Langkawi provisioning & on to Phuket

Since leaving Penang, we've done a fair distance.  First we stopped off at the northern end of Penang where we'd arranged to have our new debit cards sent.  They arrived but we still have to get them activated before we can use them and, just to throw a spanner in the works of our cruising life, they can now only be used to withdraw from specific ATMs and cannot be used to purchase anything online or in a shop.  Great, now how do we order any spare parts, top up Skype or book any travels?!  Whatever happened to "we are here to serve you"???  We're desperate for new batteries now and need to order them from Kuala Lumpur but how to pay for them.......?

Our journey to Langkawi was fairly straight forward.  We stopped at a lovely little island to break the trip so that we didn't have to do an over-nighter then arrived in time to book in with the Harbour Master and purchase some much needed refreshments of the alcoholic variety. Langkawi is a duty free island (a bit of a strange phenomena in an otherwise very Muslim country) and booze is approximately one third to one quarter of the price elsewhere.  If you take into consideration that it was nigh impossible to purchase anything other than beer in Indonesia and then in mainland Malaysia, the prices are prohibitive, this has been a long awaited and anticipated destination!

We stayed only long enough to stock up and buy a few spare boat parts before leaving on the 200nm leg to Phuket in Thailand.  Again, we opted to just do day hops; there are far too many unlit fishing boats, nets, traps and the like along the route to make it an easy passage. This part of Thailand has so many islands and most have suitable and beautiful anchorages so it was an easy choice to hop from one to the other leaving at daybreak and getting into a comfortable spot before the sun set each evening.  

The first bite

On our second stop, we woke to a solar eclipse in progress.  We were a bit too far north to get a total eclipse but it was fabulous to experience it all the same. The last time we saw one was in 2010 when we were in the Tuamotus in the South Pacific. That one had been almost 100%; spectacular!  This covered less but as the sun arose above the horizon, it already had a small chunk out of the upper right side which we could see clearly.  As it got higher, it was too bright so, not having the right equipment to view it, necessity became the mother of invention and the only thing we could think of that would fit the bill was some old mammograms - they worked perfectly!  So there we were, sitting in our cockpit, viewing the eclipse through x-Rays of my boobs!  Don't knock it, it worked.

Almost complete

We arrived in Phuket at noon on a Friday, just in time to book in without being subjected to their outrageous weekend overtime charges.  The last time we were here, the check-in procedure was a complete nightmare and fiasco.  This time however, everything has been computerised making it a much more efficient and smooth operation.  It still necessitated visiting the registration office, the Harbour Master, Immigration, Customs and Quarantine but, as they are now all next door to each other, what a pleasure.

First things first, buy a SIM card to access internet.  Sounds easy but for some obscure reason, it was quite the opposite.  A phone was no problem but internet access on the iPad caused blank stares.  In Indonesia, one trips over cell phone shops every few metres; in Malaysia, a little less but still they are everywhere.  Here we were told that we had to take a 35 minute taxi ride.  Common sense told us that that was simply not possible so after over two hours of wandering back and forth, we finally came across a little Chinese shop who could sell us the necessary items.  Voilá, we are in business.

Now to try to find some new batteries.

Beautiful Ko Phi Phi