04.13.777N 100.32.492   Sunday 23^rd 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Today we have moved slightly around the coast in search of the clean waters described in the rather out of date Rough Guide – but alas it is no more…….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 Seychelles with the same rain forests, hilly tarmac roads hugging the coast and amazingly similar rock formations.  We whizzed through the Chinese village, the Malay Village the Indian village and witnessed a satay fish ‘factory’ in full swing, the original Dutch fort, fast ferry terminals, Indian temples and Chinese ‘palaces’ full of children rushing through dropping litter in the carp lily ponds, terrapin enclosure and just about everywhere else. There is a massive land fill full of rubbish but unfortunately the clean up operation is not keeping up.

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!