Category Archives: Cruising Guide

Information for other cruising boats. Our experiences finding places to anchor, dealing with officials, provisions, etc.

Welcome to Langkawi Island, Kedah, Malaysia

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06-21.9N by 99-41.0E – At about 2330 (11:30 pm) last night, the wind picked up to 15 to 20 knots right on the nose. An hour later, our nice, flat seas were replaced with lumpy and uncomfortable head seas. Oh well. All good things must come to an end. Our speed immediately dropped by a full knot. Eric was seasick shortly thereafter. His body does not like head seas at all. Christi took over watch for the rest of the night. The two of us are a mess lately!

By dawn (0730 out here), we had gotten close enough to Langkawi island to be in more protected waters. At about 1000 we approached our destination, Telagga Harbour, on the northwest side of the island. The island is beautiful from the distance — tall mountains with sheer cliffs and thick foliage. The cliffs rise dramatically out of the sea. There is a nice lighthouse at the entranceway into the channel to the marina. Two small islands filled with evergreens create an anchorage area to the left of the channel. As we continued up the channel towards the marina, we noticed Continue reading →

Passage from Port Dickson to Langkawi, Malaysia

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Yesterday we left a little after noon. Sea conditions were phenomenal, with winds ranging from 0 to 5 knots with flat seas, and conditions have pretty much stayed the same as of this writing at 2300 (11:00 pm). Speeds have also been good, averaging 6 ½ knots at 1600 RPM. Christi wasn’t feeling super good yesterday morning, and as the day wore on, she could no longer deny that she had picked up Eric’s cold. Christi is very thankful for the smooth seas, because she is feeling miserable and doesn’t think she could take a miserable ride while feeling miserable.

We went back out to the shipping lane and hugged the edge of it, as we had done on our way in. The farther north we got, the more the lane narrowed. There is a shallow shoal with a sunken ship on it near Port Klang, which further narrows the lane. Eric decided that it was probably better to leave the shipping lane near that area to avoid a congestion of big ships near the shoal. It was already dark. There was no moon out, and like most nights, it was mostly cloudy with few stars peeking through the clouds.

Only a few minutes outside the lane, something that looked like a wall suddenly appeared Continue reading →

Exploring Port Dickson City and Melaka City

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The first task of the day was to go to Port Dickson to check in. The marina charges an $5USD surcharge if they call the cab for you, so we decided to walk down the road to the taxi stand marked on the map the marina gave us. The tree lined, nice looking road we were on let out onto a main road with blocky, unattractive military housing dominating the other side of the street. The “taxi stand” was really a bus stop. In Singapore, you never waited more than a minute for a taxi at a stand. After 10 minutes, only two taxis had passed, both full, and we began to wonder if not paying the surcharge might have been a mistake. Should we go back to the marina? Fortunately, a cab pulled up right then.

The taxi driver asked us where we wanted to go. We said Continue reading →

Raffles Marina, Singapore

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It turns out the boat store located in the Raffles marina complex was the right store for us. Raffles Marina has won awards as being one of the best marinas in Asia. It is a popular marina with cruisers. We decided not to go there because it is pretty far out of town and we wanted to check out the highly touted brand new marina One degree 15. Pretty far out of town is right. It was a 30 minute train ride west from Vivo City to the Boon Lay train stop the end of the line. From the train we took a 15 minute cab to the marina. Out here there is something we have seen virtually none of in Singapore to date: vacant land. What is weird is there are high rise complexes that look kind of like low income housing in and amongst the empty fields.

Raffles Marina is absolutely beautiful. Like One degree 15, it is a private club. It is just as nice, if not nicer, than One 15. One 15 is very sleek and modern, Raffles is more colonial opulence, kind of like Raffles hotel.

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There is a website we look at sometimes written by a cruising couple from Seattle that are about our age, Warren and Steph on Micro Verde (see Useful Resources). We knew they were staying in the marina, so we found their boat and knocked on their door. Warren was home and Continue reading →