Back in Malaysia

We had a very short stop in Langkawi then set off the following morning to make our way, non-stop, back to Danga Bay to meet up with the Passage to the East cruisers.  

The bad news about this particular trip is that there is virtually zero wind and adverse currents which means motoring a good proportion of the way (some 500 nautical miles) which isn't very kind to our extremely meagre budget.  But the good news was, there were extremely few fishing boats and nets along the entire route with the exception of our night arrival in Langkawi where there was a mega-city of lights across the western entrance.  There were not dozens but rather hundreds of squid fishing boats (all well lit as they need the lights to catch squid) and our first thoughts were, how the hell do we get through THAT lot?  

In reality, it wasn't that difficult as they were all so well lit and at anchor, we could simply zig-zag our way through them all.  However, the rest of the trip, another four days and nights, was remarkably free of fishing boats.  We hadn't expected this as our trip up had been a bit of a nightmare.  We had encountered hundreds of poorly lit (or not lit at all) boats often with fishing nets across our path.  It was somewhat stressful but this, wow, we couldn't believe our luck.  It was a full moon as well so visibility was very good.  Can't explain why there were so few but perhaps they don't fish under a full moon, or this time of the year or...who knows!  Anyway, our trip down was rather uneventful and we arrived safely up the Singapore Straits to meet up with a few friends.

For those of  you who have followed our on-going saga with Peter on Troutbridge, we left him here with a somewhat disabled boat so he's been here fixing things all this time.  Sadly however, he left the boat here and recently flew over in the UK for a while so we'll miss him this time around.

We'll leave again shortly but I have a rather problematic passport issue as it was full and immediately  I applied for a new one, unbeknown to me, they cancelled my existing one.  I now have no valid passport and the UK no longer issues them from any other place in the world other than the UK itself which can take many weeks.  They're probably still scratching their heads as to how I got out of Thailand and into Malaysia with a cancelled passport.  In my case, ignorance was definitely bliss!

 

The hong of all hongs

 

Straight out of Disney World!  In fact, much much better.   Even they couldn't have created such a place.

After leaving Phuket, we stopped at Koh Phi Phi for the night but it was too much of a party island.  A zillion flashing coloured lights and hideous music (if that's what it could be called) until well after three in the morning.  Definitely not for us.  Despite the fact that we were anchored at least a mile out, the boat vibrated with the sounds and lit up with all the pulsating strobe lights. It's times like these that I realise I'm not in my twenties or thirties any longer and, quite frankly, thank goodness.  They must go to bed at night both blinded and deafened.  I know I was.

We then moved on to another small island, Koh Muk, and were instantly besotted.  This one has a hong to beat all others.  We dinghied around and found the tiny entrance which we only just managed to squeeze through with our fat inflatable dinghy but this then opened up to a large entrance cave that looked as though Hollywood's best special effects team had been to work on it.  The sunlight glowed under the clear water and reflected up onto the roof of a gorgeous limestone cave.  Such a sight!

A little further in, all went pitch black as the 80 metre tunnel twisted and turned blocking off the light from both the entrance and the exit.  We gingerly worked out way through checking out the ceiling for the many bats that reside there during the daylight hours, turned a corner, ducked under a low roof and emerged out into a tiny lagoon surrounded with extremely high perpendicular walls, with crystal clear turquoise water and a beautiful white sandy beach.  And better still, we were the only people there!

It was magic.  One could easily picture it in the days of old being used to hide pirate's plunder. Today, it's home to a band of monkeys, beautiful vegetation and an array of birds.   And, on most days, numerous groups of tourists either swimming or kayaking into it.  We were just so so lucky to see it on our own.  As we didn't have to leave with the rising sun the following morning we chose to have another look-see, happily to find it empty again.  Shortly thereafter, we shared it with a lone German kayaker who stood gaping at the sight but later on, when a large group of Pakistani swimmers arrived, we called it a day wanting to remember it as we'd first seen it.  Had we known about this previously, it would definitely have been put on our bucket list.

This then brought us to an overnight trip back to Langkawi to pick up a few things (Langkawi is a duty free port so beers and wine for us and a few friends) and then on our way again.




PHOTO GALLERY:

The exit into the hong and it's white beach

The limestone ceiling

Paul gazing up to the small opening to the sky

Looking up

Our own private little lagoon

The tiny entrance from inside

Final excursion

Our time in Phuket has almost come to an end but to make the most of it, we spent our last few days around the beautiful Phang Nga Bay visiting two more anchorages. The first being Koh Roi, a small island covered in numerous rock pinnacles. 

I've cheated and inserted an aerial photo taken from the cruising guide as the ones we took at water level don't really show them to their full advantage. Quite spectacular.

