Dayang Bunting Island

We departed Penang Island at 08:30 on March 19th to continue our northward route of Malaysia. At first, we were slightly detoured to head close to shore to avoid several swimmers in the ocean for some type of event. That was a first as our jogs in our tracks are usually to avoid the plentiful fishing boats or commercial ships.

Now with our new Garmin GPS Receiver, we were once again laying down a track on our electronic charts.

With just a bit of wind blowing and the motor running, we put up the sails at noon for an extra push, then soon after, just full sails and no motor for a nice beat in the NW wind. This area was very hazy obscuring any land sighting until within about 10 nautical miles of any shore.

Shortly after dark at 20:15, we rattled the chain for the night at the southeast lee side of Dayang Bunting Island (N06°10.411' E099°49.134'), just south of Langkawi Island. We were awoken just after midnight to a change in wind which was then from the east and made our anchorage exposed and very rolly.

We had no choice but to crawl out of bed, raise the anchor, and sail to where we could re-anchor in a more protected spot. Normally, we don't like moving about islands in the dark but our charts are pretty accurate here and we were heading into a spot where we were once before, so with caution and vigilant attention to charts and depth sounder and with the help of some moonlight, a couple of hours later we dropped anchor on the northwest side of Dayang Bunting Island (N06°11.508' E099°47.192').

We awoke to a glorious morning. Sun shining, not a cloud in the sky, cute black monkeys on shore of the rising cliffs, and not another boat in sight. But don't get us wrong - civilization is close by - but all we could hear was the sound of the tide sloshing against the shore rocks. The peaceful morning tranquility was soon interrupted as we could hear the tourist boats bringing their throngs to the island lake not far away. So we departed at 10:30.

Leaving Dayang Bunting Island

Continuing north, we caught sight of friends Trevor and Jolanta on board SV Magnetic at anchor where we idled by to exchange hellos and the latest. Knowing we would see them soon again, we didn't stop and continued on a bit farther and anchored in front of Kampung Lubok Buaya town (N06°16.498' E099°43.638'), southwest Langkawi Island on March 20th.

THEN - our first jump into the ocean in almost a year! How refreshing!