21 November 2015 Kuah to Telaga Harbour, Langkawi
There wasn't much to keep us in Kuah and we were keen to see an old friend at Telaga, so we pulled up the anchor. There was lots of mud on the chain, so I had to drop anchor again, while I got out our sea water hose pipe and got it working after not being used for over a year.
Again, there wasn't much wind, so we motor-sailed the 16 miles to Telaga - will we ever sail again? There are two man-made islands protecting the anchorage and the approaches to Telaga Marina. There appear to be three passages into the anchorage, but the charts show little detail, so we erred on the side of caution and used the channel to the east of both islands, following the approach to the marina.
We then turned to port and carefully picked our way through the anchorage - it’s very shallow with depths of 2.5 to 3 metres at low water. It’s a popular spot, but we soon found a place at 06°21.74N 099°40.69E in 3 meters of water.
The holding is renowned for being poor and we couldn't set the anchor properly - it just dragged slowly through the mud, so we let it settle for a couple of hours and then backed up, which seemed to be okay.
Phil Wise and his wife Sandy from “Southern Wing” came over to see us. We haven’t seen Phil since 1994, when we spent a lot of time together in the Caribbean. Twenty one years ago, he was cruising on a catamaran called “Wise Cat” with his ex-wife Robyn and their three kids Coby, Nat and Callum, who were good friends with our two sons. Since returning to Australia, he has been divorced, married Sandy and together they have spent eight years building their 60 foot Catamaran, which Phil completely designed from scratch. It looks more like a racing machine than a cruising boat.
In the evening, we went out for a pizza at one of the many restaurants in Telaga Marina with “Southern Wings” and some of their friends.
22 November 2015 Telaga Harbour, Langkawi
We spent the day doing some jobs. I booked a car for tomorrow, so that we can do some provisioning.
We’re planning to repair or replace our teak deck next year, so I spent some time research in boat yards in Thailand and starting to get some quotes. It’s a major project having the teak replaced and I want to make sure that they do a good job.
It used to be cheap to get boat work done in Phuket, but the prices have steadily increased over the past five years and costs in the bigger boatyards are now approaching New Zealand and Australian prices. I chatted to Irvin and Jenny on “Back Chat” who have just returned from being hauled out at Phithak Shipyard in Satun, which may be a cheaper alternative. I’ve made initial enquiries with Satun as well.
In the afternoon, I serviced the front heads toilet pump - not my favourite job, but Craig and Kristen arrive in 5 days’ time and it needs to be working properly.
23 November 2015 Telaga Harbour, Langkawi
We hired a car at the Telaga Marina. The marina staff have a number of cars that they hire out for 10 ringgit (£1.60 per hour), which is a great deal. There’s no messing about with insurance, driving licenses or forms - you say you want a car, they give you the keys and, when you get back, you pay for the number of hours that you’ve had the car. Why can’t life always be that simple?
The small town of Matsirat is only 10 kilometres away and has a good Chinese supermarket called Song Haut, which most of the cruisers use. They have a duty free wine and spirit section, so we were able to buy wine for £3-5 per bottle and spirits for £4-6 per litre - we’ll definitely be going back to stock up before we leave for Thailand. We ended up with four trolleys of provisions, getting ready for our visitors at the end of the week.
While Glenys was in the supermarket, I went to top up the data on our iPad. Every time that I go to do this, the music from “Mission Impossible” pops into my head as I enter the mobile phone shop. They always look totally bemused that the iPad doesn’t have a telephone and there’s always a lot of group discussion about how to do the top-up. I was lucky today and it only took 15 minutes to get my £8 of additional data.
After curry for lunch at an Indian restaurant across the road, we stopped off at a small shop called Sailor’s, which sells a range of frozen food. The business was set up by a couple of South African cruisers a few years ago and they now sell a variety of meat, pizzas, pies and sausages. Being in a predominantly Muslim country, all their products are halal, so there’s no pork - just beef and chicken. It looks like good stuff, so Glenys’ freezer is now crammed full.
We took all our provisions back to the boat and Glenys set to the task of stowing everything away. After an hour, she asked “Didn’t you buy any bottles of wine?” Errrrr - we’d left a trolley loaded with £100 of wine and spirits in the supermarket! I jumped in the dinghy and raced back to the marina, where I hired a car for an hour and sped off to Matsirat.
I walked into the supermarket and found the trolley where I’d left it. The staff at the supermarket had been looking after it for me and were all smiles as I checked that everything was still there. What nice people.
In the evening, we went over to “Southern Wing” and had a pot-luck dinner along with “Back Chat”. Irvin plays guitar, so we had a bit of a session.
24 November 2015 Telaga Harbour, Langkawi
We had another day of pottering about. After 500 miles of motoring in muddy waters along shipping lanes, we’d picked up a horrible brown stain on the bow, which Glenys managed to get off with some “On & Off”.
