Wet Market Shopping

Here going shopping is a bit different than your basic trip to Vons or Costco. The "supermarkets" here in Langkawi more likely have mostly dry goods. Shelves are stocked with canned goods, paper products, some frozen things but very little in the way of fresh fruits, vegetables, fish or meat. For those sorts of things we go to the wet market. For the freshest selection it's best to plan your trip first thing in the morning. For us it's first a dinghy ride to shore then a taxi to the market place.

The front on the Langkawi market is devoted to fish, beef and poultry. The rear half fruits and veggies.


Each vendor has their own stall and different product. For the beef here you just tell him what you want and he will carve out your choice. We saw no grinders to make hamburger.


In this stall we purchased a half of a Wahoo, which the operator steaked out for us at a cost of 16 ringgets per kilo. That figures to about $2.50 a pound.

Here we see an example chickens, they normally include the feet along with some cuts of beef


We've finished our shopping and now are spending a bit of time in the "food court". Kathy has decided we should sample several of the different local delights, I couldn't tell you what any of these might be but she added another couple of things and the price was less than $2 US.

Through out the market place there are a goodly number of scavenger's and my guess would be this would be a most unsafe place for any mice or rats as we saw a minimum of 100 plus cats. they seemed quite happy and well fed.

For frozen meats: chicken, pork, beef or sausages, bacon we find these items in a freezer in the back of any number of Chinese duty free shops that have mostly liquor displayed but other goodies in the back.

Shopping here is definitely a different experience!

Merry Christmas

Here in Malaysia and being a bit ahead we are in the midst of Christmas day. We know many of you are experiencing a white or wet Christmas, here we have a lovely day with temps in the mid 80's and mostly sunny sky's. We have a port roast on the BBQ but we may be joining friends in a dinner ashore


We are not able to carry and store lots of holiday decorations but Kathy does her best with what little we do carry. Most years something is added from the country we're in. Fortunately she found the raindeer when we were in Penang as Christmas is almost non existent here in Langkawi. being mostly Muslim there is little evidence of Christmas.


So with Bing Crosby singing "White Christmas" in the background I give you a view of our bit of Christmas decor.


we wish you all a very MERRY CHRISTMAS.

George Town-Penang

We have left George Town, Penang behind and keeping with our goal made a one day passage to Langkawi. So now here are some photos of the sights of Penang. This bridge crosses from the mainland to Pulau Penang.


A view of the ferry landing area, marina in the background.


George Town is a busy city with lots of traffic, cars, buses and pedestrian.


The British colonial influence on the architecture.


No velvet pictures of Elvis but all kinds of other stuff

Amongst the colonial building are numerous temples- Chinese, Hindu and Buddhist.




No the monkey's are not quite in downtown but not far from it. This was a view as we were walking from the Thailand consulate to visit the botanical gardens.


The botanical gardens.



View from Penang Hill. The top at an elevation is 2700' above George Town. Access is via a railroad built by the Swiss in 1923, now being upgraded, a four wheel drive road or hiking trails.

Kathy busy shopping for the latest "Harry Potter" movie. Dvd's are sold for 5Rm or $1.75 US buy 5 and get one free. Yes the had "Harry" and in addition Kathy found lots more.


Transport via bicycle rickshaw is a great method of going in some of the crowed areas of George Town. here a driver takes a break.


These driver's will probably need breaks after pedaling us around. Cost 30Rm per hour.



As i said I the beginning we now ventured another 70 miles north to Langkawi. this will be our last rally stop and also where we will leave Malaysia after the first of the year for Thailand.
Stay tuned there is more coming from Langkawi.

A Midnight Awakening

I often mention about finding a secure and safe anchorage. Most of our cruising days and nights are spent at anchor. The boat is our house and we need a secure place to park it. For days and nights on end we leave our house attached to the bottom of the ocean by a hunk of metal and a length of chain. OK it's a high tech piece of metal designed to grab into whatever type of material the ocean floor consists of at that particular location but non the less it weighs just 66lbs. All of us yachties have what WE consider the best anchor. If you look around at cruising boats and ask, each individual will swear that his is the best. Truth be known they all work and also at one time or another they will all fail for some reason. Failure means that you and your house get to go for an unexpected ride. In an anchorage it could be you or perhaps another boat that drags. Some of the large local craft use only homemade anchors with little or no chain.


