Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Back to Langkawi

We were just hanging out by Cenang Beach (by the small town of Kampung Lubok Buaya, Langkawi Island, Malaysia) feeling the lazy sailors' life returning to us with the memories of the serious work of the last 10 months having drifted behind us and disappearing in our wake.

Weighing anchor late in the morning of March 21st, we headed out on a short 3-hour jump over to Telaga Harbour, still part of Langkawi Island, arriving at N06°21.754' E099°40.726'.

Getting close to Telaga...

A short 27-second video of us sailing to Langkawi can be seen at this YouTube link: https://youtu.be/DXJioxFb6_g. To see the Google Earth location, Sea Turtle is at approximately N06°19' E099°40'. (The same YouTube link is also at the right of the blog page listed under Other Links.)

Telaga, a nice out-of-the-way little port, is one we've visited before and is the final Malaysian stop, a checkout point for our short passage to the islands of Thailand. The port consists of a small inner harbour with a marina, a few waterfront restaurants, a gas station, and a wharf servicing a small ferry to and from the Thai islands close by. Right in front is an outer anchorage sheltered by 2 small barrier islands where we anchored along with about 30 other boats.

We noticed a few changes to service the increasing traffic and visitors since our last visit at Telaga. Some good and some at the expense of lost serenity.

Something that hasn't changed - the abundance of cute monkey troops! Still scavenging the shores and hanging out along the road to town, they wait for handouts and pose for pictures from passing tourists and locals.

Jordan was kept busy installing our new AIS. For landlubbers, this is an Automatic Identification System used by primarily commercial ships and regular cruisers. The information can be displayed on electronic charts, etc. Ships with this, show reciprocal identification and progress that helps for avoidance and for contact if necessary. Identifying and ship tracking if you will.

This is also helpful as commercial ships don't usually answer a radio call unless they are called by name. Some of Thailand now "requires" all boaters to have AIS installed before checking into their country.

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