We'd crossed the bay to get there at high tide due to the very shallow waters but, true to form, after skirting along at well under 10 metres the entire way which is always a bit nerve-wracking, when it came time to anchor, it suddenly became very deep and we motored around and around trying to find something under 15 metres in which to drop our hook. How's this possible? We could have anchored anywhere along the route with no difficulties at all but yup, when we want to get close to the island, the bottom falls out. Even when we left, it suddenly shallowed out again and we were back to just a few metres under the keel.

It was only a couple of miles to the next island of Koh Kudu Yai which has two open-ended hongs. Personally, we thought this was far more beautiful than the over touristy James Bond Island and better still as there were no other boats and therefore no tourists other than Lop To who arrived shortly after us to join us for our last few days.

After circling the island and visiting the hongs, a great idea came to mind, “let's have a BBQ”! And so we prepared all the food and went off to the large hong we'd visited earlier in the day which had a lovely beach. But, hmmmm..... we failed to consider the tide which was now out. The beach was there all right but we couldn't get to it. The water had all but disappeared exposing a shallow coral-covered bottom making it impossible to traverse. Damn! And earlier we'd just been saying how nice it would be to bring the boats around into the hong and anchor there for the night. Ha, no chance!

We then went off looking for another beach and several attempts later, finally found one which required only a short hop across some exposed dead coral. Wood gathered, drinks poured, food laid out; now just to get the fire going. Not so easy. What little wood there was was very damp so a squirt or two of petrol was needed. No sooner had the guys got it going sufficiently to put the meat on the grill but the heavens opened up. Another damn! And it didn't stop. Pack up everything (now soaking wet) and back to the boats to turn on the stove. Oh the joys of the cruising life!

Not to be totally thwarted, Kerstin made a cake the following day so we could enjoy the hong's beach at high tide with cake and tea/coffee. Such a gorgeous spot. And while we were there, Paul found an abandoned palm tree still in its nursery bag with roots bulging to get out. This was definitely not good so he dug a hole using a fallen branch as an improvised shovel and planted the poor thing using our drinking water and saying a few kind words in the hopes that it will survive. They're usually pretty hardy.

We left with the tide the following morning to return to Ao Chalong to do our final provisioning and to check out. Perhaps we'll have a chance to return prior to crossing the Indian on our way back to South Africa.

PHOTO GALLERY:

Koh Roi

Koh Kudu Yai

  

Inside the smaller hong

 

 

Paul's palm

Aerial shot of our previous anchorage (courtesy Cruising Guide)

Aerial shot of Koh Hong (courtesy Cruising Guide)

More around Phang Nga Bay

 

When the currents and tide fell into line, we moved northwards all of six miles to find more incredible rock formations, dropping anchor right next to this magnificent monolith. What a dramatic backdrop for our evening sundowners. This was just one of many, we were surrounded by equally impressive specimens.

After lunch, we dinghied around a couple of the islands taking in the spectacle of the immense steep cliffs and stalactite formations everywhere then went over to Koh Ping Kan, aka James Bond Island thus named as it was the set for the film “The Man With The Golden Gun”. None of the islands we'd seen 'til this point had any form of construction on them. In fact, with the steep sides, there is simply nowhere to build anything (thank goodness). However, James Bond Island was vastly different. It has a flatish area in the middle which I would suspect is partially man-made and a constant stream of boats line up to drop off their hundreds of tourists, hopefully to spend money at the many souvenir stands there.

We arrived amid all this mob and parked our little dinghy on the only bit of sand we could find thereby prompting a myriad of stares as if to say “where the hell did that come from?” We were the only people not following a guide with a coloured flag or numbered stick through the masses. In other words, we felt kind of special.

In truth, it's a very pretty island but one wonders why it promotes such a enormous mass of interest.

The following morning, we had to wait for the peak of high tide to make it across some very shallow areas to our next stop so at the appropriate time, we motored over to Koh Hong, another popular tourist attraction only three miles away. Koh Hong is well known for the numerous hongs within its walls (internal lagoons which are open to the sky) some only accessible via tunnels. We took the dinghy in and out of all the passages that would allow us to manoeuvre but weren't able to get right through one of them as it was only possible to get in with a low kayak. However, it was very beautiful and we thoroughly enjoyed going in and out of the larger tunnels.

 

Calypso now sports an “evil spirit deflector”. In Thailand, if fishermen have had a bad day's catch, they feel that their boat is possessed of an evil spirit. They will then race at full speed towards another vessel only diverting at the very last second (in fact they are known to divert too late on many an occasion) and this is because they believe that this manoeuvre will make the spirit jump onto the other boat thereby getting rid of the bad luck that has possessed them. This can be very unnerving so the brightly coloured gadget handing on our bowsprit is supposed to stop such speeding boats from coming near us. Well, that's the theory anyway.

PHOTO GALLERY:

Storm coming in

Calypso at anchor

The other side of James Bond Island

Anchored outside Koh Hong

Inside the main hong