Malaysia

Shots around Malaysia in no particular order:

Buddist Temple in Melaka with offerings

Biggest buildings in Kuala Lumpur

Historic Fort in Melaka

Learning about how to make "Birds Nesr Soup"
It's sweetish and served for dessert!

Buying Batik artwork on silk in Melaka

Moslem school kids cut up with Chuck and Julia from Pacific Star, IP350

Malaysia is not as pristine as Singapore but a damnsight cleaner and richer than Indonesia so we are ready to like it here for a while. We plan to leave the boat in Langkawi while we travel and work on sprucing it back to shipshape!

We came to Johor the first of November, for the start of the Malaysia Rally but quickly went our own direction and pace, sailing NW up the Mallaca Straights, one of the busiest ship traffic locations in the world. We stayed in the barge lane missing all the fishing nets that are layed continously in 30' or less depth.

Our first stop was the historic town of Melaca with forts, museums, churches and old rebuilt squares to roam around. Next we stopped at Port Dickson where we left the boat for 5 days to visit the capital of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur...means "muddy confluence". We did the usual big city stuff: shopping, museums, architecture, gardens. It was pretty OK but quite cheap!

After that we sailed straight for Langkawi, a group of touristy resort islands in the Andaman Sea. They are dutyfree and the water is much bluer than the muddy Straights. There are several marinas and yacht services. First we get 7 new batteries, a charger for shore power, a "fixed" or a "new" fridge, canvas repaired, new cockpit cushions and lots of scrubbing of mildew from all over this tub!!! I'll call it by name when it looks "schoonery" again!

We plan to visit Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, China and even come home for a while, hopefully in spring. Good news is we bought a small AC unit cuz this weather is really hot and now we can sleep and work better.

We will also get physicals and renew prescriptions here, so hopefully we are in good enuf shape to keep doing this cruising stuff. We do have the net here at the Royal Langkawi Yacht Club, so keep in touch.

Back to making the maintainence list...haven't begun work yet.

Singapore

We can only hit the high points in Singapore. We stayed 3 weeks and just loved being in a big city again. We shopped....shopping is a marathon activity here...and saw all the museums. We toured around Little India and Chinatown with friends who met us coming in from Malaysia. We stayed in Raffles Marina, the most luxurious marina we have ever been in but very reasonable.

Singapore is immaculate and quite refreshing after Indonesia with all the polluted water.

We really loved the most wonderful tropical Botanic Gardens we have ever seen and the Bird Park was also quite remarable. The Zoo was just soso!

We had to get new passports so that's why it took a while but it was no problem...except the minor one...the heat...whew...quite warm here. Tried to stay gone until 6pm when it cools down.

In Nov we are on to Malaysia with the start of the rally that we really are just drifting with in the straights of Malaka until we get to Langkawi near Thailand. That's when the water gets nice and clear again and we look forward to it.

Kalimantan to Singapore

We gotta say, the last part of Indonesia was definitely the best!! We were so impressed with our visit to Camp Leakey where wild orangutans are cared for before being released back into the wild. What a great experience! Actually just imagine anchoring right on a river in southern Borneo. The Indonesian part of Borneo is called Kalimantan. We took this river boat for 2 days and one night through the jungle to see these amazingly intelligent "cousins". You know there is a lot going on when you look deep into their eyes.
There is more info on the website on the Kalimantan page but I just had to add some more photos here.

We arrived in Singapore on Monday Oct 5th and it's great to be back in the first world again. The 4 days it took to get here was when all the dreadful disasters were hitting this area and we kept getting email asking about our safety when we didn't really know what was going on. We will be at Raffles Marina in Singapore until the Malaysia Rally begins and we sail up the straits of Mallaca towards Thailand.

Keep an eye out on the website, Starsonthesea.com for a Singapore page as soon as Lynn fully recovers from a weird infection setback.

Pix of Indonesia/August '09

Here are a few pix of Indonesia and the adventure verbage follows on the next pages ...all about our time here.

After this we will post about our trip around Bali and we will get more photos on the net in Singapore. Internet is not readily available here and this is our first chance in 2 months.
Lynn and Chuck on CYAN

Kicking back!

Heading West to Bali/August '09

We are having trouble raving about this country. Compared to our other cruising areas this one is more challenging and we are not particularly enthusiastic about it. The anchorages are deep and rolly; not conducive to rest. The food is cheap but mediocre although the beer is good. The land is hot, dry and parched with lots of dirt and dust to collect on the boat….and no rain for over 2 months so there is salt everywhere. Many villages are pitifully poor and needy and we would like to help more than we can. Some actually rate as Fourth World!

We really just passed time until we got to the island of Rinca, near Komoto, and saw the giant Komoto Dragons. That was something impressive to write about. They actually can swim and climb aboard boats if they smell meat. We couldn’t get off the dinghy onto land because they looked so fierce.

We began enjoying this country a bit more when we arrived in Lovina Beach, Bali. We could have just skipped everything up until here if we had it to do over again. Also, this Boat Rally is the worst organized event we have ever seen…actually entertaining in its inefficiency! They keep cancelling things and changing the rules and the organizers quit halfway through it. We had taken off on our own away from the crowd of boats, anyway. We are waiting to renew our visas now and are just killing time before we visit the island of Bali. We have heard good things so are looking forward to improvement in our outlook.

We guess someplace has to be our least favorite!!! After here we go to Borneo to see the Orangutans and then to Singapore before another rally in Malaysia and then on to Thailand.

