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Nov 3, 2005 - COASTAL CRUISING – CHALLENGE AND CHANGE
by Al & Beth Liggett

I can hardly believe that we have been in Southeast Asia for 7 years now! More specifically in Malaysia. Langkawi has become a familiar "Home Base" for us. When we are not running out across the Indian Ocean to Chagos, or dabbling in the Andaman Sea to visit the Andaman Islands, we often make the 140-mile run between Langkawi and Phuket, Thailand.


	Al and Beth on stern of Sunflower.

There are a couple of ways to do this, depending on the season, the current weather, and whether you are sailing alone or with other boats. In the NE monsoon, the winds are dominant from the NE and stay consistent throughout the night. Thus, we usually do an overnighter, direct from Langkawi to Phuket. However, it means you have to deal with the fishing fleet at night during some part of the trip. It always seems that they save their most erratic maneuvers for after dark!

Now it is the SW monsoon season. But that means that winds are predominantly west and northwest. They can be strong, squally, and of course, right on the nose en route to Phuket. At least there are a few good anchorages along the way where we and the fishermen can sit out any blows.

A couple of weeks ago we felt that we were getting strangled by marina life. Why not sail up to Phuket and take care of a few chores, sort out a few projects, and get some things done that Phuket is better for than Langkawi? I use that word "sail" quite loosely. The month of October is transitional between monsoons, and more often than not it's dead flat calm in these waters. We would most likely be motoring most of the way, so we would take it easy, day tripping, and stopping at some of our favorite anchorages. We hadn't visited many of these for over a year. In this part of the world, things can change quickly.

We left the Royal Langkawi Yacht Club very early, just at first light. It had been raining much of the night and was still drizzling at dawn. We almost didn't leave. There is quite a current that courses through the marina, beam on to the berths. Makes getting in and out a bit tricky, especially at spring tides. But now the tide was slack, and there was no wind. We could keep the awning up, as we were only going to the Hole in Wall, just a few hours away.

At first glance, the Hole in the Wall seemed the same. I've written about this anchorage before as it's one of our favorite places in Langkawi. You must enter between two limestone
cliffs. Looks daunting, but there is actually quite a bit of room, and the water in the entrance is deep. We anchored in our usual spot – just before you get to the first inlet on the right. We call this inlet "Fish Farm Arm". There are about 6 or 8 floating fish farms moored alongside the cliff face. Our friend Rahmad has the biggest "farm". Actually, he doesn't farm at all. He just keeps a lot of different fish in his fish pens for the tourists to look at, and some fish in pens for the tourists to eat. Rahmad's is really a restaurant!


Sunflower at anchor in the Hole in the Wall.

We left SUNFLOWER on a mooring in front of Rahmad's in 2002 when we did a long trip to the States. Rahmad now has 24 moorings – what a change! They are all fore and aft moorings, no swinging, so as not to restrict the water traffic. There were only 2 open spots. We booked a mooring for mid-March next year when we again want to do a bit of traveling. It is really safe.

Rahmad has expanded his holdings again – bigger kitchen, a small shop, additional restaurant space, employees dressed alike in smart looking shirts, even a bar! Quite a change from when he served his first "dinner" to a group of us yachties celebrating Al's birthday in 2000, under a small thatch roof between the fish pens.

We stayed in the Hole an extra day so we could explore around a bit, and noticed more changes. There are still many monkeys, and eagles (3 types) galore, but we didn't see a single kingfisher, nor even hear one. Saw monitor lizards though. We didn't have a chance to look into some of the other arms for the little otter families that play around the mangrove roots.

We took the dinghy up to the Kilim jetty – more changes. Instead of the longtail fishing fleet, it's full of tour boats now. Not many of them were out working – it was the first day of Ramadan. The little cafes at the jetty were all closed too. Get this – the cyber shop was closed! Cyber shop? In the Hole in the Wall? 'Fraid so.

Across from the jetty there is a new walkway wandering through the mangroves as far as the bat cave. And on the other side of the fisherman's creek, the old rickety boardwalk is now a concrete walkway on pilings. There is quite a nice little building out on the end. We walked out along the concrete path. All the boardwalks that branched off into the mangroves are now broken and derelict. No change there.

