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Firefly - Laying up in Malaysia



Today is Friday 1st April and Firefly is anchored on the west side of Pangkor Island. Tomorrow morning we are motoring around to Pangkor Marina and will have 2 nights afloat while we finish decommissioning and then be hauled out on Monday. We have been here for 2 days and are working as hard as we can to get the boat ready for the forthcoming 5 month lay up. However, its baking hot and apparently there is a heatwave in Malaysia at present, so work can only be done early in the morning and in the evening. Its not so bad - the hot, middle part of the day we have spent on the beach at the superb Nipah Deli. Eating lunch, meeting their hand fed Hornbill and then sitting in their sun loungers under a huge almond tree - complete with monkeys dropping almonds on customers.

Going back a week, we sailed across from Koh Lipe in Thailand and checked in with Malaysian Immigration and Customs at Telega, Langkawi and then spent 2 nights at Rebak Marina before starting to head south. Rebak was where Firefly was left moored during our most recent trip home for Christmas 2015 and as marinas go, its very good. The Vivanti Hotel on the island is run by the same company and the marina guests are welcome to use all the facilities, in particular their lovely pool. In fact it is where all the 'yachties' meet up late afternoon having finished their chores - and having been baked in the heat all day there is nothing better than floating under the shade of the frangipani trees.

On leaving Rebak we anchored in a bay in order to visit 'The Lake of the Pregnant Maiden' - a large freshwater just above sea level and accessed via a path through forest. Our timing was good as this is clearly a major tourist attraction and there were quite a number of boats, full of principally Malaysian tourists, all leaving. Steep limestone cliffs surround the lake and the expectation was high as we took the steps down to the waters edge. However, the facilities at the so called 'Geo Park' were somewhat tacky as they often are in Malaysia, the worst example being the fleet of bright yellow 'cartoon duck pedalos' - fortunately they we not in use and during our swim in the lake we were able to look the other way!

Our plan was to anchor for the evening in the southern islands of the Langkawi Archipelago in a narrow passage. As expected, the anchorage was superb, surrounded by high cliffs and with lush vegetation on the less steep land, Sea eagles soaring above and monkeys shaking the trees. Sitting in the cockpit as the sun set we discussed the fact that we were near the end of our cruising SE Asia - it really has been an excellent experience and we are so glad that we chose to take another year out of our circum navigation with the World ARC. The next morning we were off by 0700 bound for Penang. The NE wind was blowing 15 to 20 knots and we stormed away from Langkawi on a beam reach. Gradually the wind died away and the engine was on for a couple of hours until the westerly sea breeze built up and we broad reached to the north of Penang.

We had spent time at Penang before but had forgotten quite how built up it was - there are huge number of skyscrapers. The anchorage we chose could not be anymore of a contrast to the previous evening. We were our of butter and Susie cannot survive without toast - therefore we anchored just off the Queensbay Ferry Shopping Mall south of Georgetown and near all of the blue chip factories, including one belonging to Intel. Paul went ashore in the dinghy, motoring through some filthy water to land on a beach in a mangrove creek right under a busy dual carriage way. With the butter safely in the dinghy there was then a slapstick moment as Paul's 'crocs' lost grip on the slimey bottom as he was re launching the dinghy - it was straight into the shower on returning to Firefly.

The plan to spend a day touring Penang was shelved and at 0600 the next morning we left on the 65 mile passage to Pangkor Island, Malaysia. A similar pattern to the day before, we sailed in the north easterly early on, then motored for a few hours and then the sea breeze developed. This time the afternoon breeze was from the south west and it was a sublime close reach for the last 30 miles. No waves, wind averaging about 12 knots and Firefly eating up the miles. We sailed almost onto the anchor - a great last sail before a 5 month break.

Its 360 nautical miles as the crow flies to Koh Chang, the northern most point we reached right at the the top of the west coast of Thailand - from where we are now at Pangkor Island. We have probably covered about 750 miles since we went north from Langkawi into Thailand in early January as we also added extra distance visiting the spectacular Phang Nga Bay. Overall a relatively short distance compared to much of what we have done since we left Salcombe in September 2013. With no night sailing at all and probably 75% sailing and 25% motoring it has been great. As we won't be spending much more time in Asia we are fitting in a 5 day dive trip to Sipadan on the east coast of Borneo, en route back to Blighty.

Paul then comes back to Malaysia with crew members Gareth and Hugh to re commission Firefly in early September 2016. We will head south through Malaysia and Indonesia, anchoring some nights but moving fairly fast, covering almost 1000 miles in order to reach Krakatoa, the famous volcano in the Sundra Strait between Java and Sumatra. From there we will be back in the trade winds and sailing 700 miles to Cocos Keeling where in late September we will meet World ARC 2016/17 and join this rally that will take us back to St Lucia in the Caribbean. Susie will join in Mauritius and Reunion and then hop back on board for the cruising down the South African coast to Cape Town where we will spend Christmas. Peter will then re join Firefly and with Gareth we will visit St Helena and then go onto Brazil. Susie will then take over the crewing role again and 2 handed we will sail to the Caribbean, completing our circum navigation and finishing the World ARC Rally in April 2017.

Paul and Susie

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