After spending 4 glorious days in Istanbul en route to Malaysia, we arrived in Singapore and traveled to the border causeway crossing by train and very squishy full bus. We had booked a hotel for the first night in Johor Bahru and in the morning we found the streets in our area alive with double festivities:
Chinese New Year, the Year of the Rabbit
and the more painful looking Hindu festival of Thaipusam
Then on to Senibong Cove Marina to see how Pegasos held up after 3½ months.
There was some mould but not much and thankfully no leaks. First priority was to get shade so the tent canvas was put up first.
Followed by general scrubbing and cleaning and putting back all the sails.
The lithium battery Robert bought last time was not working properly so after the usual lengthy run around by dodgy Chinese suppliers, new lithium battery arrived. Pity the charge controllers and battery management systems supplied are so crap.
We also got a new long shaft outboard motor - our back up if the onboard engine gives problems, at least it can push us out of hazards. It was like Xmas on the jetty for Robert.
Senibong Cove Marina is a nicely maintained marina, although noisy at night surrounded by bars and restaurants and singing until the wee hours. At the time we were one of only two live-aboard boats. Sadly, many of the other sail boats looked abandoned and needing their owners.
Our live-aboard gecko still living the life since Port Dickson last year:
And it's bigger cousin, a monitor lizard at the marina (luckily not living aboard):
After 3 weeks of which 1 week was both of us being too sick to do much boat preparation, Pegasos was ready and a large part of our last day was spent visiting the harbour master, naturally quite far from customs and immigration - manned by pleasant staff who seem to be doing yacht clearing out paperwork for the very first time.
We had good weather in the marina and we had hardly set off when the weather turned and torrential rain set in for a few days. So we found a sheltered spot in the strait behind Singapore, dropped anchor and sat it out for 3 days as visibility was too poor to go in the shipping lanes. The monsoon downpour resulted in some severe flooding in surrounding areas.
Anchored off tiny Pineapple Island (Pulau Nenas):
Eventually we got a weather window break and set off very early in the morning to head into the westbound lane around Singapore.
Once we were in the shipping lane, we kept a sharp look out and checked our AIS constantly. We kept to the very edge of the shipping lane so the faster moving big giants could pass by and the Singapore water police were satisfied we were not straying into Singapore waters.
Going around Singapore from Pegasos' perspective:
It was a long 9 hours in the shipping lane around Singapore so we were relieved to head out the lane to our nearest anchorage off Kukup Island. The next day we headed northwards up the west coast of Malaysia and anchored off Pisang Island. The heavy rain came back so we sat out another 2 days glad to be away from the flooding mainland where several communities had to be evacuated. The anchor windlass broke and Robert tried to fix it but no joy. So it means pulling up the anchor by hand until we can get a replacement part several weeks away. Robert's morning "gym" workout.
Once the rain let up we headed further northwards along the west Malaysian coast with the first overnight anchoring at an open roadstead just north of Batu Pahat. The colour of the water was gross probably from the nearby river.
A distinct colour change in the sea water:
We had strong wind and the current with us on the way to Malacca and with the sails up we were averaging about 7 knots. Yay!
It was our second visit to Malacca and we enjoyed it as much as our first time in 2019. A vibrant heritage town with colonial buildings and the old Chinese quarter houses in the centre and modern tall buildings in the surrounds.
We needed fuel so our next stop was our old haunt of Admiral Marina at Port Dickson where we had a swim in their fabulous pool and re-visited Sailors Drink Shop 😊
Then onwards northwards for 9 hours to another familiar anchorage amongst the mangroves at Port Klang. Crossing another shipping channel but not as busy as Singapore. Monkeys and monitor lizards provided our sundowner entertainment.
