There’s lots to do getting reading for our passage across the Indian Ocean to the Middle East. The first step was moving DoraMac from Puteri Harbour Marina in Johor, Malaysia to Rebak Marina on small Rebak Island off the coast of Langkawi Island, Malaysia. We left 11/28, traveled for 8 days anchoring each night; spent the 5^th and 6^th in George Town at the Tanjong City Marina, and arrived at Rebak Marina on the 7^th after a very long day’s passage. We traveled from Puteri to George Town with our friends Kathy and Peter on Wave Runner.

You can just make out Wave Runner, a double-masted ketch below the dramatic cloud.

Putting down the anchor off a tiny island just past Port Dixon. It was choppy but actually a pretty good anchorage.

Randal watches from our pilot house.

When you anchor near other boats you have to leave enough space so when you swing around you don’t smack into each other. We talk back and forth over the VHF radio.

The black line shows our movements at anchor and indicates if we are doing a normal swing as the current or wind changes of if we are dragging anchor.

Our propeller churned up the water bringing tiny fish to the surface which making tasty meals for these birds who followed us for quite a while diving into the water to catch them. You can see wave runner in the distance.

A lovely sunset on Burnham River.

So, now we’re here at Rebak and work has begun in earnest! Randal has a massive list and I am cleaning the inside top to bottom and trying to plan for enough food to get us to Cochin India and beyond. We’re stocking up on lots of canned vegetables and fruit, rice and powdered potatoes. It’s an 11 day/night passage from Rebak to Cochin India. Our longest non-stop so far has been 4 nights. But other than a few vegetables in George Town we lived on the food I’d bought in Puteri and that same amount of food will get us to Cochin. We just don’t eat very hungry when we’re on the boat so simple meals are the rule.

Our pattern so far seems to work a few days and then go into Langkawi for boat parts Randal might need and to begin buying items on our provision list. Since we have to fit them into our small rental car and then carry them all onto the small ferry back to Rebak and then carry them from the Rebak dock to the far side of the marina where we are berthed, you do things in small batches. Sometimes the ferry (a large speed boat able to carry about 20 people) will drop us and our supplies on our dock but not when the ferry is full of hotel guests who are top priority. We have been to town twice so far. The first time was on Thursday and that morning we checked in with Immigration and the Harbour Master and Customs. When we leave we’ll have to go back and check out. Today, Saturday, Peter and Kathy came along supposedly for the ride. By the time we were all done shopping there was barely room in the small compact car for everything. But we all squished and it worked. After a rest Randal installed our new “self-tailing winch” which I’ll use when I pull in our Paravane fish and it will be so much easier than when I had to turn the winch handle with one hand and haul on the end of the line with the other. Now I can use both hands on the handle and that will make it a breeze! Tomorrow we’ll do boat work pretty much most of the day.

Lots of our boat friends are here at Rebak. Wave Runner, Papillon, Wing N Strings, and Pelikaan will be coming on the 13^th. Lots of other nice people to meet too. But mostly we’re here to work and get ready to go. One certainly doesn’t get bored which we did the first time we were here a year ago and had little to do.

Also, I’ve lots of books to read. To get over my fear of the long passages, I have begun reading about all of the places in the Mediterranean that I want to see.

The ones across the top shelf are just some of the books I have on my reading list. Thankfully we made it under the luggage weight limit flying back to Singapore. During our trip to New England we visited lots of used book stores and only once walked out empty handed! And our friends Ellen and Gabriel Szego gave us a set of Pimsleur Modern Hebrew 1 language tapes. After umpteen years of Hebrew School I should be able to relearn something. They do make more sense to me than the Chinese tapes I tried and failed to learn from. But Hebrew sounds remotely familiar so I can actually recreate what I hear because I can actually hear what the sounds are.

While I read the books that I’ve bought I make notes about the places the authors visit. Then I take the new journal my friend Ellen treated me to, and I make notes. All of that keeps me focused on the adventures to come and not my fears of getting there.

Here are my books, not in any order other than the first two which I’ve read.

1. Travels with Pomegranates by Sue Monk Kidd and her daughter Ann Kidd Taylor who traveled together around Greece, France, and Turkey.
2. The Liquid Continent by Nicholas Woodsworth. He looks at the entire Mediterranean as a “liquid continent” traveling to Alexandria, Venice, and Istanbul to see why those people are or were in the past so cosmopolitan.
3. Letters From Egypt: A Journey on the Nile 1849-1950 by Florence Nightingale. It was during this time while touring that Nightingale convinced herself and her parents, through her letters home, what she saw her life should be. 1986 edition. Edited by Anthony Sattin who has a newer edition now and adds to it the letters of Flaubert from his time on the Nile.
4. Journey to Kars- A modern traveler in the Ottoman Lands by Philip Glazenbrook
5. Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia Petraea, and the Holy Land by John Lloyd Stephens who died in 1852.
6. The Bastard of Istanbul: A novel by Elif Shafak
7. Opening the Gates: A century of Arab Feminist Writing
8. The Faith Club: A Muslim, A Christian, A Jew Three Women Search for Understanding by Ranya Idliby, Suzanne Oliver, and Priscilla Warner
9. Miriam’s Kitchen by Elizabeth Ehrilich
10. Unsettled, An Anthology of the Jews by Melvin Konner
11. The Israelis: Ordinary People in an Extraordinary Land by Donna Rosenthal (also from Ellen and Gabriel.)
12. My Father’s Paradise: A son’s search for his Jewish past in Kurdish Iraq by Ariel Sabar
13. Walking the Bible by Bruce Feiler

So now that I have my list I have to read. I read all about Tibet after our tour there and it definitely works much better the other way round! And I need to get back to my painting or my friends Marie Louise and Joan will wash their hands of me. And I need to walk around the island at least once to check on the monkey and hornbill populations. Haven’t seen either yet. My sciatic leg has been hurting so walking lots isn’t so good. But it does seem to be getting a bit better each day.

So that’s it.