Puteri Harbour Marina Jahor to Admiral Marina Port Dixon
Gaviota
Wed 23 Nov 2016 07:21
02:28.527N 101:50.715E
We had decided
to leave early Wednesday morning 9th November so it was up and away
by 8.00am. Back under the horrendous
bridge (not so scary this time!), and out into the crazy shipping lanes once
again. We had enough wind to sail so
mainsail and genoa went up and away we went.
It felt very good to be back out on the sea again. Our first stop was 38 miles away at some
lovely little deserted islands called Pisang Islands. The sea was remarkably clean so first job
after anchoring was a swim – lovely. Quite
a remarkable place as we were no more than half a mile from the main shipping
lanes but it felt like the middle of nowhere.
A very
early start next day as we had a long run 66 miles on to the Water Islands off the
historic City of Malaca. We managed to sail for about 2 hours in the morning
and 1 hour in the afternoon – the motor was on for the rest of the journey.
Another
early start and onto Admiral Marina at Port Dixon where we arrived early
afternoon – more motoring! Admiral
Marina is a marina within a Hotel complex and we had the use of the Hotel pool
and gym which was a nice bonus.
Unfortunately it was not close to anything else so off came the bikes
and as they had been sitting on the back of the boat getting rustier and
rustier they needed rather a lot of TLC to make them rideable (neither of them
have working brakes any more but luckily there are not a lot of hills around!) We cycled the 10 kms into Port Dixon to see
what the supermarket had to offer and find out bus times for our planned trip
to Kuala Lumpur. On our way back it started pouring down so we
found a bus shelter – soon several locals had joined us and as rain is a normal
part of life in Malaysia we started talking to a very friendly Malay Indian
gentleman called Jeya who invited us to visit the nearby International School
where he was in charge of maintenance.
After our visit he invited us to join him and his daughter for dinner
the following Saturday.
On
Monday, 14th November we headed into Port Dixon again and caught the
bus to Kuala Lumpur where I had booked a Hotel for 3 nights to explore the
City. The bus journey was
interesting! We had not been told we had
to change buses at a place called Seramban so when we arrived our driver kindly
pushed us off his bus and onto the KL bus – bus drivers in Malaysia are treated
as demi-Gods, they decree when a bus
leaves and if it arrives where it is supposed to, also where he decides to
stop. Our designated demi-God for the
trip to KL was a cool dude who sported a handlebar moustache and beret, he
settled himself in his seat with his supply of food and drink and announced
that we were to be treated to ‘Hotel California’ Did that mean we could check out any time we
wanted but never leave??????? The TV set
dropped from the ceiling of the bus and – Oh no it was karaoke! After joining in with 2 versions of Hotel
California – the third was just too much, the music continued with a stream of
ghastly one hit wonders from God knows when.
Kuala
Lumpur has a traffic problem like most major cities and our journey took a lot
longer than we had expected but we were not disappointed when we checked into
our Hotel and were shown our luxury apartment on the 29th floor
complete with floor to ceiling windows , 2 huge flat screen TV’s, fully
equipped kitchen, gorgeous bathroom and even a brand new washing machine and
tumble drier – all this combined with a view overlooking the 2 most iconic
buildings in KL, the KL Tower and Petronis twin towers, wow they looked good in
the day but at night it was stunning watching the KL tower light show from the
luxury of our suite. Hotels in Malaysia
are cheap and 5 star luxury comes at the price of an average B+B in UK. The Hotel also had 2 swimming pools, one a 50
metre one and a very well equipped gym.
Breakfast was served on the 48th floor with it’s amazing
views of the City and it was excellent.
Our 3
nights in KL turned into 4 – it was hard to leave! We explored the City, did lots of shopping,
spent a day on the hop on hop off tourist bus and visited the butterfly gardens
in the beautiful Botanic Gardens. We ate
every night in the famous food street in Bukit Bintang where you could sample
Chinese, Thai and Malay food very cheaply.
I went to the top of the Petronis twin towers which was awesome,
although it is no longer the tallest building in the world it is still the
tallest twin building in the world and an amazing architectural feat.
We
returned from KL on Friday and spent Saturday preparing the boat to leave on
Sunday. Saturday night our new Malay
Indian friend Jeya and his gorgeous daughter Neesha arrived and took us to the
nearby town of Lukut for a wonderful Chinese meal, they ordered and we
ate. Afterwards they took us and showed
us the beach area at Port Dixon. The
hospitality they showed us was incredible and we look forward to meeting up
again and hopefully being able to take them for dinner next time.