Another long day northwards and we decided on another open roadstead near Sungai Besar. Unfortunately the wind picked up and it became rolly and bouncy. Nothing we couldn't handle except after about an hour at anchorage, hundreds of little fishing boats zoomed out of their villages and set up their nets some distance away except for an idiot with a drift net too close in the strong current and in no time the drift net caught around the front of Pegasos. Robert jumped into the dinghy and tried to pull the net away but the current was too strong. I grabbed a large knife from the kitchen and wondered when I should cut the net. The idiot fisherman shot around to the back and frantically tried bringing his net in, getting closer and closer to Pegasos. His heavy wooden boat bumped Pegasos several times and in the bouncy sea he couldn't control it much. He ended up whacking into our port hull now cracked and badly dinged in the bow. When he lurched around to the starboard side Robert abandoned the dinghy and jumped into the fisherman's boat to push it off the bow. In doing so, water came into the fisherman's boat and he eventually said OK, Cut and handed over his knife. Robert still had to dive under our boat to remove the cut net off our rudder. No easy feat with Pegasos bouncing in rough sea. It was a rolly, uncomfortable night.
The next morning we picked our way through an intense fishing net area and 7 hours later dropped anchor on the south side of Pangkor Island.
It was hot but the water was teeming with millions of small jellyfish so we went ashore for a walk and early supper.
We had been with a tour group to Pangkor Island before and remembered the beautiful bay Teluk Nipah on the north side so decided to stop there the next day.
It was as scenic as before but seemed a lot busier this time with tour boats, banana boats, jet skis etc., so we decided not to linger another day and pushed on to Pulau Telang. The anchorage was wall to wall fishing nets but we found our spot and seeing no jellyfish we finally had a swim.
A very early start the next morning leaving at the crack of dawn. It was a long 9 hours covering 58 nautical miles in fairly choppy sea. The wind was directly ahead so no sailing and we used the small outboard engine too to up our speed. Along the way we were entertained by terns diving into the water behind the boat to catch the small fish churned up by our wake. Thinking we might catch a bigger fish Robert put out a fishing line but no fish for us. Truly there's not much bigger fish left in these waters.
Penang Island at last and we dropped anchor at Pulau Riman off to the south of Penang. Enormous jellyfish the size of tyres in the water so no swimming again.
After the previous long day, we had a late morning relaxing since it would be a short hop to the anchorage off George Town. Along the way we passed under 2 bridges, one of them being the newer longest bridge in SE Asia at 24 kms! As always, it's a moment of tension going under a bridge with a sailing mast.
We were the only boat at the "Dump" anchorage but it was easy access to shore by leaving the dinghy tied up at the broken remains of a marina during the day. Very glad not to step into the water as it is heavily polluted with everything! We spent 3 days sight seeing in George Town and so enjoyed the intriguing town with so many interesting places to see.
George Town has preserved much of its older buildings and is an eclectic blend of Malay, Chinese and Indian cultures.
George Town has delightful street art popping up in surprising places. Some of the hundreds of street art dotted about:
We took many more pictures of the various places we visited, too many to share here, but have put them on our Instagram: @MARCELLE_AND_ROBERT
After 4 nights anchored fast in the smelly, oily mud off George Town, it took quite a while for Robert to get our anchor up as he was still pulling it up by hand and OMG it came up stuck with gooey yucky slimy mud, bits of plastic bags, rope, etc.
We left the channel at the same time as a cruise liner, a David and Goliath exit from Penang Island. Our last stopover before reaching Langkawi was Pulau Bidan, a picturesque tiny island from afar. It was hugely disappointing. Apart from the usual blanket of plastic litter, there were hundreds of glass bottles washed up on the beach, lots of sharp broken glass making it impossible to walk barefoot on the sand.
Apparently there's an "Eco Project" set up on the tiny island, but cleaning up beach litter is not on their agenda as we saw a group of guys exiting the Eco Project facility carrying fishing rods, stepping over the litter and heading off on a small boat to go fishing. Hope they catch lots of jellyfish as the sea is teeming with jellyfish here.
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