Pangkor Island

We arrived at the Pangkor Island Marina around noon.  The marina seemed to be very professionally run.  There were dock hands ready to show us where to berth and catch our lines.  The depth in our berth was almost nothing below the keel at low tide but 10 feet at high.

This marina is where we are thinking of hauling out Tortuguita for the season.  We scoped out the entire operation and were quite impressed.  It's not a professional boatyard like the Gold Coast City Marina in Australia but more like a DIY place like Marina Seca Guaymas in Mexico.  They have a giant shed where about 15 boats can be stored or worked on in the shade.  However, all masts must be taken off in order to get in the shed.

Marina Island sits between Pangkor Island and the mainland.  It is entirely man made over a 5 year period.  The island has the marina, a ferry terminal, small mall, shops, offices, restaurants, apartments, and a hotel along with a causeway connecting it to the mainland.

Marina Island

A very nice banquet for the rally

The marina manager, James Khoo, has sponsored this stop on the rally and set up a day trip and lunch out on Pangkor Island, and a banquet dinner.  We did find out that if the marina paid for the events, they would not be allowed to serve alcohol so James paid for everything personally.  Way to go James.

Good thing James provided the beer.

Grounds of the Buddhist Temple

Pangkor Island is a tourist destination with the clearest water that we have seen since Indonesia.  We went to a Buddhist Temple and saw fishing boats under construction.  Amazing carpentry skills and beautiful tropical hardwood.  We had a catered lunch on the beach and were all pretty much burned out by the time the ferry got us back to the marina.  A good long day!

Boat Craftsmanship

 

Anchoring off Port Klang

We left at sunrise from Port Dickson.  I think I've said this before, but, you can never leave early enough.  Right outside the marina, the current had us down to 3 knots and we had 50 miles to go to Port Klang.  Port Klang is the major shipping port for Kuala Lumpur and most of Malaysia and looked to be our stop for the night.  

We could see other rally boats 10 to 15 miles ahead that were doing 8 knots but the current that they had just hadn't progressed toward us.  I found a very good way to tell what the current ahead is.  AIS targets can be seen 30-40 miles away.  The large ships' that are anchored all along the edges of the Malacca Strait show symbols on our AIS display.  They point in the direction that they are heading, even while anchored.  Small boats like ours, however, point only in the direction they are traveling.  When the current changes,  the large ships all change direction with the current.  You can actually watch the tide progress down the Malacca Strait by watching these anchored ships turn like dominos, but in real slow motion.

AIS Ship Traffic from www.marinetraffic.com

The early departure from Port Dickson was not much help.  The tide must have just switched so we pushed against the current for 6 hours until early afternoon.  Now that we were enjoying a nice push, it didn't make much sense to stop so our plan was to go as far as we could and just drop the anchor wherever we were when the sun went down.  There were a few possible places that looked like anchorages but what you see on the charts is a world of difference to what it really looks like.  On the chart below there are large green 'islandy' looking areas.  Our track is the purple line.  The plan was to tuck up behind one of these 'islands' for protection for the night.

In actuality, there are no islands.  These green areas are apparently mud flats but the water was so muddy, you couldn't see the flats.   

 

Here's the Google Earth view.

Notice the four green islands.  They are the same as the brown islands on the chart view.   The green areas that look like islands just don't exist.

So we anchored out in the middle of nowhere and as the tide changed, so did the current and so did the direction we pointed.  The wind and chop made for a noisy night. 

It turned out that was fine because around 2AM we were woken up by the sound of thunder.  The storms were a few miles away just south of those little brown islands.  We were a sitting target for lightning out in these flats.  The current was again now in our favor, so we pulled up the anchor and headed out for the fish trap free deep channel to our north.  This would give us a nice early arrival at Pangkor Marina.

Admiral Marina, Port Dickson

Front lobby entrance of the Admiral Marina

The Sail Malaysia 'Passage to Langkawi' rally is organized each year by a great guy named Sazli Kamal Basha.  He also does the Sail Malaysia 'Passage to the East' rally.  Sazli has a knack obtaining sponsors who pay for events during the rally.  Our $65 entry fee was paid back to us many times over by the free parties, dinners, lunches, and tours that we had.

Central Park, Malacca

Port Dickson is more or less between Malacca and Kuala Lumpur.  We took the public bus(es) with our friends Paul and Lilanne of LUNA BLU to Malacca for the day.  We made the mistake of not finding the Express Bus which cost us an extra hour in stops.  Malacca was the original main shipping/trading port for Malaysia for hundreds of years.  All trading routes between China and India/Europe go through the Malacca Straits. The port has since silted in and most shipping now goes to Port Klang.  You will sometimes see it spelled Melaka, which is the Malay name.

