Rebak Island Marina Resort, Langkawi

We are now based at Rebak Island
Marina Resort for a few weeks.
Greg, Helen and Spanner all flew back to Australia last Sunday and
unfortunately both of their Scoot flights from Singapore were more than 4 hours
late – I don’t think Greg will ever fly with them again! Rebak Marina is a very popular
spot with yachties (lots of Aussies) who want to base themselves in Asia as
there are no restrictions on how long you can leave your boat in Malaysia. However you can only stay in the country
for 90 days at a time. Many of the
people in the marina have been here for 4 and 5 years and love it. The marina is very secure and sheltered
– which means little breeze – however the beach side of the island catches the
wind and is the place to be when the temperature and humidity hits (yesterday in
was 39 degrees in the boat). The
facilities here are fantastic – we get free use of the pool, gym, wireless
internet, reading room and get a 20% discount in the bars and restaurant – there
is also a special yachties canteen ‘the Hard Dock café’ that is really
affordable and opens from 12 to 10pm every day. An average meal costs about $7AUD. There
is a resort transfer boat that leaves almost every hour to Port Langasuka on the
mainland and this is also free. On Friday I went on the ‘vege run’ transfer boat
to Port Langasuka where a Chinese man sets up a stall from the back of his car
with fresh fruit, vegies, eggs and also all types of frozen meat. The quality
was the best I have seen and most of it comes from Australia – this is also a
service especially for the yachties. The resort is managed by Taj
Hotels and is quite nice but as we have found in Malaysia the maintenance leaves
a lot to be desired. The resort was
hit by the tsunami and the main part of the resort had to be rebuilt on the
other side of the island – (the marina was also re-built). On my morning walks I
have found monkeys and numerous black and gold hornbills. I am off tomorrow
morning for a hike around the island to a beautiful beach with some fellow
yachties I met at yoga. There are only golf buggies and bicycles on the island
for transport and there are lots of mosquitoes. The resort staff ‘fog’ for
mossies every 3 or 4 nights – it is a chemical spray that I am sure is pretty
toxic. The resort caters for a lot of
Muslims from the middle east as well as Europeans and Asians. It is quite strange to see people
walking around in bikinis and then to see several ladies in traditional full
black burqas. Although I normally
only see them in the early morning or late evening with their husbands. Dadang
and I caught a taxi into Kuah to get some supplies on Thursday and enjoyed lunch
for 10 Ringgit (about $3.30AUD) – so cheap! To give you an idea the lowest paid
workers in Malaysia would earn approx. 900 Ringgit per month ($300AUD). And as with most of South East Asia it
is hard to buy anything here without sugar or loads of fat in it – Malaysia is
the 8th highest consumer of sugar in the world! Dadang and I are continuing to
do numerous boat jobs every day (Greg left an extensive list!!!) – but we try to
get finished by mid-afternoon when it is just too hot.
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