Our wind instrument have stopped working, so I went up the mast and tried to sort it out, by cleaning the contacts on the connector, but that still didn’t work. I then spent an hour or so reading forum entries on the internet and found a service manual. The voltages coming down from the transducer at the top of the mast are showing only 0.7V on the direction signals, so either the circuit board is not working or I have a dodgy connection.
I went back up the mast and removed the transducer, which I stripped down, cleaned with Contact Cleaner and put out in the sun to make sure that it was completely dry. After reassembling it, I went back up the mast, reinstalled it, but it still shows the same incorrect voltages. My next step is to make up a short test lead to connect to the instrument panel to eliminate a fault in the wiring. I suspect the circuit board, which is very annoying because I replaced the whole transducer two years ago.
25 November 2015 Telaga Harbour to Rebak Marina, Langkawi
Phil and Sandy popped over for a couple of hours in the morning and gave us some good information about Malaysia and Thailand. They’re planning to go up the east coast of Malaysia next year, like we are, so it was good to pick Phil’s brains on the area. The best time to go is during the south west monsoon from May to October. This will work well with our plan to fly back to the UK in May/June and cruise the east coast from July to September.
After lunch, we motored the five miles to Rebak Marina, which is attached to a holiday resort with a nice swimming pool. The marina is okay, but the toilets are below par and the whole place including the resort looks a little tired. We installed the air conditioning and settled ourselves down below.
Thankfully our passports have arrived, so we are once again legal and can now leave for Thailand in a couple of weeks’ time. The process of renewing the passports was a little convoluted, but in the end it all worked very efficiently - only 16 days from dispatch to receipt, which I think is a minor miracle.
In the evening, there was a free barbeque, set up by Sailor’s, where they showed off their various sausages, bread and meats. There was a good turn-out with over a hundred people there, but we only knew Dave from “Laragh”. All the others seemed to be live-aboard, ex-pat Australian and New Zealanders, who have managed to sail up here then never left. We met Kenneth from “Strumvogel”- a Scottish guy who owns a Hallberg Rassy 38.
26 November 2015 Rebak Marina, Langkawi
Glenys ran around doing three big loads of laundry and cleaning the boat ready for the arrival of our Craig and Kristen tomorrow. I did some more planning for our teak deck.
Kenneth from “Strumvogel” had his teak deck replaced last year, so I went to have a look at it. The planking is stuck on without having to be screwed down and looks to be a good job. It was done by “Phuket Inter Woodwork Co Ltd” in Boat Lagoon for £7,000. Scaling up from a 38 foot to a 42 foot boat (say +20%), would give a price of £ 8,750.
I took some basic measurements and spent a couple of hours drawing out a scale diagram of our decking and then superimposed a ½ metre grid over the top. By counting the squares for the parts of the deck with teak, I was able to work out that our total deck is 28.2 square metres. The cockpit is 4.4 sq. metres and is in pretty good condition, so the deck that we need to replace is 23.8 sq.m.
I’ve received one estimate from (an expensive yard) who gave a rough estimate of £490 per square metre, which equates to £11,600 to have everything replaced.
I need to add in £1,500 to haul out and be on the hard for two months, £500 to remove and replace the mast and £500 to rent a small apartment for two months. This all adds up to between £11,000 to £14,000. A lot of money, but it would be twice as much to do it in Europe. I now need to inspect the deck properly and work out if I can get away with having some parts repaired rather than replaced.
27 November 2015 Rebak Marina, Langkawi
We spent the day waiting for Craig and Kristen to arrive, just pottering about. Glenys worked on arranging our three week trip to Myanmar. She’s been talking to a couple of tour operators in Myanmar and together they’ve agreed a customised tour with hotels, cars with drivers, hiking guides and even a balloon ride over the temples of Bagan. Glenys has told one of the agents to go ahead and book all the hotels; we’ve booked the flights and we’ve reserved a berth in Yacht Haven Marina in Phuket from the 8th January - very exciting.
Finally, we went to pick up our visitors. Staying at Rebak Marina is a bit of a nuisance because it’s on a separate island and the resort’s little ferry only goes every couple of hours, so we were at the airport way too early. The last “official” ferry goes at 19:45, so with their plane arriving at 19:10 and a ten minute taxi ride to the ferry dock, it was going to be very tight.
Their plane arrived a few minutes late, but Craig and Kristen only had hand luggage, so they were through quickly. Unfortunately, another plane had landed 15 minutes earlier and there was a huge queue at the taxi rank, so we gave up on getting the 19:45 ferry. We actually arrived at the ferry dock at 20:00, thinking that we’d have to wait for an hour for the next “staff” ferry, but for some reason they put us on a ferry at 20:15 - I don’t know how that happened, but we were able to get in the bar by 20:30.
The bar at the marina is great. The food is a little bit expensive in Malaysian standards (£4 per meal), but everything we had tasted great. The bar also lets cruisers bring their own drinks, which is great.
