Jackamy - Pulau Dayang Bunting - Lake of the Pregnant Maiden

Pulau Dayang Bunting - Lake of the Pregnant Maiden

Jackamy

Paul & Derry Harper

Sat 4 Dec 2010 02:19

06:11.773N 99:47.063E

Saturday 4th December

After a final day of sight-seeing, a spot of re-provisioning and stocking up on some curry from our favourite restaurant we were ready to slip our lines and leave Penang. When we looked at the depth gauge though and saw it read 2.1 we had to laugh as we draw 2.2 metres, we were sat on the bottom! It was only sand though so we left the berth and pushed our way along the bottom and through the sand until we reached deep water. We've had such a confusing time with the actual 'time' as we have been working on Malaysia time which is UTC +8 hours but other people have been working on 'leg time', the time at which we do the radio calls, which is UTC +7 hours. We realised that the chart plotter was set to 'leg-time' meaning that the tide tables were an hour out, oops! The time should be the same as the country you're in!

Penang skyline

It was about 57 miles to Pulau Dayang Bunting so we planned on sailing/motoring very slowly through the night to get us there in daylight the next day. Why do things never go the way you plan them! We had wind, lots of it and although we had reefs in the main and the genoa, leaving our sail area about the size of a handkerchief, we just couldn't slow the boat down. And so, we did 6-7 knots all the way and arrived at 05:00. The scenery was quite spectacular in the dark, it was something different yet again. It was still spectacular when we woke up and we could see we were surrounded by sheer limestone cliffs.

The reason for us coming here was to visit the 'Tasik Dayang Bunting' (Pregnant Maiden Lake). The lake was once a huge limestone cave but it collapsed due to its inability to carry the load of the bedrock. This left a doline, or a hole, which was eventually filled up by rainwater and finally formed a lake. According to a local legend, a male elf named Mat Teja fell in love, at first sight, with Dayang, a female elf. Mat Teja won her heart by rubbing a mermaid's tear drop on his face. Their romantic and intimate relationship became complete with Dayang's pregnancy. Dayang then decided to retire at Tasik Dayang Beranak (Maiden Giving Birth Lake). Nine months later, Dayang gave birth to a child but unfortunately, the child died after 7 days. Saddened by the event, Dayang decided to bury her baby in the lake. After the incident, the lake was known as Tasik Dayang Bunting (Pregnant Maiden Lake), as a way for the locals to pay their condolences to the couple.

Hundreds of tourists had been dropped off by boats and we were debating whether to bother going but we did. A short walk up some steps and then down some more, surrounded by monkeys, we arrived at the lake which has been turned into a tourist destination and somewhat spoilt. There were lots of pedalo's and lots of south east asian and muslim tourists wearing life jackets but not actually swimming in the water. We felt a bit funny stripping off to our swim stuff but it had to be done, we were desperate to swim in jelly-fish free waters.