Langkawi life

Langkawi (Malaysia) is a duty-free Island, meaning anything imported here is duty free and the end price to the consumer is reflected in that, So we stocked up on, you guessed it, beer and wine. We once met a sailor who did a consumer price index of each country he visited. It was simply the price of beer. Here in Langkawi, it was about $0.60 a can, almost the cheapest we have ever found. The passable boxed wine came in at the equivalent of under $3.00 a bottle.

Dining at the local eateries, which there were plenty of, was cheap too and delicious.

Our days and time here was also occupied by some boat jobs. Jordan opened up the inspection plates on the fuel tanks and extracted a few litres from the bottom. He let it settle over a couple of days in clear containers. It showed an acceptable amount of sediment and a wee bit of water but nothing that the filters and water separator couldn't handle.

Then it was on to the outboard. It was overheating so Jordan took out the thermostat and found it defective, so fixed that, a not so easy job. Strange as the motor is near new. Nice to have such a fix-it-kind-of-guy on board!

Did some playing too. Jordan got a present. A quadcopter drone complete with camera that takes basic pictures and videos, so he spent some time - on shore of course - practicing flying it with the remote controller.

Flight school

One morning, we heard a sudden wind increase. By the time we got up in the cockpit to check, the wind was a full gale from an intense squall that passed through the big bay. We struggled to get down the sunshade canvas canopy but not before it suffered rips and we lost 1 pole overboard.

Then we determined we were dragging. Of the 30 plus boats at anchor, most occupied, the crews were up on deck dealing with the wind or watching anxiously as other boats ahead of them were dragging towards them. Our boat being 1. Dragging is a rare anxious occurrence for us that we prefer to avoid. However, we got the motor started and anchor up, albeit with some difficulty and motored out into the wind until it died, which wasn't long. We counted 7 boats that dragged, but in the end, no tragedies.