we had remembered from a previous visit. We’d had a slow, long, and bumpy day against the current which had made a short mileage day long. Then the anchorage was rolling and we had to listen to bad karaoke from the resort on the island. It wasn’t so ear splittingly loud though so I could sleep through most of it. Every now and then someone with a really good voice would sing a ballad in the local language and that was quite lovely to hear. But rare. Most of it was just bad, loud singing. And there was NO INTERNET RECEPTION though the cell tower on the Island gave a strong DiGi signal; it wasn’t the 3G kind. I think Randal hates the absence of the Internet as much as I hate the Red Sox losing.
Our last day to George Town would also be a 70 miler so we left very early. Again we had swells that hit us from the side and made for rolling seas but nothing horrible. At one point we put out the foresail and not only picked up a bit of speed, but it acted as a stabilizer. When the wind stopped and we had to take it down, I pulled the furling line and Randal held the sheet and that seems to work much better than the other way round when I held the sheet. It was our first sailing experience that I actually enjoyed. Usually I don’t like to mess with the sail but it proved to make a difference so I might want to do it again.
After a long day we anchored along the road to George Town. That sounds funny, but that’s where we were and if we could have taken our dinghy to shore we would have been at the Queensbay Mall. We did know not to anchor next to the small homey looking restaurant down the road because karaoke booms from there from 9pm till about 2am. We had learned that the hard way our first trip.
Sunday we pulled up anchor and cruised to George Town. Wave Runner had started out earlier than we so could warn us of the fishing nets blocking the channel you follow to go under the bridge between George Town and Butterworth. But a small fishing boat was there to guide our boats trough the passage not blocked by nets. When we finally arrived at the marina our George Town friends, Jane and Roger from WingsnStrings were there to catch our lines. Then it was time to plug in and relax, at least for a short time. Then it was off to Queensbay mall by bus for a few things and then later out to dinner at our favorite Woodlands Restaurant in Little India with Peter and Kathy. Today it was real chore day. I went to the wet market for veggies and chicken. It’s amazing that chicken bought out on the street from the “chicken man” is more reliable than that bought at the JUSCO supermarket. Or maybe not so amazing. Then I stopped at the wonderful pharmacy here in George Town and stocked up on Stugeron, Amoxicillin. I also bought one of those stretchy knee supports because my sciatic back is hurting and it makes my knee hurt. I wore it home from the pharmacy and wished I’d bought one for the other knee too and for my whole body. Then this afternoon it rained on my almost dry laundry while I was being good and doing a second set of back exercises. Tonight we’re going for dinner with Jane and Roger. Then tomorrow very early we’re going to finish the last leg to Rebak Marina off Langkawi Island where we’ll get DoraMac (and us) shipshape for our passage across the Indian Ocean towards the Middle East.
I’ll finish with a few photos from home. I grew up in New Bedford and it’s always one of our stops when we go to New England. We really go to see our friends Har and Dick and Bruce and Jean and Jean’s sister Eileen and her husband Bill. I’ve known Har and Bruce since I was 3 and this year we’ll all be 60!
Ru
DoraMac
New Bedford Public Library
Can’t seem to find the date it was built but it was remodeled in the early 1900s.
A dead whale or a stove boat.
This statue has been there since I was in high school and probably way before that. We have this engraved on our high school rings and you have to read Moby Dick to graduate. At least my class had to read it though I for one never finished it.
This is a new statue of Lewis Temple and who invented the swivel head harpoon and vastly revolutionized whaling. Lewis Temple was African American and his contribution has only now been recognized.
New Bedford fishing piers.
I grew up not learning how to sail and not liking most fish except the non-kosher kind like clams, lobster and shrimp. Now I like all kinds of fish, especially the Spanish mackerel Randal caught in Indonesia.
Historic New Bedford in the Fall