Cruising in Malaysia
After the opening festivities of the Sail Malaysia Rally I was on my way northbound through the Straits of Melakka. Counter currents, squalls and rain gave me a hard time for the 110 mile passage to Melaka, a beautiful mulitcultural town, which was well worth the effort of getting there.
An overnight passage zig-zagging through hunderes of fishing nets and fishing boats brought me to Marina Island near Pangkor, where I had arranged for a haulout of Anima, giving her anew antifouling and topsides paint job. The haulout facilities in the new marina of this artificial island, designed as a huge appartment- hotel- and entertainment complex, were not quite ready yet for dealing with yachts, but James, the friendly and supportive manager did his best, so eventually everything went well and after a couple of days working in tropical heat Anima was back in the water.
The next Rally Stop was Penang, another buzzling, multicultural town which hosted us with another fancy dinner for the participants of the Rally.
Finally Langkawi was the last stop in Malaysia. As a poluar cruising ground and a gunkholer´s place you meet a lot of yachts and crews there, some of which stay there longer than initially planned. We could even sail half of the 55 miles to Langkawi, well worth mentioning after 2000 miles of burning plenty of fuel in the calm areas around the equator. Maybe a first glimpse of the NE-Monsoon which will be hopefully taking us gently across the Indina Ocea in a few weks from now.
