17th December - Kuah (Langkawi)

Tuesday 17^th December

My very favourite of the 25000 orchids

Our anchorage in Kuah is once again not far from the fairytale castle.  We are, however, a bit closer to the dinghy dock, which is good because…Darling Dinghy needs to be pumped up quite regularly and we don’t like making it go too far…

I forgot to put up photos of the beautiful Brahminy Kites at our anchorage in the islands.  Here they are, soaring:

 fishing:

Our excursion to town involved yet another of Pete’s favourite haunts.  Multequip had what he needed.  He ordered a generator and batteries and emerged from the shop quite pale because of how much it is all costing.  Boys fixing toys in exotic locations…

I was quite happy because I found a stool in one of the narrow aisles, and rang Katy for a long chat.

The area of Kuah where we found Multequip is fill of duty free shops, heaving with people buying up big.  We bought up big too – six new melamine plates, and six knives.  

Mother & Son combo at tehcheckout

Where have all the knives gone – well might you ask!  (Pete strongly suspects me, I am sure, of hurling them overboard through the hatch, one at a time, with the dirty dishwater.  He might be right but I am NOT confessing.)

 The shops sell Corningware by the crateload, as well as other kitchen goods.  Langkawi is a duty free island and these shops are very good for the local economy.  We were astounded by the wine shops – so many of them, with such a large variety of wine from all over the world, very cheap.  Pete was mesmerised.  There are also huge chocolate shops, selling vast quantities of Toblerone, Cadburys, Lindt.  Chocolate in this very hot climate??  How do people even get it home on the ferry?  Oh and you can buy cigarettes, cheap as can be.  Smoker, Drinker, Chocolate-eater Paradise!

Coming out of Rebak we said goodbye to Kittani

 and also to Micromegas, visible as a small dot on the big sea. 

We spoke to them on the radio, wishing them safe sailing.  We will miss Peter, Kathy, 

Fredy, Chantal.

Last night while I was doing my blog Jason and Karen from SV Yolo (You Only Live Once) came for a drink.   They are very cheery, competent sailors, from the US.   But even the most competent, cheery sailors can run into nets… On their way to Langkawi they got caught up in a net strung between a few plastic bottles, with dozens of tiny invisible floats keeping it just below the surface.  Most of he nets are looped down from the floats onto the seabed and it doesn’t really matter if you go over them.  But this one got caught around both of their propellers.  It was not fun.  It took them ages to cut the net free and to bag it all up so it didn’t float off to kill sealife or get caught around anther boat’s vital parts.

There are not many fish left in the sea around Indonesia or Malaysia.  They all have been caught in the ubiquitous nets, and never get a chance to grow very big.  Yolo has a fishfinder on the radar system, and Jason said in the Pacific islands they were always coming across large number of fish, big and small. But here, he gets thrilled to bits if he sees one small fish flit by.