30th May - Pulau Bidung - return to Terengganu - off to Pulau Kapas

Friday 30^th May

Bamboo thicket (Terengganu)

We arrived back in Terengganu at 4pm, just in time to catch a taxi to the Immigration office at the airport.  They had lovingly and kindly saved all of our documents and had even put them in a larger neater envelope.  Whew!

Terengganu on the river - I particularly like the tall grey and white building 

Yesterday morning Pete went diving again with Dave and Jacqui.  Apparently it was spectacularly wonderful and…I missed out.  But never mind! 

Dave and Jacqui (Pete in the background, sorting his gear)

I went for a swim of my very own, towards the research station beach.  And I found a submerged caterpillar tread digging thingy, huge!  And covered with coral, abundant with sea life.  Happy times!

One of our new rally friends, Heather (NZ), sat next to me on the bus for a while when we were doing our Tour Of Terengganu.  They have been sailing continuously for seven years.  (The record, however, in this particular rally group, is held by Magnetic, also from NZ – Trevor and Yolanta have been sailing for 27 years!!  Not sure if there have been breaks in between – surely at some stage they would have had to stop to earn a few $$$s??)  

Heather and Mark have spent a long time around Langkawi.  Twice they have left her boat, Ajax, on anchorage in the Hole in the Wall, where they paid the caretaker 300-odd ringgits per month to keep an eye on things.  The first time everything was ticketyboo… The second time, not so much…  Their outboard engine had been chained to the dinghy, but well-equipped thieves had sawn through the chain and taken it.  They had also cut and removed all of the visible ropes, so when Mark and Heather went to put up this sail or that – quelle horrible surprise, no ropes!  Mr Caretaker shrugged laconically and took no responsibility whatsoever; they were not impressed!  It cost them $5000 to replace all of their necessities.  Oh and I forgot – worst of all; they stole the steering wheel!  For the next few months until they could get a new one from Australia they had to steer with a crescent spanner clamped to the centre where the wheel should have been…

This morning we are going back across to glorious Pulau Kapas, just for one night.  This will make me very happy; I loved it there.  All that coral, all those fish…and a very nice little restaurant along the way…

And then on Saturday – gulp – time to leave the East Coast of Malaysia and make our way across the fabled South China Sea…It should take us three days (approx. 400 nautical miles) until we reach an anchorage.  We are making up a little convoy of maybe five or six boats – safety in numbers!