Telaga Harbour, Langkawi

Maggie alone at anchor

Princess Lake - freshwater lake among the hills

Lots of monkeys!

View of Telaga harbour from cable car

Skybridge from top of cable car - suspended from a single support!

New high end golf course - The Els Club

View of the 18th hole with the most southerly Thailand island in the background.

Telaga Harbour, Langkawi

March 2, 2016

After returning to Langkawi, we sailed to another bay on another island, Pulau Dayang Bunting. The scenery was beautiful with the steep rock walls exposed. We are on a line of islands formed when, in ancient earth history earth plates collided and pushed up old sedimentary rocks. There are a number of marble quarries as well with the marble formed from years of pressure on the sediments. We wanted to visit this particular bay as there is a small fresh water lake just over one of the hills. It was formed when the roof of a large cave collapsed and is now kept filled with rain water. Some books call it Princess Lake, but it depends on how you translate the legend of the "pregnant maiden". There were many tourists swimming and paddle boating there, although they have to come by boat as it is part of the national park with no accommodation. We had the whole bay to ourselves for the evening and overnight. It would have been perfect except for a strong, gusty, katabatic wind blowing down the hills.

The next day we moved north to Telaga Harbour where we are still anchored. There is a marina here as well. It was built in 2004 and later that year was completely destroyed by the tsunami. But it has been rebuilt, but they added 2 small offshore islands to block the seas in the southwest monsoon season. There are a number of shops and restaurants, gas station, immigration, etc, and a ferry to Thailand. We have seen 3 Canadian flags while here which has not been very common.

Four of our three BPO boats have been here for a few days. It has been fun to catch up with everyone and compare notes for visiting Thailand next. Tahawas has been there already as they didn't go home for Xmas. We enjoyed a dinner out Sunday along the tourist  beach strip which is a cab drive away. All the boats are here because of repairs that need to be done. No Regrets arrived for a short visit but their engine was overheating on arrival and a motor mount was broken. The anchor windlass motor burned out on Tahawas when they arrived. Blue Wind is installing a new watermaker and freezer. Rob has  repaired the wind generator switch, the steaming light, and installed some new cockpit lights for when we are anchored. They say "sailing is repairing your boat in exotic locations", or is it "add money and stir". Bob and Barb took the ferry from here to Penang, and then a flight to Singapore, Vancouver and then home. The guests on No Regrets also started home the same way. Zeke and the new crew for No Regrets are arriving in Penang the same day. Tim is also there getting the Indonesian visa.

We are taking the time to be tourists as well. The most famous attraction within walking distance of here is a cable car to the top of Mt Machinchang.  The 15 minute, 2.2km ride is considered the world's steepest. When you get off that one there is still another to a higher peak, as well as a 410 ft suspension bridge to walk across to another peak. All of this is in rainforest. Spectacular views all around- even the first islands in Thailand. There are many monkeys in this whole area, even along the road from the marina. At the cable car base a whole tourist village has been built. The Malaysians are doing a better job than the Indonesians on giving tourists opportunities to spend money.

Today Rob and I rented a car and went to see a new golf course built by Ernie Els in the northwest corner of the island.. The whole bay there is being developed as a high end resort destination with private beaches backed by the mountain range. We had dressed better than our usual and convinced the security staff to let us visit the lobby of one of the resorts. It really is stunning scenery. We had lunch at the golf course and they let us rent a golf cart to drive through the course. It obviously was not very busy. About $200 will give you green fees, cart, and caddie.

Although we don't know the Malaysian language it has been fun to sound out some of the road signs. Some examples: polis, bas kapten,  ekspres,  teksi,  kompleks kraf,  klinic and surgeri,  butik. As you can tell many sound like phoenetic english.

We are waiting until Thursday to check out of Malaysia and Friday to leave for Thailand. We took down our dodger, the canvas and strata glass in the front of the cockpit to take in for repairs. Both zippers are broken and much of the stitching is disintegrating. We should get a call tomorrow to pick it up. We will again rent a car. It is an interesting procedure . The marina staff just let you use their cars for $3 per hour. You donn't have to show them a drivers licence or sign anything-just your boat name on a scrap piece of paper. You can see the first Thai islands from here, one only 4 nm from the north side. One of them that is 25 nm away is a check in location. Our plan is to take 3 day sails to Phuket. We are looking forward to seeing Thailand and especially to get in a visit with Dave and Ben. They leave Ottawa Mar.9 and arrive the morning of Mar. 11 in Bangkok.