Time Out for Family

Kids and Breaking the Drought

Time Out For Family

After a lot of sorting out we made room in our aft cabin for the arrival of Andrea and Will on 31 August who would be with us for 12 days. They arrived on Merdeka Day which celebrated 51 years of independence of The Federation of Malaya from British colonial rule and we had had a fabulous view of the fireworks in Kuah from our anchorage the evening before which they had missed. It was also one day before the start of the month-long Ramadan, when Muslims test their faith by not eating or drinking between sunrise and sunset. Luckily for us there were still plenty of Chinese providing food for the non-Muslims during daylight hours.

They arrived just before lunch so we made a stop at a hawker centre to introduce them to some of the local Chinese food served in these places, namely chicken rice and char kway teoh (stir-fried wide rice noodles). Malaysia is no place for those with finicky appetites and a preference for spotless restaurants but luckily they both seemed to enjoy it and they were assured of plenty of it especially when we moved on to Penang. Will certainly was in foodies’ heaven with all the chili. Once settled on to the boat we went ashore for dinner at Wonderland where we enjoyed several seafood dishes, one with an accompaniment of very spicy ‘white’ chili. Will really took to this hot little chili.

We left Kuah the next morning, planning to circumnavigate Langkawi Island over about 5-6 days and then, if the weather was still holding, to sail 80 miles south to Penang Island and Georgetown. We had good weather for the first few days stopping off at several different anchorages, relaxing and swimming. We saw quite a few Long tailed macaque monkeys feeding along the mud flats at low tide and anchored in The Hole In The Wall we had a troop of Dusky leaf monkeys feeding along the cliff face opposite us. Later that day while Andrea and Will had gone off exploring in the dinghy, Jon attempted to flag down one of the fishing boats returning from a day’s fishing. It was only as the last one came through when he decided to wave a 50 Ringgit note that one stopped. Not surprisingly, we negotiated with the husband and wife team the purchase of a bucketful of very large prawns which we barbecued for dinner.

Our run of good weather started to come to an end by Thursday afternoon when after a snorkel in Teluk Datai the wind had come round to the NW and was coming straight into the anchorage. We made a quick departure and headed for Telaga Harbour which would put us on the south side of the island and out of the wind although some swell was coming around the corner and into the bay. Friday we decided to hire a car to do some sightseeing and some shopping. A visit to the cable car was definitely out as the cloud was covering the hill and the wind was up but we walked to the top of the Seven Wells Waterfall and then back down in heavy rain before continuing on to visit a craft complex, have some lunch at Tanjung Rhu, shop in Kuah town, a massage and then some dinner at Pantai Cenang.

The weather had by now settled in to windy and rainy. After a bit of time out rolling around at anchor we decided that sailing to Penang was not a good option so we booked Tweed into the marina and flew down instead staying in an old Chinese mansion which is now a hotel.

We were in Penang for three and half days and between meals managed to get around and see some of the sights of Georgetown, including Fort Cornwallis built in the early 1800s and the surrounding colonial buildings and churches, the Chinese clan house Khoo Kongsi, Little India, and many Buddhist temples, Muslim mosques and Hindu temples. We also found the coffee maker who prepares local coffee in his smoky shop-house, roasting and grinding in the traditional style over a wood fire. A first for us was the Temple of the Reclining Buddha which claims to house the world’s third longest reclining Buddha. The food was fabulous as usual, with Chinese seafood and Indian being the major choices, although the mornings started with ‘normal’ western breakfasts of muesli, yoghurt, fruit, juice and coffee. On their last morning we had breakfast at the colonial Eastern and Oriental Hotel, a Penang landmark built in 1885, closed and in disrepair in the 1990s and renovated and reopened in 2001.

Another sad goodbye and Andrea and Will left for Kuala Lumpur and their flight back to London with promises to return again next year for another visit, wherever we may be. Perhaps next year we will have better weather and they will be able to get rid of their London tans.

We stayed on an extra day to visit the famed ‘skin’ doctor at the Lam Wah Ee hospital. Jon has to have regular visits to have his skin checked and usually emerges from the hospital covered in blisters from the frozen nitrogen treatment and this visit yielded the same results.

The Breaking of The Drought

We flew back to Langkawi to pick up Tweed once more and prepared to sail back down to Penang – this time we needed to attend to several medical matters as well as apply for our Indian visas to visit the Andaman Islands again. We left Telaga Marina and had a lovely sail down to Kuah where we anchored off and Jon went ashore to see if our bicycles were still there – we had left them there before Andrea and Will arrived as we needed the room. Not surprisingly, they were still there, so after a bit of provisioning we set off for a leisurely passage to Penang.

We decided on three shortish day passages and on our second leg from the southern end of Langkawi Island to Pulau Bidam, which is about 20 nautical miles north of Penang Island, we finally broke the drought which had been plaguing us since before we left Australia two years ago. We caught a BIG fish!! First we hooked a small, 32cm tuna, which we thought could pass for an evening meal and on resetting the line – the same one rigged with five plastic squid-covered hooks with NO metal trace – we hooked an 82cm narrow-barred mackerel. It was safely landed and Jon quickly bled it to put it in the fridge to chill for later. We were in company with Daun and Chris from More Magic so we were delighted to be able to share our catch at the end of the day at Pulau Bidam with them, especially as their barbecue was not out of gas as ours was. It was a delicious meal to round off a great day with good friends.

It had been a lovely, almost sunny day with some good sailing and very good visibility but on leaving early the next morning for Penang the breeze had come round to the SE, bringing smoke haze from the land and reducing the visibility to only a few miles. Whereas the evening before we could easily see Penang, now it was covered in haze. As we approached the northern channel the wind picked up and it was a tricky entrance to the marina with the 20-25 knot wind on the nose and the current already turned and running 1 knot the other way. The water was very sloppy, including inside the marina as the floating wave-attenuation dock has broken away in places and is useless in calming the waters inside in these conditions. However, we made a successful docking with Daun and Chris plus the Dockmaster to take our lines and soon we were safely tied up, albeit rocking and rolling more than in any recent anchorages we have been in. Aaaahh! The noise and smell of Penang – the nearby car ferries arriving and departing non-stop, the loudspeaker calling as each prepared to depart, the nearby clock tower sounding out the hours, the smell of foul mud as the tide dropped, the floating garbage and, just to top it all off the night club right on the marina would get underway at 11.00 p.m. and would go until 3.00 a.m. Well, where else would we rather be??