5th May - Straits Quay marina (Penang) - dermatologist and hairdresser - life raft misadventure (not not 2XS thank heavens!!)

Monday 5^th May

The Penang sky, full of black storms!

Yesterday when we arrived in Straits Quay (Penang) I had a cold shower and then stepped into the bedroom to remove the bed linen and replace it with CLEAN shiny cloth.  Straight back into the cold shower…Have I ever mentioned how HOT it is here?  At this monsoonal time of year??  But now we have a beautiful CLEAN bed…until next we despoil the sheets with…no not blood sweat and tears mainly just…sweat!!  And maybe a few tears from heat exhaustion.  Crazy not to be able to change one’s bed linen without a cold shower before AND after!

A Langkawi dusky leaf monkey in the jungle, just to lighten thetales of domesticity on board...

Today has NOT been a Sightseeing in Beautiful Penang day.  For a start, it is just too hot and humid.  The thought of going into old Georgetown, no matter how fascinating it might be, and traipsing around the hot dirty streets makes me feel quite faint.  Instead we had a very successful medical morning, and a beautifying afternoon.

Pete has quite a few blemishes on his skin – hand, cheek, head.  They needed looking at, and seeing to.  We spent the morning, with our iPads to keep us entertained, waiting in various queues until Pete’s designated dermatologist was free to examine and then to zap.  And zap he did!  Pete’s hand and head are now a mass of blisters.  The good news in – none of them were cancerous.  And now they have been zapped they will, presumably, fade away into the warm night air…

And then it was time for lunch and some beautiful little cups of coffee

So pretty!

Pete trotted back (Mad Dogs and Englishmen) to nearby Tesco, where we had bought some window shades which were too big and which needed replacing, while I strolled round the cool halls of Straits Quay and found a very kindly, meticulous hairdresser

Ricky Zeng, my new Best Friend Forever

who listened carefully when I said I would CRY if he cut my hair too short… There isn’t an AfterPhoto… I did take a selfie but it is too hideous for words… I look so very anxious!  But I can assure you it looks better.  Pete can’t understand why it needed cutting; he thought it was fine.  But…it keeps growing, like a weed, and it was starting to look – oh no – very mullet-like.

In the Straits Quay shopping centre last night we were charmed by this sand sculpture – it was World Tapir Day – who knew??

The poor darling tapir is missing in action - will try to find it...

We sat in a café at the edge of the marina and watched the sky darken… SO stormy!  We have heard of quite a few boats which have been struck by lightning around these parts in the past few weeks.  Something else to worry about!!  John (SV Allikat) has a lightning rod which geos down though the boat and deep into the water.  Not sure if we should drill another hole in the bottom of 2XS to accommodate* a lightning rod…

John (SV Allikat) and Terry (SV Sylvia May)

At our last Friday Beach Bar drinks on Rebak Peter and Misty told me a glorious story of misadventure at sea.  Glorious because…oh so foolish…

A few years ago they went – not in SlasherMode - cruising in the Mediterranean, with a bare boat charter company.  One of the other teams comprised a very serious, if not dour, Dutch couple.  Serious, experienced, slightly gloomy… The boat company rewarded this pair for loyalty – it was about their third charter in these waters – by upgrading them to a slightly bigger better boat.

I am interposing here a photo of our liferaft, with my foot in the foreground, for scale, and our darling deflating dinghy hanging in the background, also for scale.  And yes of course, a life raft has to be poised ready to be hurled into the briny, even if is then slightly in the way.  The Dutch wanted to increase their available space on their bigger better boat…So they decided to haul it down below and stow it, out of the way, in the spare cabin.**

When next Peter and Misty saw The Dutch they were looking more gloomy than usual…We have broken the kitchen, they said, trying not to look TOO embarrassed.  And yes as they heaved the “unnecessary” liferaft down below it popped its straps, inflated itself, and prepared to take on its designated role as Rescue Craft for sailors in peril.  Oh the damage…We all sat around our little Beach Bar tables, chuckling wickedly – nothing like a bit of Schadenfreude…

Tomorrow we are leaving at midday, heading for Pangkor.

* What could possibly go wrong?

** What could possibly go wrong??