I had spoken to Brent, a great source of local knowledge, thinking that I would island hop on the way south. Brent advised sailing straight to Langkawi given the time of year and it still being the South West Monsoon.
South west monsoon - Summer – Hot with fluky winds predominantly from the south west
North east monsoon – Winter – Light and variable winds predominantly from the north east.
The distance from Phuket to Langkawi is aproximately 115 miles – another 24 plus hour non stop trip with some decent wind. After a month at anchor in Chalong Bay it was so good to be out sailing again in 10 to 15 knots from the west, with Smithy (Windpilot) on the tiller and full sails up. The seas were a little lumpy as the water depth is only 50 to 100 meters deep and the swell was from the west.
At 15.00 I decided on a change in plan and headed for Ko Rok Nok and Ko Rok Nai small islands some 40 miles south of Phuket. I referred to the Indian Ocean Cruising Guide by Rod Heikell to get info on anchoring around these islands - a very good cruising guide, by the way. I planned to over night there. I anchored in 12 metres of water between the two islands and noticed the tidal current. My back and arms gave twinge at the impending hauling in of the anchor in 12 metres of water with all chain rode! That’s another story and yes I was told so.
The following day I hauled up the anchor and continued south. The winds dropped around latitude 6 degrees with sails slatting. I attempted to fly the MPS but was unable to in the lumpy seas in decreasing wind. Nothing for it other than to fire up the motor and head to the Butang Islands and Ko Lipe.
I anchored, again in 12 metres of water, on the south side of the small Ko Lipe and had a rough night rolling in the swell. I hauled anchor the following day and moved to the northern side of the island, hoping also to find a shallower anchorage. Things that go bump in the night! I had anchored reasonably near a mooring buoy in 6 metres of water in the channel between the small island of Ko Lipe and the larger island of Ko Adang. There was a reasonable tidal current running. During the night the fisherman’s anchor must have tripped with the change of tide and Sadiqi drifted back and bumped onto the mooring buoy. The mooring buoy bumping against the hull does not make for a good nights sleep, this, of course, happened at 3am! I had thought about taking the easy option picking up the mooring lines. Fortunately, I reset the anchor a good distance from the buoy, when I awoke at a more reasonable hour there was a fairly large wooden vessel on the mooring unloading its cargo onto hoards of longtail boats.
I rowed ashore to Ko Lipe, had a brief walk around part of the island, noticed it was starting to gear up for the oncoming tourist season. I think I’d prefer the less inhabited islands in the Butang group when the tourist season (Nov to Feb) was in full swing.
I departed Ko Lipe and headed for Langkawi island. There were squadrons of fishing boats trawling the waters between the Butang islands and Langkawi. Sadiqi managed to escape without becoming ensnared with the fishing fleet. Best to avoid sailing between a pair of trawling boats as I think they were trawling a net between them. I changed the time zone on entering Malaysian waters to UTC +8.
Thursday October 21 I dropped the anchor in Telaga harbour Langkawi island, Malaysia.
Nelson and Claude on “Black Swan”, whom I had met in Sabang Indonesia, came over for a chat. It was great to have someone in the know about what, how and where things are in Langkawi. The check in with Immigration and Customs was absolutely painless at Telaga harbour. However, being a Friday in a Moslem country, the harbour master was not open until Sunday. Nelson took me for a ride on the hire motorbike to Kuah the major town on Langkawi and I checked in with the harbour master there.