28 November 2015 Rebak Marina, Langkawi
We had a very slow start to the day, chatting with Craig and Kristen and catching up on the past eleven months. After lunch, we went for a walk and spotted a pair of Great Hornbills which like to eat the fruit on palm trees in the hotel grounds. I tried to find a trail that another cruiser had told me about, which goes off into the forest, but after going down many dead ends, we gave up and retired to the swimming pool.
The pool is very nice, with complimentary towels and reclining chairs under sun umbrellas. There’s even a bar in the pool where we had a few cocktails - luxury. In the evening, we went to the bar again and the day was gone. Tomorrow we go sailing for three days to do a circumnavigation of Langkawi.
29 November 2015 Rebak Marina to The Gorge, Langkawi
While Glenys was getting us ready to go sailing, I checked the engine and found to my horror that the engine bilge was filled with bright green coolant out of the engine. There was a small drip every twenty seconds, coming from somewhere at the front starboard side of the engine.
For the next 30 minutes, I tried to find the source of the leak, but it’s in the most inaccessible part of the engine. I tried to take photographs; I tried hanging upside-down, squeezing my head into the small spaces, but couldn’t pinpoint the leak. It seems to be coming from somewhere behind the alternator, then dripping down onto the oil filter.
As the leak didn’t seem to be too bad, I topped up the coolant with water and ran the engine for 30 minutes. The leak didn’t seem to get any worse and remained at a steady drip with only a small cupful of water in the bilge at the end of my test, so we decided to go out sailing anyway, but restrict our voyage to the local area rather than trying to sail around Langkawi.
When we cleared the marina, we were lucky and actually had some wind, so we were able to sail down to Pulau Intan Besar (06°14.36N 099°43.18E), where we anchored for lunch. The cruising guides say that this has clearer water than other places in Langkawi, so we dug out our snorkelling gear and went to have a look. It was dreadful, even near the rocks lining the shore. The visibility was one foot and very grim. We gave up after ten minutes, but at least it cooled us down.
After checking the engine again and finding only a cupful of coolant in the bilge, we set sail heading around the south of Pulau Singa Besar and then cut across to The Gorge which is a stunning anchorage in a narrow channel between islands overlooked by towering cliffs. We anchored in the middle of the channel at 06°11.47N 099°47.21E in 9 metres of water and really good holding.
It was hot and humid for the rest of the afternoon and then we had a large thunderstorm, with rain and lightning, but we were protected from any wind.
30 November 2015 The Gorge to Telaga Harbour, Langkawi
We pulled up the anchor at around nine o'clock and motored ½ mile to Teluk Dayang Bunting (06°12.05N 099°46.73E). This anchorage is right next to the Lake of the Pregnant Lady, which is one of the major attractions of Langkawi. Each day, scores of fast boats bring hundreds of tourists out to see this land-locked fresh water lake.
We were a little late and, by the time we arrived at the dock in our dinghy, there were dozens of water taxis at anchor and a handful jostling for position to drop off their loads of tourists. I dropped Glenys, Craig and Kristen off at the dilapidated concrete dock, but couldn’t work out where to leave my dinghy.
The main dock is 20 foot above the water and, at low tide, the bay is very shallow, so I couldn't tie to the dock and couldn't land the dinghy on the beach. Normally, everyone in Malaysia is laid back and helpful, but not the water taxi guys here. No smiles, they just waved me away, telling me to go somewhere else. Even saying “Tidah Masala” (No Problem) didn’t break through the money grabbing focus of the boat drivers, who simply wanted to jet off and get another load of tourists.
I gave up and told the others that I’d pick them up in an hour. On the way back to Alba, I stopped off at another boat and they told me that it used to be possible to get to the lake from a small beach, but that the steps had been removed. I scooted over and found a nice beach with a gully leading up to a wooden walkway - it was a bit of a scramble, but no problem. I left the dinghy on the beach and walked along the board-walk, soon finding the others.
The Lake of the Pregnant Lady is about ½ mile in diameter and is surrounded by impressive cliffs. It would be a serene nature experience, if it wasn’t for the hundreds of mostly Malaysian tourists jumping into the water, paddling in kayaks, boating on pedalos and even scuba diving. It’s all a bit quaint, like a seaside resort in England fifty years ago. To my chagrin, the others wanted to go on a pedalo - imagine the humiliation of a captain of an ocean-going yacht becoming a passenger on a pedalo. (It was actually quite good fun…)
Back at the boat, we motored to an anchorage at the north end of Pulau Singa Besar (06°13.58N 099°44.78E) for lunch, then continued up to Telaga. We had some wind and managed to sail most of the way arriving late afternoon. Craig and I went into the marina and arranged for two scooters for tomorrow.
The engine is mystifying me. This morning there was only a cupful of water in the bilge, which I cleaned out before we left the Gorge. By the time we arrived at Telaga after 3.5 hours of motoring, we only had a small cupful of water in the engine bilge. So, the engine dumped 5 litres of water after ½ hour motoring to Rebak and standing for 4 days, but only dumped ¼ litre after 3.5 hours motoring - hmmmm....
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