On Monday, Eric went to the Indian consulate to collect our visas, checked out with customs and the One 15 marina, then headed off to the Raffles marina boat store to pick up some ropes we ordered. He covered a lot of miles.

Christi, meanwhile, did load after load of laundry. The marina washing machines only have cold water, and preferring to use hot water, wound up doing tons of loads in our tiny machine onboard. We are so glad we discovered the problem in the marina, though, because our comforter is physically too big to fit in our washer, so that did have to be washed in the marina (with a lot of bleach). The comforter and duvet cover came out just fine when all was said and done. The sheets are probably ruined for life, but she’ll try washing them one more time to see if she can get the stains out.

With laundry completed, she headed out to the grocery store. Vivo City has three grocery stores, all with different products, so it is a great place to provision. They actually had a large selection of heat and serve foods to choose from, but most all were foods containing hydrogenated oils, which we don’t eat. After spending eons studying the ingredients and cooking methods on each package in the freezer section, she got a couple Asian dishes we know and love, satay and gyoza (Japanese pot stickers), along with a whole host of mystery Asian foods with palatable ingredients. We’ll keep you posted on how we like our mystery foods.

At the marina deli we loaded up on half price desserts (let’s make it abundantly clear that we loaded up on sweets, including Tim Tams, at the grocery store, too). 🙂

Yesterday, we pulled out at about 0830. We went back to the western working anchorage and called Immigration. Once again they were to our boat in a few minutes, took our paperwork in a ziplock bag, did circles for a few minutes as they processed the paperwork, then handed us back our clearance. Fast and easy, and no hassles about leaving the country and re-entering by plane. Yay.

The ride out was much less scary than the ride in, since we are moving with the shipping channel instead of trying to cross it. There are still a billion enormous ships that get way too close, which is nerve wracking. We are hugging the edge of the lane, and most of the big ships stay more towards the middle, so overall we haven’t had too many scares. If we go outside the lane, we may run into fishing nets/platforms, so we really need to stay in the channel. We paralleled the coast of Malaysia.

The ride has been smooth and pleasant, with very little wind. Last night, the moon was full and bright, making it easy to see all the ships around us. By sunrise, the wind died completely and the sea was flat, which was absolute paradise for us. Emotionally, we needed a good ride to remind us that a boat really is a great way to travel overall.

We pulled into the marina at 1100 this morning. 02-20.6N by 101.50.6E. We were assigned a huge spot in a single boat finger, much bigger than we need. It is nice to have such a wide berth! Like One 15, this marina is pretty swanky. One side of the marina has a huge condo or hotel complex on it that is about 10 stories high. One side of the marina contains the marina building, which is a three story colonial style building that looks like it came out of “Gone with the Wind”, complete with the formal foyer and double stairway up to the second floor. It almost looks like they are trying to be like Raffles Marina. Behind the marina building is a 5 story structure that looks like condos or a hotel. The third side of the marina is of particular interest. There are three big, fancy colonial style (pernakan style, maybe?) mansions under construction on what looks like a man made strip of land.

The marina office gave us all the needed check in forms to pre-fill out, but today is a public holiday, so we can’t actually check into the country until tomorrow. They didn’t seem too concerned about us going ashore despite not being cleared in. They sent someone out to connect us to electricity, which is really nice. They had someone available for hire to wash our boat right then and there, though he charged an ungodly amount of money by local standards. Heck, it is even kind of a lot by San Diego standards. But, Kosmos was disgustingly gross from all the construction work in Singapore and we just didn’t want to wash her ourselves, so we paid.

We decided to have our celebratory lunch in the marina restaurant. In the foyer of the marina building, we saw the model for the upcoming development. They are building several dozen track mansions with good sized yards on the strip of land, and the ones under construction are the models. Unfortunately, no one seems to know the cost for one. We are so curious to know.

The food wasn’t very good, the portions were small, and it was very expensive by Malaysian standards ($35 USD for the two of us). So, we ate there for dinner, too, which reinforced our earlier opinion. We were going to go into town for dinner until we realized that town is a twenty minute cab ride north and that the town is small with very little to do or see. We were both tired and wanted to call it an early night, and eating at the marina was certainly faster and easier than cooking or going to town.

In between lunch and dinner, we visited with the family on the catamaran next to us, called Shayile. They are a couple, Belinda and Rob, cruising with their 7 and 8 year old kids, Daniel and Jenna. They mentioned they were going to go to the historic city of Melaka for a few days, and we invited ourselves along. They were kind enough to not say no.