WE ARE ACTUALLY HEADED HOME AFTER THAILAND! In January we will head around India, through the Red Sea to Turkey. We won’t be back in the US on CYAN for at least 2 years but we are headed that way.

Lynn and Chuck on CYAN

Trials In Indonesia/July 09

Maybe we jinxed ourselves by saying too often that things had been going too smoothly, but our luck all caught up with us on our way to Indonesia.

The first inconvenience happened when, in the middle of the night, on the short 250 mile passage, the head got completely blocked and we proceeded to disassemble it and treat it with phosphoric acid. Meanwhile, when we are both working in the head with sails reefed and pointing the boat to the wind for a smoother ride, a wave hits and a kettle of tea flies across the galley staining the rugs with creative brown designs. Then on another wave all Lynn's earrings in a Tupperware box, that has always been secure, hits at the right angle and the stateroom is peppered with jewelry, everywhere. We finally unblock the head after several hours of “bucket and chuck-it” as cruisers call it. All this, while the wind picks up to blowing 30 knots.

We finally reach Saumlaki, Indonesia where the 140 boats in the rally crowd into a deep anchorage. These local folks...40,000...in an oversized village actually, have never seen so many westerners at one time. The people here are very welcoming and delightful folks...we can't say enough about their attractiveness. The officials do the best they can with the overwhelming number of vessels to go through quarantine, immigration, customs and harbormaster clearance. Beaurocracy is the game here and we must enjoy it!!!

Our next set of problems didn't really start until the second day where we are called on the radio to assure us that someone is out there saving our dinghy...WHAT DINGHY... we didn't know it was missing!!! The D ring we have hauled it by for thousands of miles gave way and it was taking off across the bay!!! Then we went on the arranged tour of villages to view the culture, dancing, singing and crafts. The marathon hour tour ended up lasting 9 hours on a bumpy bus with no restroom facilities and just one cup of water. The tour was wonderful but they hadn't prepared for this huge number of cruisers, amounting to over 200 in 5 busses on back roads.

Anyway, after we got back, at dusk, we find the dinghy had been pushed under the pier by the other 30 dinghies and it was crushed and full of water from high tide!!! We got towed back to the boat by helpful fellow cruisers only to find that our BOAT WAS MISSING...IT WAS GONE...ooops… look around...there it was ...over 300 feet north from where we left it. The anchor that had held fine for 2 days, somehow, proceeded to drag across the slimy mud and past a neighboring boat but not hitting it!!! We find out that 4 other cruisers in dinghies guided it safely and let out more chain to hold it securely. We pride ourselves in anchoring and we were mortified to be caught in such a mistake!!!

It was all a day from hell and mostly an affront to our dignity. We will learn from it all and not be complacent...if that was our mistake. The next morning we re-anchored with a wounded windlass [the motor thing that pulls up the chain]. Chuck spent the all day learning how to rebuild the waterlogged outboard motor while Lynn was in bed with chills from “Indo revenge” as also experienced by with other visitors here!!!

We finally got the motor fixed although the cover looks like it was run over by a truck!!! We also fixed the wiring on the windlass with help from other cruisers. Just another step in the great adventure but we have to say...we were tired, frustrated, embarrassed and humbled by all of it. The breakage could have been worse and more threatening...like actually having to get parts sent into here. “Impossible but can be arranged”, as they say, expecting bribes.

It was not our best time on the boat so far!!! Still we leave to see other parts of Indonesia west of here and hopefully with better luck!!

Lynn and Chuck on CYAN

The end of Australia

Chuck's view while diving!

We haven't written in ages because there just isn't anything exciting about getting ready to leave the first world.

There are many things to fix on the boat like refrigeration, windlass, SSB radio [shorting out causing shocks ouch!] and a bunch of boring miscellaneous small stuff. We always appreciate the engine and generator which are purring nicely and after our boat's slick bottom paint we are scooting along at nice speeds like 7 knots!!! We have been packing in the provisions and booze like there is no tomorrow. That's because we want more than fish and seedy rice!!! And also there are no alcoholic goodies in Indonesia!!!Our passage along the islands of the Great Barrier Reef and the NE coast of Aussieland was quite enjoyable. We especially liked Cairns, Cooktown, Townsville, the 5 day Great Barrier Reef Cruise and wonderful cape Tribulation with it's beautiful rain forest. It's a long damn way around Australia, though...I mean this place is spread out!!! It seemed to take us ages!!!

We must mention that the folks here are our favorites in the world so far....they are just great everywhere we went...just like southerners at home...warm and instant friends...we love them!!!We sailed around the NE section of Australia all the way to Darwin and have been here almost a month getting ready. It's hot and sticky here and it's the dead of winter!!! On July 18 at 6am we take a 3 day voyage north to Indonesia for 3 months in the third world...actually it's the most exotic place we have been yet, as far as lack of communications like the internet or even medical help. There are 140 boats in this rally so we have lots of company and we have seen just loads of friends that we haven't connected with in ages.

I might also mention that we installed an AIS unit so that we can always see the location big ships and they can see us. We will be going into busy traffic waters from here on.

We promise to report here more often during our travels.

We plan to go to Bali and Borneo, too, which just sound so wildly exotic!!! We understand that the Indonesian people have little but are warm and inviting. We hope there is not another earthquake in Sumatra like the one that wiped out Thailand a few years ago because that's just where we will be!!! After Indonesia we go to Singapore about October and then to Malaysia for several weeks before Thailand about Christmas time.

Please write us at the usual sailmail address...we will miss friends and family.

Lynn and Chuck...the tired and drinking crew of CYAN!!!