BLUE WATER RALLY - MALAYSIA - PANGKOR ISLAND
04.13.777N 100.32.492 Sunday 23rd November
Having spent months and months pouring over pilot books, electronic and paper
charts to find recognised anchorages, the past few nights have seen we three yachts
literally just dropping anchor in the middle of nowhere (the waters here are
shallow at around 5 to 10 meters), cooking dinner and going to sleep. It
is really quite an extraordinary practice – we have often been surrounded
by dozens of fishing boats – and it all feels quite alien! One
night a local boat careered rather too close so we turned on our ‘secret
weapon’ – a bright orange revolving light used by pick up
trucks………we were left in peace! Silly me – I had visions of a beautiful coastline with pristine
waters, pretty anchorages and great local food: – we have trogged our way
up the coast, motoring all the way, past Port Klang on the same named river
estuary, and the Perak and Dinding river mouths and trust me the waters are
disgusting - full of trash, including dead animals and lots of
vegetation. With low expectation but high hopes we finally arrived at the
much exalted Pangkor Island – home of many resorts and fabled beautiful
beaches; I am afraid this has all been ruined – the anchorages are full
of high speed boats, jet skis, tourists and debris including condoms and
sewerage floating by – not to mention muddied murky water and jelly
fish. We did venture ashore last night but the Chinese restaurant was too
full to serve us so the eight of us ended up by mistake at a Moslem curry
buffet (no alcohol) which turned out to have the added attraction of being a
pirate theme evening with 60’s music………..I shall say no
more. Today we have moved slightly around the coast in search of the clean
waters described in the rather out of date Rough Guide – but alas it is
no more……. Paul and I did scoot off in a mini bus for a
whirlwind tour of the tiny island and really enjoyed the experience. It
looks remarkably like the Tonight we are on the boat, a fierce swell is throwing us around making
it far too rough to go ashore; we are planning to leave at first light to
Georgetown in Penang….an inner city harbour right slap in the middle of
the old colonial town. Unfortunately Pedallo no 5 and her sailor are not
suited to a life at sea with us and will be returning to their small
recreational pond shortly! |