Back to the trip. As predicted, it was a motorboat ride all the way to Terutao Island. This is the first island north of Langkawi, and belongs to Thailand. We anchored on the northeast corner where there is a nice bay protected by a couple of islands. However, the OBNOXIOUS westerly swell still penetrated our seclusion, making it VERY ROLLY in the anchorage. There weren't any fishing boats sheltering in the bay with us – maybe that's why.

We got up extra early to make it to Ko Kradan, one of our stepping stone stops 45 miles to the north. When daylight brightened we could see heavy rain squalls with lightening right in our path. We detoured over toward KO Bulans - two islands NE of Terutao - and got caught in total whiteout before we got there. Couldn't even see anything on the radar, and the islands were only two miles away!

The rain lifted enough for us to make the shelter between the islands and put our anchor down - just in time to get the next lot of squalls sweeping through! But this time the winds swept in from the SW, totally eliminating the shelter. It was NOT the place to be – four feet of water under the keel and 35K of wind. So off we went, right into the mess, just barely making headway in the wind and chop until we got clear of the shallows and far enough away to fall off, put up the reefed main, and boogie on north.

Now the challenge was to find an alternate anchorage. We didn't know where we could park if it got nasty again, and hated the thought of returning to the rolly (but safe) anchorage at Terutao. KO Petra? We'd never been there. The chart showed a likely spot at the north end. Another option was just six miles north of Petra in a gap between two tall rocky islands. Anyway, we just kept sailing, thinking, "Well – maybe we can make the next one," as we moved along. It was a very wet day, but we sailed almost all the way, and we did make it to KO Kradan after all!

Next morning, no wind to begin with, more big black bunches of rain all around. The rain meant another day of living in foul weather gear, but the rain also brought back the winds for good SAILING! And...we caught a fish! A nice 14-pound king mackerel. Our friends were jealous; they never catch any, and reckoned it was the last fish ever to be found between Langkawi and Phuket. You only have to see the numbers of fishing boats working in these waters to understand that sentiment. But then – they ought to have learned the first rule of fishing by now – put the lure out!

We made anchorage at PhiPhi Island by mid afternoon. We hadn't been there since the tsunami. The island is shaped like a skewed letter H, with the hotels, main settlement and tourist services straddling the cross piece. At least, they used to be. PhiPhi was one of the worst hit areas by the tsunami last December. First thing we noticed is that you can now see right through the palms from our spot in TongSa Bay all the way across the H to the other side. There wasn't much at all on the western side of the bay anymore either.

We stayed a day – cleaned the topsides and propeller in PhiPhi's clear water, then went ashore. We hadn't been ashore in PhiPhi for maybe 2 years or more. So it was a little hard for us to tell what is new construction, what is gone (except for the whole middle part of the island) and what has been rebuilt or repaired. I must say that everything seemed to gleam with new paint. There were some tourists around, and the same old ticky tacky junky stuff in the shops. Many of the dive shops were back in operation; tour boats were making the daily run from Phuket. But we weren't bothered in the anchorage by the usual hordes of noisy longtails, and none of the speed boats were operating. I hate to see them losing their livelihood, but it made our anchorage there peaceful again - almost like it had been on our first visit to PhiPhi back in 1991.

I guess we had used up our sailing allotment by then, because it was a motor boat ride from PhiPhi Island across to Au Chalong Bay in Phuket – we just missed a big black squall that chased us into the anchorage. The one time we were happy to lose the race! In the morning we awoke at the crack of dawn with the crack of thunder and then HEAVY rain. It washed any remaining salt spray off the sails and deck, and filled the jugs and buckets in record time!

Now, after a couple of weeks of alternating rainy days and fine weather, we have accomplished our Phuket goals: the ham radio is fixed, a new awning sewed to our specifications, the chain has been regalvanized, we have both been to the dentist. Specific shopping needs have been filled, and we have had some fine visits with our friends. Time to head south to Langkawi. It has been dead flat calm for the last 4 days, so looks to be another motor boat trip. I hope the weather remains benign as we would like to stop at a few of the "stepping stone" islands we have had to bypass in other trips between Phuket and Langkawi. We'll see...