Penang to Langkawi

Before leaving Penang we spent some time with a couple from England who were travelling on one year round-the-world airplane tickets. They had spent two months in India then stopped in Sri Lanka and Thailand before coming to Malaysia. While we were in New Zealand two years ago we met other travellers, also British, who were doing this. Most are in their early 30's and either quit their jobs or manage to take a year off.

We left Penang at dawn, weaving our way through the fishermen's nets. After awhile we began to notice more boat movement than usual. What is this? Swell? Sure enough, because we are near the northwest end of the Malacca Strait we now have swell from the Indian Ocean. We have been so spoiled this past year, sailing in protected waters. Going north along the east coast of Australia inside the Great Barrier Reef, then sailing through the islands of Indonesia to Malaysia, we rarely had any ocean swell.

After a bit too much wind and choppy seas from a nearby thunderstorm (just to remind us what sailing is really like) we arrived at the beautiful island of Langkawi and anchored in Bass Harbor near the town of Kuah. Numerous ferries come and go from Kuah to the mainland and other islands. Langkawi is at the northwest corner of Malaysia.

And so, we have reached the end of the notorious Malacca Strait. We really had no problem with the shipping traffic once we left the Singapore area. We mostly stayed out of the shipping lanes. We had to be alert around the numerous fishing craft but never tangled with one of their nets. We have been warned about the dreaded Sumatras, fierce sudden winds that roll across the strait from the Indonesian island of Sumatra. It has been our good fortune not to encounter one of these yet.

Scariest of all was the threat of pirates, but apparently in recent years pirates have decided that cruising yachts are small potatoes. These days they go after merchant ships that carry more valuable cargo. So we missed out on the excitement of Moonshadow being boarded and ransacked and our journey up the Malacca Strait ended up being rather uneventful.