S/V Morning Light

Water tower “The Pencil” in Meije.

You can download the Google Earth track here.

Finally got to spend an evening on upgrading the blog.  For the rest it is business as usual: wake up and work.  The Dutch spring has been warm for the time of year with lots of sunshine.

If Postie works, there will be mail….

After a lot of motoring between Port Dickson and Puteri, but with the busy Malakka Straight traffic and the anchorage of Singapore for distraction, we arrived in Puteri Monday afternoon.  That gives us three days to get Morning Light all packed up for an extended stay at the marina.

The sails are taken off and in their bags, forepeak cleaned and waxed.  Today it is the engine’s turn.

Friday we take the bus from Johor Bahru to Kuala Lumpur, the on Saturday I fly to London (and eventually Stansted) and Rachel to Miri.

For a while I was considering to put the boat on the hard in Langkawi, but after further consideration, I decided to go with the original plan: leave the boat in Johor Bahru.  There are a few possibilities there.

The good thing also is that we still have some more miles of sailing ahead of us, and some more places to visit.

In George Town Rachel rented a bycicle, and we rode the mapped route through the historic town.  For the rest we have focussed on eating, because Penang is famous for that as well.

Over the past week we have kept moving along, Patong to Nai Harn, then a few days Ao Chalong, then Koh Rok Nok, and on towards Kuah, Langkawi.  Winds were varying, everything between squalls, good wind and no wind at all.

Just sailed overnight to George Town, which is a nice place, with a mixture of Malay, Chinese and Indian culture in an old city centre.

Still looking at my options where to leave  Morning Light, because the anti-fouling is about gone, taking her out the water has my preference.

We had some great snorkeling in the Similan and Surin islands, made a stop in Ranong (border town with Birma/Myanmar) where a new battery was bought.  Sailing was quite good, winds are mostly light aound Thailand, but were able to make most miles sailing.On arrival in Patong I recognized the boat Strummer, some friends I have seen all around the world.  They aborted their trip up the Red Sea because of the pirate situation, bad situation that maybe some governments should do something about.  Nevertheless the circumstances, it was good to run into Nige and Al!

We have been in Patong mingling with the tourists for the past few days. We’ll do a little shopping and fill water tanks and then we should be on our way to Similan Islands, and later maybe also the Surin Islands.  Don’t expect too much internet access there, so it might stay quiet here for a bit.

Winds have been light, but there normally was some in the morning.  We had stops in Koh Bulon Le, Koh Phetra, Koh Muk and Phi Phi Don.  We did the cave trip in Koh Muk.  The disco in Phi Phi Don shut down their music after 5 in the morning, to be avoided.

Checked in this morning, was at immigration in Ao Chalong just before 15:00 yesterday, but they had called it quits early.

This morning went walk around Ao Chalong, looking for everthing, but keeping an eye out for a dingy.  And, by accident ran into a patched up Hercules, fold up dinghy.  Just the right model, but PVC, so limited life time.

The old outboard is still working too, so at least we have all we need to continue on.  Tomorrow morning we try to leave Ao Chalong ASAP.  It is a zoo, with dive boats leaving en masse every morning, all passing by within a few meters with a maximum wake.

Next stop might be Ni Harn beach, or beyond, west side of Phuket island is the plan.

Last Friday we left for a little trip, just to anchor behind one of the many small islands around Langkawi.  Only to find out that the complete anchor chain was rusted together as one piece that was beyond use.

It was a full moon, with a real pretty moon rise.

The spare anchor was not holding, so it made for a restless night and at first sun rise we sailed off.  There was fair winds going back, so at least all the sails got some fresh wind.

Back to the marina to fight getting the anchor chain out of the locker, only way was through the boat, so rust everywhere.   Now rearranging the anchoring gear, and going through more of the the stuff on board (found enough warm clothes to sail off to a polar expedition).

Expired foods had already been thrown way earlier, so at least there is more and more storage available on board.

Rachel sprained her ankles two nights ago, so we are now taking it easy reorganizing and waiting for the dinghy to be finished.