Sebana Cove Marina, Johor, Malaysia

7 am

  Hi Everyone,

It’s November 5th here so it seems as if I should know who won the election, but we don’t.  We just have to wait to find out. 

Randal and I are at Sebana Cove Marina for the time being. www.sebanacove.com  We have boat work to do and this is a good place to do it.  It is a lovely protected setting.  And it’s a good place to take our bikes from the flybridge and do some riding.

I been posting all of my emails only on our website www.mydoramac.com because sending multi-photo emails to more than one person hasn’t been possible.  If you want to check it once a week there should be some updates posted.  Sometimes I have no wifi access.  Sometimes there is just not much to say.  But you can still write back to me at sivahtur@yahoo.com

We are about 8 miles from the closest town, Sungai Ringgit.  The marina provides a van 4 mornings during the week so everyone can do their small shopping.  We are dropped off on the main street in front of a small shop that sells lots of canned goods and where there is a small table and chair.  You go to the vegetable shops for veggies, fruit stands for fruit and the bakery for baked goods.  Two shops sell a pretty good selection of canned goods.  I bought chicken and pork from the man in the blue station wagon parked on a side street!  He comes highly recommended by the marina and all of the other cruisers.  The chicken comes with head and feet, but he chopped those off for me and quartered the chicken.  The pork was sliced into 7 pieces.  This all took about 5 minutes and cost 30 ringgits about $8 U.S.  I cooked the chicken last night and it was very good.  After each purchase you go back to the shop where we will be picked and leave your bags of purchases.  No one touches them!  They sit outside on the corner near the table and chair and they are there when you return.  We have 2 hours to shop.  It seems too little time, but once you know the routine it takes less than one hour.  I go for the fruit and vegetables and Randal goes to the hardware shops or to look for a barber.  Next trip we’ll find the fish man around the corner and I’ll take photos of the different shops.  We hope to ride our bikes one day.  The small town reminds me of a very uncrowded China. 

Just one photo from our time in Belitung, Indonesia.  Since there are no libraries or English Language book stores, cruisers swap books.  There was a book exchange held on a tiny island at Belitung.  I gave up Shipping News  and Chez Panisse and Randal got a memoir by David Attenborough.  Here at the marina they have a help yourself collection of books.  I borrowed an Anne Perry Inspector Monk mystery. 

So, though my Red Sox didn’t win, they gave it a great try and it was a good season.  (Winning 2 World Series in 4 years makes losses bearable.)  Now it’s “Wait till next year.”  And there is now a Red Sox farm team in Salem, VA to follow. 

  This is a scene from the book swap.  Our first cruising friends Terry in yellow and (headless) Brian with the wine.  We met them at Rinca Island where we saw the Komodo dragons.  The lady in brown, Anne I think is her name. had brought the David Attenborough book and wanted to “trade” but just let Randal have it since she didn’t want either of the 2 books I had brought.  The next night they did the swap again and brought videos too.  We couldn’t make that swap.