MALAYSIA

Admiral Marina, 02'28 N 101'50 E Since our last update we have continued on our way down the coast of Malaysia, navigating thru the Melacca Straits. We are heading back to Danga Bay Marina in Johor Bahru just across the river from Singapore. Prior to leaving Langkawi which is a 'duty free shopping port" we took advantage and did some provisioning. Having bought new batteries for the boat along with other such necessities we stocked up on some liquid refreshment. Now you must realize a case of beer in Langkawi is about $8 US. Once we get to Johor Bahru it's $38US for that same case. So we saved $900US on this stockpile.

As we move down the west coast of Malaysia we again had the pleasure of dealing with lots of shipping traffic.

Our plan had us only moving during daylight hours. There are just to many fishing boats plying the waters during the night and most without any sort of lights. Even during the day they want to come right along side just to look and wave hi.

Our first stop was in Penang. On our way up to Thailand we had left off two of our spare anchors to be re-galvanized. We actually got to sail almost the entire 60 miles from Langkawi. As we arrived over a weekend it was Monday the 11th before we got our anchors so we only moved a short distance to the most southern point of Penang island. This at least got us through the area where they are constructing a new bridge to the mainland. A distance of over 6 miles.

Our day trips continued. As we got moving from our anchorage in the river just south of Port Klang the weather turned nasty. Winds in the 25 to 30 kt. range and from the direction we were headed. Hey a reason to take a rest day.

By late morning the weather had cleared but we were settled in. Next we had a close incounter of the worst kind. We watched as an approximately 300' dredge ship who was anchored down river from us pull their anchor and head our way. They looked to be getting ready to anchor again. Kathy got on the VHF radio and attempted to call the vessel to find out their intentions.

Soon it was obvious they planned to anchor again and almost on top of us.

This was our view as the "Inai Tulip" started to swing towards us. On the bridge wings they were yelling for us to move as we were in their way. As they swung towards us our only recourse was to slip our anchor and move as quickly as possible. We managed to dump all 280 feet of chain and another 30 feet of line along with a float before getting run over. Our last view of our buoy to our ground tackle was as it went under the "Tulip".

Thankfully we incured no injury or damage. Whomever was operating the "Tulip" did not seem to have any idea of what he was doing.

Next we managed to get secured to a dock at a nearby marina and launch the dinghy so I could look for our float and hopefully recover our ground tackle. As I neared the "Tulip" no one seemed to understand or speak any English and did not want to have anything to do with me.

We were later able to locate and recover our anchoring gear. We also have made telephone contact with someone in the office of the company that owns the "Tulip" and have attempted email contact with the parent company.

We were very lucky for here in the third world had we been damaged it would have been tough luck.

We now have four more day trips before reaching the Danga Bay Marina where we'll leave the boat to return to Southern California for a visit in early May.