06.17.822N 099.41.844E  Tuesday 14^th January 2009   With only a couple of days in Telaga Marina before sailing to Rebak where the hard work commences we hiked up to Seven Wells Water Falls and swam in all seven pools – fast flowing  water cascades but interestingly with fish in them… up a mountain in fresh water!!  How unusual!

 

 

Wandering around to restaurants in Telaga

 

 

A quick pit stop half way up to the Seven

Wells rock pools

 

 

Pool number one….

 

 

…..with fish swimming in the pure mountain water!

 

 

Pool number seven flowing over the edge……

 

 

…..with the water flowing swiftly behind us

 

 

…..amazing feeling

 

…and surprisingly we had the whole place to ourselves –

It might have had something to do with the climb up!

 

We provisioned for our month ahead on Rebak where there are no shops, whacked 100 golf balls down a range, with tuition, for 13 Ringets (divide by 5.5 to get £s) including hire of golf clubs, revisited our hippy beach where a local Malay ‘reggae’ band strummed the night away and ate a funny old meal by the roadside before collapsing into our bunk…….

 

 

Candlelit evening on the hippy beach…..

 

On Thursday we motor sailed across the bay from Telaga Marina on the mainland of Langkawi Island to Rebak Island – a glorious day with a gentle breeze – which took us all of one hour!  We have our 90 day visas in our passports and just have to leave the country and recheck back into Malaysia within this time to gain another 90 days extension

 

 

Arriving at Rebak Marina…….

 

Picture a beautiful tropical resort island with stunningly pretty grounds, white sandy beaches and a ‘secret’ Marina completely hidden from the sea in a totally protected lagoon.  The Taj Group manage the whole complex now and you just cannot imagine the impeccable and welcoming service we are receiving……..complimentary buffet, live band and cocktails last evening which is extended to all yachties once a month, gratis cookery classes on a Thursday lunchtime, a motor launch to the mainland four times a day with a produce and vegetable run each Friday, car hire for shopping trips just 40 Ringets (£7 a day) palates classes each morning at 9.00am and the full use of the luxurious and spotlessly clean swimming pool with smiling attendants and towels provided,  it gets better – soft material hammocks with plumpy headrests swinging between the palm trees, golf buggy cars to whisk you around the island, a happy hour each evening  (20 per cent discount for yachties) followed by a talented musical duet,  dinner for three in the Hard Dock Café £10 in total, cinema night once a week and all this surrounded by stunning flora and fauna and wildlife…… toucans, eagles, monkeys, monitor lizards…...it feels like a dream!

 

 

The pool to the right…….

 

 

…..the sea to the left (no crocs, sharks or jelly fish)

 

We spent a whole day preparing for the big haul out – the mast hasn’t been removed for ten years and is quite a performance.  It stands sixty feet from the deck with another two meters inside and has to be lifted out absolutely vertically so as not to damage the saloon structure and deck

We took down the genoa, stay and main sails, checking the furling systems, put all the halyards away, took off the boom, loosened all the rigging, tied off all the running rigging to the mast, undid the SSB cable,

took down all the biminis and loosened the mast ‘seat’….. hell of a day!

 

 

Folding away the sails

 

 

SSB cable coming down

 

All the wiring down the mast had to be disconnected which we did at 7.00am on the morning of the lift out – this included  radar, VHF, bow navigation, anchor and spreader lights, TV aerial and wind speed cable.  The whole operation went perfectly and according to plan at 9.30am - thankfully the marina staff are extremely competent here and caring, even diving on the boat to make sure the strops were in the right place..…..

 

 

Diving under the boat to make sure the strops in the

Right place

 

Once we had manoeuvred the boat backwards inside the travel lift (to get the mast in the right position for the crane), but still in the water, we slackened off all the rigging and removed it whilst another strop was secured around the mast just above the first set of spreaders (but tied underneath to stop it rising upwards).  To watch the mechanics of such a daunting exercise was very interesting if nerve racking to say the least.

 

 

A strop going around the mast to keep it

In place

 

 

…Its lift off - Paul sorting out the wires which go

up with the mast – unattached that morning

 

 

….and out she came – see the kayak bottom right?

I know not a thing of beauty but a duckling which

will soon become a swan……it was a gift!

 

 

This is a shot of the ‘before’ product

 

 

….safely to the shore

 

 

 

Once we were up on the hard shoulder alongside our mast, without any hitches, we could relax

 

 

….the Yard did a perfect job

 

 

…lots of life on the bottom – encrusted bow thruster

 

 

…a barnacle off the bottom – they cling like glue!

 

 

And for some reason our grounding plate looked like

A rock garden!

We are going to have a few days rest – Oscar flies home on the 15^th and then the work will commence in ernest!