Entrance of the Baba and Nyonya Heritage Museum

We walked through the parks and ended up in China Town for lunch.  We did a tour of the Baba and Nyonya Heritage Museum.  This is a house of a wealthy Chinese/Malay family from the early 1900's turned in to a museum. We learned about their culture and how it was to live in this part of the world a hundred or more years ago.  We climbed 'the hill' to the Ruins of St. Paul's Church for a good view of town, met up with other cruisers for some beers and took a cab back to the marina.  Much quicker than the bus and not too much more expensive.

Statue in front of Batu Caves

The rally had a planned bus tour day of Kuala Lumpur.  We started out at the Batu Caves.  One of the most popular Hindu shrines outside India even though Buddhist and Muslim religions are also represented here.  

The stairs

It is really a beautiful massive place with 272 steps from ground level to the caves.  Women have to have their legs covered so the rent-a-sarong lady had a good thing going providing for the tourists.  A monkey thought Booker's earring was some kind of food, jumped on her and ripped it out of her ear.  Fortunately the loop pulled out and didn't damage her ear.  The monkey tried to crack it with it's teeth and smash it on concrete with no luck.  It thought it was some kind of nut.  I used the other earring to distract the monkey and he chucked the one he had on the stairs.  We were lucky to get it back.

 

Renting a sarong and the last time Booker's earring was intact.

The earring stealer.

Inside Batu Caves

Petronas Towers

We had lunch at the Petronas Towers.  They are the tallest twin towers in the world.  We've seen them in a few movies and even look bigger in real life.  The first 5 floors are just one huge mall.  Very expensive name brands which we had no interest in.

Making the handles for pewter mugs

We drove by the King's Palace but didn't go in because it was raining very hard and continued to the Royal Selangor Pewter factory.  We had never heard of Royal Selangor but it turns out that it is the largest manufacturer of fine crafted pewter.  It was interesting to see pewter products being made and how the discovery and mining of tin was a major source of economic development of this area.

Friday Night Market 'Street Food'

We did have a few free days between all these tours which came in handy to keep up with boat maintenance, etc.  The marina had a fine happy hour with marginal food and an over amplified band.  We did find good street food out at the main road and went to the Friday night market. 

Buddah's at the Kwan Yin Cave

Another bus tour was to the town of Ipoh.  We visited an organic farm/ecolodge and ate lunch at a Homestay Klawang.  We then walked through the Buddhist Kwan Yin Cave Temple.  

Ipoh Street Art

The Old Town area of Ipoh is very artsy and historic.  It is a short walk from the historic train station and mostly has Chinese influence but we had a great Indian curry at the Banana Leaf restaurant in Little India.

Team building, after the water balloon tossing exercise

As if all this was not enough, Sazli organized a team building event and lunch buffet for us.  We had four teams and had to work together and compete against other teams.  It was quite fun and educational.

Next, off we go to the marina at Pangkor Island.

JB to KL - (Johor Bahru) to (Kuala Lumpur)

Here's the layout of this part of SE Asia.  The Malaysia Peninsula is connected to Thailand and Burma (Myanmar).  Singapore is at the tip of the Malaysia Peninsula.  Eastern Malaysia is on the western part of the island of Borneo.  The Malacca Strait runs between Malaysia and North Sumatra, Indonesia.  The tides run 10-12 feet.  That is quite a bit of water to be flowing through what is essentially a river running from Thailand to Singapore.  The current is much stronger than anywhere we have been, with perhaps the exception of the Great Barrier Reef.  If you don't run the engines, you will essentially lose 6 hours while the tide is running against you.  Of course you will make that up when the tide is helping you but the day is short and night sailing is not an option with the hoards of unlit fishing boats out at night.

 

This is our first exposure to sailing Malaysia.  We should have left Marina Puteri as early as possible.  We could have obtained our port clearance documents the day prior but decided instead to wait for the office to open.  Big mistake.  The supposed outgoing tide never appeared and then the current of the Malacca Strait was against us.  This made a short day into a long slog motoring most of the way.  We anchored at Pulau Pisang (Banana Island).  We tucked up behind the island and had a good night until the land breeze started and we ended up with our stern getting slapped by waves coming across  the Strait.  Most of the Malacca Strait is less than 30 feet deep and we were told that if you want, you can just drop anchor anywhere.  A few boats did anchor off the island and apparently departed very early since they didn't have to navigate the shallows around the island.  They probably had slapping waves during the night also.

Pulau Besar (Water Island)

We had a long day as it was to our next anchorage at Water Island.  There were 6 boats anchored there when we arrived at sunset with a huge thunderstorm chasing us during the last hour.  There was plenty of lightning but we all made it through fine.  This was a nice island and would have spent a day exploring it had we not been on an agenda.  There is some type of deserted or lightly used resort on the north side of the island and beaches to land the dinghy.

We departed early for the short day sail to the Admiral Marina in Port Dickson.  This is the closest yacht facility to Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia.