Last night, midnight to be exact we were awakened by our "anchor drag alarm" a feature built into our GPS. I got up to see what was happening. We had definitely moved, but had now settled in again. The tide had just changed and as the current also shifted we had gone from one direction of pull on the anchor to the opposite. In doing this the anchor normally rotates over and resets itself. In this instance we drug about 250 feet before it reset. We have one GPS that is always on and whenever at anchor has the drag alarm set. The photo is of the chart plotter screen showing our location for the past 3 days and then the little boat showing where we moved. While I sat and watched to confirm that we were stuck securely again one of the local boats drug to within several feet of the yacht anchored nearby before pulling up anchor and moving. After confirming we were secure once again it was back to bed.


Things like this don't happen often but if you spend as many nights on the hook as we do they will. You know what will happen if you play with fire! This morning all is well. One big reason for dragging is your anchor finding debris on the bottom, plastic bags, discarded fishing nets or other bits of trash. This is what is hanging from the recently pulled anchor of the local boat which was next to us.

Penang Rally Dinner

The days touring done it was time for eat, drink and be merry. The festivities were held on a tent covered lawn in front of a local college. Our first view was this lovely food covered table followed by one stacked with a cooler full of cold beer and a fruit punch. Also along the sides were BBQ,s with several different meats and a lamb roasting on a revolving spit.



Along with the dinner were awards for a photo contest sponsored by Lieca cameras for the rally participants. Yes, we had submitted some. The photos had been printed and displayed, we were pleased to see that several of ours were amoung them. Come awards we gathered in three. One of a Marshallese outrigger sailing canoe can be seen in the lower right background of the Lion dance picture.


After a great feed it was time for some "yachtie" boat racing. Each table was given a piece of foam, a small knife, some sticks and a piece of construction paper. We were asked to build a boat for the races. Several different types were built, from monohull to catamaran to outrigger.


The course was a water filled trough with 3 boats going off at a time. Propulsion was by captain and crew blowing into the vessels sails. After 3 heats and finals a winner was declared. We're still not sure if the winner's had the best design or were the best Blower's. No matter a fun time was had by all. That's our tables entry pictured, a non finalist.


All in all a very busy day.

To Penang

Leaving Pankor on our way to our next rally stop of Penang about 70 miles away we kept to our routine of no overnight passages, we made a stop at a small island Pulau Talang about 15 from Pangkor. This made for a very short day, but there were no complaints from either captain or crew. In the afternoon we were visited by some local fishermen, a first here in Malaysia, who wished to trade some fish for fishing hooks. I dug through our supplies and soon we had one small fish of about 15 inches and 3 crabs. This for 6 hooks. It was a nice supplement to dinner.

Off again the next morning for the remainder of the trip to Penang. Once again most of the forward mobility was provided by the faithful "miss perky" our auxillary engine. The anchorage was was a calm channel between Penang island itself and Jerejak island. We set the anchor along with 12 other boats. A swim would have been nice but after spying a number of jellyfish trailing long tentacles we decided to forgo a dip. Penang is the oldest of the British straits settlements as the first lease was signed by the British East India company in 1771. Today Penang's economy is high tech industries and tourism.


Sunday the 28th was to be a rally tour day and a long one. Here at Penang we have about 30 boats that are rally participants. The schedule began with a pickup by water taxi and then being bussed to various activities and places around the city. First stop a local boatyard where we were shown their facilities for an necessary repairs we would need for our yachts. This was a modern yard with all services available. In fact the following day I dropped 2 of our spare anchors off to have them re-galvanized.

Next stop into the city of George Town, established in the late 1700's. We saw some of the preserved colonial buildings and were dropped off at an outdoor street fair for lunch and shopping. Kathy found an addition to this years Christmas decorations and I found a nice outdoor refreshment stand.


Next a visit to the Cheong Fatt Tze mansion. The restored home of one of the wealthiest tycoons at the turn of the 20th century. Painted a bright blue it is comprised of 38 rooms,5 courtyards, 7 staircases and 220 windows, all of the stained glass variety. The art work in the photo is actually comprised of broken pottery that is then use for the various scenes.



Our last tour stop was to the LGL Specialty Center a modern hospital. So first stop where repairs could be made to our floating homes and last where modern and inexpensive medical care could be obtained for our bodies. We had been told of the excellent medical facilities available in Malaysia and this was an opportunity to visit one. There will be more later on this as today while I'm writing Kathy is having the "executive health screening".

Our day was to end with a dinner and some fun. That will be the subject of the next post, which in blogdom will actually be before this once it's done.