Malacca Malaise

It was a slow day, mainly motoring after a short-lived sail down the Johor Strait from Johor Bahru, the northerly turn up the muddy Malacca Strait was proving to be less enjoyable as the wind was on the nose, if existent at all. After weaving through dozens of anchored cargo vessels and dodging some fish traps and fish nets, we decided to drop anchor at 11pm after the current had changed, and was turning the boat around taking distance off us that was so hard fought. A lightning and thunder storm above us encouraged us to take a quick 5 hour rest before the tide turned again.

We headed off at 4:30am, making for Muar Town the lesser known of the Malacca cities, this one featured two elaborate mosques and importantly our new 15hp outboard motor. Hugh had tirelessly searched for the right 2-stroke outboard in Singapore and Malaysia and had found one at the right price and after speaking with the shop, we were set to pick it up on our way through. Our friends aboard the sailing vessel Atea were kind enough to gift us their hypalon dingy which they did not want anymore as they were upgrading. The dingy was going to be perfect for our needs with a removable hard floor, however the extra weight that it brought also meant that we needed a more gutsy motor than our existing 3.3hp. Our PVC dingy was not surviving the challenges thrown up by the tropical climate and was slowly melting in the sun, losing its glue and generally being less than suitable for our needs (it had been nicknamed by the kids off our friends boat as 'the pool'). So dingy no. 3 (also known as Max - he came pre-named) required a repair job and would enter our lives as our new runabout!

We arrived outside Muar town at 1pm and made the long 3nm dingy ride up the river (impassable by our boat due to the shallow depth at its entry) taking what seemed like an eternity - 45 minutes. We rang the shop that had our outboard and they had a guy in town who would drive us to the store. This was very helpful, as the shop was a 15 minute drive away and there were no taxi's. The town was very tidy and the houses were large and very well presented. It turned out that this was no ordinary place, being the Sultan of Johor's home town and he loved the colour blue - very distinctly painted on most buildings!

The car pulled up at the marine shop and we were shown the outboard by the shop owner - Mrs Sani. It was enormous and we were wondering how we were going to get it back to EJ in our new dingy that still needed its repair job. After much talking, biscuits and water, the deal was made. Hugh was asking Mrs Sani for the name of a nice restaurant in town where we could have dinner. Before we knew it, we were in the car with her and she was taking us to a warung that sold "the best Bakso in Muar" (meatball soup with noodles). We unpacked the motor into the dingy and were escorted to dinner by Mrs Sani and her 10 year old son. It was a great dinner and just what we needed before the long dingy ride back to the boat. Mrs Sani was so kind, after driving us around and then taking us for dinner, what a nice way to buy an outboard! The dingy trip back to EJ was long, but thankfully the wind had died down, so we made it there dry and hoisted the 40kg of motor up onto the boat without too much trouble.

We decided to wait for the favourable tide and slept the night. Expecting to leave at 1am, the tide had not yet turned and the lightning storm was enough encouragement to stay in bed. There was no wind at 4am, so we decided to wait for the northbound tide that afternoon instead. A relaxing morning on the boat and some scones and we were off, sailing this time!

It was 8pm as we sailed past the city of Malacca, meticulously weaving through cargo ships that were coming into port, at anchor and those out in the designated shipping lanes. The wind was still on our nose, but it was blowing up to 15kts which made it quicker going. As the tide turned the wind died out, so we dropped anchor north of Malacca as the lightning lit up the sky overhead.

The alarm boomed at 3am and with wind we were off sailing again. As the morning wore on, the wind picked up pushed by a squall, bringing lightning, thunder and wind. This passed through and we were left with no wind and an opposing tide. The Malacca Strait was turning out to be a tedious affair and we still had 250nm to go to our destination - the Malaysian island of Langkawi.

We made the decision to get more fuel. It was never simple getting fuel and we might not have had enough to get us to Langkawi, and that all depended on the wind. Feeling that there may not be much wind (based on the four previous days) we opted to stop at the Royal Selangor Yacht Club. The club was located down the river past Port Klang - a huge shipping terminal with cargo ships lining the channel. The Club was located in a shallow part of the river which used to be quite remote, though over the last 15 years or so a lot of shipping industry had moved in and the river banks were loaded with warehousing, logistics and fishing trawler boats. The water was filthy, a perpetual tide of rubbish (plastic bags, bottles, styrofoam, wooden pallets and wooden logs) clogged the river, ready to be sucked into the engine water intake or damage the fibreglass if propelled fast enough by the current. We stayed the night to fill with fuel and leave the following day. Thankfully they had a fuel bowser here, the first one we had used since leaving Darwin, as we usually get between 10-20 x 20Lt jerry cans filled with diesel to tediously pour one by one in to the tanks.

48 hours later we made it to the entry channel to the marina where we would be for about a week. The water had cleared up and the brilliant green of the island vegetation contrasted with the aqua water, hopefully a sign of things to come for the picture perfect beaches and water further north. The Malacca Strait is 450nm of challenge, not for the impatient and we were both exhausted after keeping such a vigilant watch out for shipping, fishing obstacles and lightning storms. It was nice to be out of the Strait!


15/11/2013

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Categories: malaysia