November 13, 2003

LANGKAWI ANCHORAGES- Kuah, Hole in the Wall

	A view into the Hole in the Wall from the entrance.

The fjord anchorage down by the fresh water lake has good protection from squalls and other nasties that might blow up in this season, but is also a long way from town. In a few days' time we had used up our fresh supplies; we also were expecting the return of our repaired GPS. Time to leave the fjord and make the two hour trip to Kuah town. It would make a nice sail, as it is all protected water, but it is usually a motor boat trip.

We like to anchor in front of the mosque in Kuah town. The mosque is a beautiful building with golden domes and shapely minarets. Makes a great landmark for entering the harbor! Although some people complain about the muezzin's call to prayer, we kinda like it. Well--maybe not at a quarter to six in the morning! Sometimes it is quiet enough in the evenings to hear our nearby big mosque, and another one that's just outside of town. Sort of a point and counterpoint of calls to prayer. Did you know that the calls to prayer are also broadcast on the radio and on certain TV stations? The program just stops, the prayer is given, and the program resumes where it left off. There is also a schedule of each day's times for prayer in the newspaper.

Sunflower - and a mirror image! - at anchor in the Hole in the Wall.

This is the "wet" season, meaning we get winds and rain more from the westerly quadrants than from the east. Well, winds from the west blow right down the channel to Kuah, set up a terrible chop, and make the anchorage very uncomfortable. It usually happens every afternoon, dies by early evening, and the night is peaceful. So most boats put up with it. But you can also get a Sumatra--very strong winds, like 30-40K or more, often with rain and thunder and lightning, and usually in the dead of night--like 3 or 4 in the morning. They last about 2 to 4 hours, and this is the season for them. We don't get them so much in Langkawi as further south along the Malay peninsula. When we went to Kuah this time the weather was looking very "iffy". So we stayed just long enough to get fresh supplies at the night market on Wednesday. Then we went around to the Hole in the Wall to anchor.

You might remember that we left SUNFLOWER in the Hole when we did our traveling last year. We left the mooring there at the end of February to go participate in the Langkawi International Regatta and hadn't been back since. Of course it is perfectly protected in the Hole. On our return all the moorings were full of boats, the owners away traveling or working at their home country. (What did we start?) So we anchored. Anchoring in the Hole is no problem until you go to leave. BSM--that's Black Sticky Mud. Great holding, but it takes a long time to wash off the chain. At the moment, this is done with bucket by bucket of sea water. One of the chores on the list of things for this year is to install a salt water wash down pump up on the fore deck for this particular reason. The growth rate of barnacles in the Hole is truly amazing! They are even HARDER to get off the chain! The dinghy bottom needs a clean about every week to 10 days. Think about the prop too! (We had tied a couple of plastic bags around the prop when we left the boat stored there.)

Nevertheless, we like the Hole. It shares many of the same features as our fjord down by the lake, with limestone "karst" formations of peaks and cliffs rising dramatically from the water. There is forest on the rocky walls here too, but the trees themselves are bigger down at the lake. Here in the Hole we have a lot more mangrove thickets that surround the karst formations. There are seemingly endless channels along the cliffs and through the mangroves, many explorable with the dinghy. Over the past couple of years there has been some dredging and rock blasting. Now it is possible to travel by small boat from the top end of Langkawi Island at Tanjong Rhu, through the channels to the Hole in the Wall (which is actually the Kilim River) and continue on to exit the Kitsap River about 5 miles further south. We've done parts of both sections. There are some interesting abandoned charcoal kilns along the way.

The wildlife in the Hole is similar to that down by the lake. There are eagles, kingfishers, hornbills, and other birds. We thought the eagles were overfed: the tour boats chum with chicken skin and fat to get the eagles down to the water for their tourists to photograph. Then one day we saw an eagle swing by the boat with a snake dangling from its claws! There are also the monitor lizards and monkeys--the brown macaques scratch and dig around in the mud flats at low tide. How do you suppose they clean the BSM off their legs and hands? We also see the leaf eating monkeys bouncing around in the trees and scrabbling across some of the cliffs now and then. There are also sea otters; we see a family of three quite often. Occasionally a small pod of Irrawaddy River porpoise comes drifting in. Speaking of drifting reminds me that a HUGE jelly fish floated by the boat in the tidal current. I mean, this thing was as big as a washing machine! Al says I exaggerate, but admits it was the biggest we have ever seen.

An advantage that the Hole has over the lake is access to town. We take the dinghy about 10 minutes up the river to the Kilim Jetty. The changes wrought in THIS place are unbelievable--all in the name of progress, of course. The rickety mangrove pole walkway we used to dread is now a proper cement pier, for openers. Anyway, we can tie our dinghy up beside the fishermen's boats and walk out the road (now with a sidewalk!) to the main "highway". There we catch a mini van bus, shared taxi, or even a private car that stops, to take us into Kuah. It's about a 20 minute drive through some old rubber plantations and mostly rural areas. Costs 2 MRinggits/person--that's about 54 US cents. We do our duties, have a nice lunch, catch up with friends at the local yachtie hang out--”The Pier”, and if we have a bunch of stuff to take back to the boat (don't we always?) like 3 cases of beer or more, then we hire a taxi to go back to the Kilim Jetty for 10MR ($2.70).

There's quite a current flow in the Kilim River. Makes a difference as to where you can put your dinghy and still get ashore up at the jetty. It also means you get swirls around the boat. We like to anchor in a spot where another arm of the river system comes out. We get breezes coming from either arm, and the cliffs on the West side give us early shade on hot days. In this position we also have phone reception. Isn't it kinda goofy, but certainly a sign of the times, when you choose an anchorage for its cell phone reception! Up at Rahmad's fish farm, tied to the moorings, we had no phone reception. We had to get into the dinghy and drift about 20 yards away to make a phone call!

It's nice having Rahmad's place close by. The fish farm is a giant raft of floating drums and structures. His fish farm doesn't really raise fish. He buys fish that are caught in traps by the fishermen, and puts them into his pens. He feeds them well--many of the small tour boats stop there so the tourists can look at the variety of species he has. Tourists can feed the fish--even the friendly sting rays!

Rahmad serves food and drinks in his open air, palm frond roofed palapas (a cross between a shed and a gazebo). Quite nice they are, with woven cane matting making the side walls, local decorations and plants. And get this--one section has a crystal chandelier! We go up there for beer in the evenings, sometimes for a meal too--seafood, and it's very good and fresh. He's a very nice fellow, takes good care of the yachties, and gives us a lot of interesting local information.