We had rough sail back to Malaysia with a heavy squall on the way – of course it hit in the middle of the night but no damage so we arrived at the island of Tioman tired but happy to be in one piece. Tioman is the easiest place to check in and only took us about an hour so we headed straight to the bottle shop to stock up on some duty free alcohol and then had lunch. We wanted to spend few days here this time so we sent round to the lovely bay of Juara. There are only a few restaurants and backpackers here and no cruising boats.
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We arrived in the idyllic island of Redang to spend a few days before meeting our kids in the Perhentians.   What a gorgeous place … the water was crystal clear, with turtles swimming in the bay.  We jumped in and swam with them – they were really inquisitive and seemed to have no fear of us.   There must have been 8 – 10 fully grown turtles living in the bay and so tourist boats kept coming by depositing their swimmers into the bay.   We noticed that the turtles actually went up to them so they must be very well protected here.  Redang is a small island off the East Coast of mainland Malaysia consisting of a small village and a couple of up market resorts.  It is incredibly beautiful – continue reading…>

We left Kapas and headed to the small town of Terengganu only 10 miles away.  We needed to stock up for when our kids arrive next week, and get some credit.   Terengganu is a sultanate and state of Malaysia, and the city of Kuala Terengganu is capital of the state.  We headed into the marina, which was incredibly muddy and were settled in by lunch.  We had to check in and out of Terengganu which surprised us as we had not done so in any other state except Langkawi, so imagine our surprise continue reading….

Having spent the last 8 months on and off  on the west coast of Malaysia in the Malacca Straits we wanted to experience ‘the other side’ which is far less travelled and we had heard relatively unspoiled.  When we looked at the charts we found places we had never heard of, so we were looking forward to exploring.

We left Sebana Cove and had a really slow frustrating continue reading

With the South Westerly monsoon approaching, we decided to head south via the Malacca Straits to spend a couple of months on the much less travelled Eastern Coast of the Malaysian peninsular.  As we had already been down this coastline before we decided not to stop and spend too much time here instead opting to explore the other side.  I love the best laid plans…

Langkawi was our first port of call and Rebak marina beckoned.  It was so good to be back at our favourite haunt complete with swimming pool, beach bar and choice of restaurants.  Many of the rally friends were still there and we  had a lovely few days with everyone before we all went off in different continue reading…

After having spent 9 months away, we decided to head back to Australia to see our kids.  We are only a 5 hour flight away and as Indian Summer is safely tucked up in a marina it seems the right time.  Perth was unusually cool for January when we arrived – we were back in Jeans for a day or so, but then the typical heat came back and without the tropical humidity we are used to so we felt quite comfortable.  We sorted out all the business side of things, and had a great holiday with our kids.  We also needed to get our -continue reading…->

We arrived into Langkawi early in the afternoon and went straight to our pre-booked pen in the Royal Langkawi Yacht Club.   The club is in the centre of Langkawi so we were able to just walk to the check in offices and get our cruising permit for Langkawi. – cont reading…>

We visited Penang 25 years ago on a family holiday, but the Penang we found this time was very different.  Most of us anchored outside the small but lovely Straights Quay Marina as on our first night we were treated to a party on the dockside.   The marina complex itself is wonderful with many different bars, restaurants and shops so we ate at the Irish bar for  lunch and enjoyed wandering around the shops all afternoon. The next day Kim (Magic Bullet) and I went into Georgetown continue reading …

After a delayed start because of the rogue anchor we set sail to Penang.  We sailed in company with about 12 other boats all heading for the Penang as well and we all had to sail under the Penang Bridge to reach the anchorage.   It was quite spectacular looking up at the huge span above and we had to race to the anchorage before the rain came as you can see from the above photo – we only had minutes. – continue reading….>

After our overnight sail to Pangkor we anchored just outside the marina and just chilled out for the day.  We wanted to organise fuel, laundry etc and have a lazy day as all cruisers do on arrival at a new port.

One of the stops on this leg of the rally was a day trip to a place called Ipoh.  I had never heard of Ipoh and was I in for a surprise.  Ipoh is the capital city of the state of Perak and was once a very large tin mining town. -continue reading………>