The Admiral Marina.  By far, the nicest marina we have ever stayed in.

Johor Bahru, Nusajaya, Malaysia

All prepped for us to go to the US for a month

The heat in this part of the world is oppressive so we went shopping for an air conditioner like the one we bought at Home Depot in Mexico.  Ours no longer worked because the electricity in this part of the world is 240 volts and 50 cycles.  We didn't have any luck but found out that window type air conditioners are essentially not being made any more.  Our other option was a portable unit but would it would take 7-10 days to arrive to the store.  We would be gone and didn't want to deal with the delivery, etc so I found a better one online and ordered it to arrive when we returned from the US.

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We prepped the boat for extended unattended operations.  We took a few busses to the Singapore Airport and flew to Philly through London Heathrow.  I was able to go to my 40th year High School reunion.  We winterized the houses, pressure washed, stained decks, and enjoyed the nice fall weather and smokeless skies.   We flew back almost a month later through Los Angeles and Hong Kong, to Singapore.  We had just flown around the world.

Hong Kong skyline looking south

When we arrived, the rest of the Sail Indonesia Rally boats had filled up the Puteri Marina.  It was nice to get reunited with all our friends.  We have joined the Sail Malaysia Rally to Langkawi.  This rally is much shorter.  500 miles in 6 weeks vs. 2500 miles in 3 months.  It is a marina to marina rally and proves to be very social. 

By being in the Malaysia Rally, we get a 50% discount on berthing and boatyard storage at Pangkor Marina.   They use a trailer system to haul the boats which we have never used but they seem to think all will be fine.  Since we are finally out of the Southern Hemisphere and in an area where there is no cyclonic activity, our cruising season is not determined by seasonal weather.  For 3 years, we haven't been able to spend summers in New Jersey.  This year it looks like we can work that back into our lives.  Laying up Tortuguita at Pangkor Marina will also make it easier to base out of Malaysia and be able to travel by land around Southeast Asia.

The air conditioner was waiting for us at the office and will be well needed and used in these marinas. http://www.sailmalaysia.net/rally/schedule-of-events.html

The sponsoring marina stops are:

Hong Kong Streets

1.  Puteri Harbor, Johor Baru

2.  Admiral Marina, Port Dickson

3.  Pangkor Marina, Pangkor Island

4.  Straits Quay Marina, Penang

5.  Rebak Marina, Langkawi

We are planning to haul out at Pangkor but will go to Penang and then return back to Pangkor.  Langkawi will have to wait until next year on our way to Thailand.

The Singapore Strait

The Singapore and Malacca Straits are the most active waters in the world for piracy.  The good thing is that the pirates have no interest in hostage taking nor anything to do with sailboats.  They are mostly after cargo and fuel tankers.

The Singapore Strait is also the busiest waterway in the world.  It is about 20 miles across, has traffic lanes, and on this day, totally obscured by smoke.

We are about to turn and pass behind this massive tanker.

We departed Nongsa Point early for a 55 mile day with no wind to cross the Singapore Straits and clear in at the Puteri Harbor Marina, Johor Baru, Malaysia.  We had never seen so much shipping in one place.  We ran parallel to huge vessels and turned to cross behind them when they passed us only to have one come from the other direction so we would make a 180 and do the same thing again.  Each time chiseling away at the shipping lane finally to arrive on the Singapore side.  The AIS and Radar were indispensable.

This is a picture from our AIS display of the South tip of Singapore and the Strait.  The green triangles are ships.  The purple lines are the tracks from moving ships over the past 20 minutes.  The ships with black dots are anchored, the rest are moving.  The green line extending from the ship ending in a green circle tells where the ship will be in 20 minutes.  

Oil Drilling platforms being made at the Singapore Shipyard

We cut through anchorages to avoid moving boats and finally made it to the Western Reach.  This river, on the west of Singapore, would take us Puteri Harbor.  After three hours, we pulled in to a beautiful marina built in front of a shopping mall.  There were restaurants, shopping, and after 3 months of only Indonesian Bintang Beer, we now had wine and beer from all over the world available right in the marina complex.  Not only that, every place had Happy Hours that covered most of the day.

Puteri Harbor Marina

Tortuguita is at the end of the left pier.

Indonesia Recap

We really had a great time.  The Sail Indonesia Rally was definitely worth it.  Indonesians were very welcoming and grateful that we were visiting their country.  We learned enough of their language to get by.  We were greeted like Rock Stars. We were treated like we were famous world travelers.  

We even made the front page of the newspaper.

We ate like kings for essentially nothing.  We saw animals found nowhere else.  We made safe passages in poorly charted waters.  We didn't get the engine intake or propeller fouled with plastic trash.  We didn't hit any fish traps.  We got an understanding of foreign religions and cultures.  We met some great people.  That makes for a pretty successful 3 months.