Rebak Marina, Langkawi

Saturday 14 November 2009

After almost 9 months of wandering around in a blur, and ditching one plan after another, we have started something. On Tuesday 10th in Langkawi ,we signed a stack of papers, shook hands with Phil and Fay Atkinson, and took possession of SY Tramontana. They in turn, and in an unusual arrangement for boat sales, took possession of Malaika (with a cash adjustment from us).


Photo: On our way to Langkawi - Nick Wyatt and Zara Tremlett, managers of Yacht Haven Marina, casting us off for the first time that Malaika has moved in 8 months. Nick and Zara have been fantastic and have really looked after us both this whole year





We then spent about 14 hours over 2 days swapping the contents of the boats. The logistics of this feat would give you an instant headache, so just imagine you are trying to move out of a tiny little terrace house with a very narrow staircase, while the incoming tenants are moving their stuff in. It's a good thing that boats have forward and aft cabins with holes in the roof to drop bags of stuff through. What came out through the companionway of one boat, was lugged across a very narrow jetty, hoisted up onto the deck of the other boat and dropped through its forward hatch, until all the contents were transferred, moving aft bit by bit.

Malaika (L) and Tramontana(R) side by side in Rebak Marina this week. You can see how narrow the jetty is - at least it meant a short trip each time!

Champagne in the cockpit sealed the exercise, and we helped the Atkinsons cast off and watched them motor out of the marina. They left immediately so that their cat Nobby wouldn't keep trying to come back to his boat. It wasn't as hard as we'd expected it to be. All day while I was cleaning out cupboards and clearing lockers, I felt sad and teary, remembering so many many times with Ali on board Malaika. But as we waved goodbye and watched the boat we'd sailed 5000 miles in with our daughter disappear from sight, we both felt we'd done the right thing. Ali's still with us, I can feel her here in this new boat. She would have loved her cabin, with so much more space, and the flat open decks to move around on. The first thing we'll be doing is putting up some photos of her so we can see her all the time as well as feel her here with us.


Tramontana is a lovely boat. She's a 53 ft, centre cockpit cutter, built - by Phil Atkinson - of strip-planked western red cedar, with glass and epoxy. Her decks are clear and flat - Ali would have seen the sun-bathing potential immediately - and the dinghy is stored upright on the back deck behind the cockpit, lifted on and off the boat by the boom. Everyone who sees her and knows anything about sailing recognises what a great sailing boat she is. Phil built three like her - we almost bought her sister ship Pampero about 4 years back - and has built about 30 other boats. The engine room is a proper room, not a crawl-space in the bilge (although Malaika's was pretty good) and Lex can move around freely inside and almost stand fully upright.

The aft cabin - the second most important part of a yacht - is HUUGE. The dominant feature is a king-size bed, which will render memories of Malaika's aft berth a distant jostle for space. The forward cabin is a double berth, with plenty of space and storage. The two bathrooms are lovely, easy to clean and very practical. The galley is great, easy to cook in and well set out, with good high benches to work on. The nav area is opposite, and again is well laid out and spacious. It has a beautiful open saloon with a large fold-down table and long couches either side. The cockpit is terrific - THIS is the most important part of the yacht, because it's where you spend the most time. Yes, all right, sails and motors and stuff are important too, but I'm looking at this from a purely liveaboard point of view here... It's very similar in design to Malaika's with a hard dodger and a bimini overall, but with a lot more room. And did I mention the washing machine?




The aft cabin on Tramontana


All in all she's a head turning boat, built by a master boat builder. She has already completed one and a half circumnavigations in the 9 years that the Atkinsons have had her, and is in great shape.


Terri and Dennis Hart and their girls, our goddaughters, are joining us in Phuket in mid December for a sail, which will end in Singapore. We'll leave the boat in a marina and fly back to Darwin on 5 January, and come back to Singapore in early April to sail Tramontana non-stop back to Darwin.

Our Plan (#792) is to stay in Darwin and work for a while, spend lots of time with our kids and grandkids, and our friends, and go sailing as often as possible. After that, the question of which direction to head in is up for grabs, with a clockwise circumnavigation of the Pacific Northwest being the hot contender for a while now.

Eventually we'll start a new blog with a new name, but will stay with this one for now. A new boat name is in order too, something we'll do when we get back to Australia.

We'll keep updating this - so check occasionally, in case there are further versions of Plan #792...

Love from Jo and Lex



Lex with Tramontana at Yacht Haven a few weeks back

Tuesday 16 December 2008

Tuesday 16 December 2008

We’re back. If not exactly on the high seas yet, then not far off. Ali and Jo had a good trip back to Australia visiting family and friends in Melbourne and Darwin while Lex stayed back in Langkawi and worked like a Trojan for the month we were gone. He now has so-o-o-o many brownie points I’ll never catch up. As well as being an experienced sailor, he‘s become a competent mechanic. All of the major jobs were problems he hadn’t encountered before, but he worked them all out, and solved every one of them. The rudder, propeller shaft and anchor winch are all repaired and a zillion other smaller jobs completed. Today and tomorrow we’re painting the blue anti-foul on the hull below the water-line, and the final coat at sparrow’s tomorrow morning. Then at 11 am we splash, as they say here on the hardstand.

It's an interesting microcosm on the hardstand. The sun doesn't rise till about 7 am, so not much happens before then. Work on boats generally starts about 8 or 830, and then people go hell for leather for the next 8 or 10 hours with a break for lunch at the Hard Dock Cafe, an open air cafe on the hardstand where they serve things like chicken curry, fried rice, pizzas and sandwiches, all freshly made. A decent size pizza costs 12 ringgit, or about $4.50. Sometimes the food's not that great, but it’s a training facility for the resort. We mainly eat on the boat ourselves, but occasionally come up here for a change. By about 5.30 pm, people start to down tools and head for showers or, in the case of any Australians, gather in the shade of someone's boat for a few beers. Dinner is available at the Hard Dock in the evenings as well.

Rebak is definitely a DIY marina – there’s ample workspace, power and water available, but no tradesmen, apart from painting contractors. People are very generous with tools and advice, and everyone seems happy to lend the first and dispense the second. Yachties seem to operate of the premise that if you help someone, someone will help you when you need it, so people are generous. What goes around definitely comes around. Yes, they all drink too much, but I guess they're just doing their best to selflessly boost the local economies.

There are lots of kids here, mostly aged around 7 to 14. Schoolwork takes them out of sight in the mornings as most of them are home schooled, but by lunchtime they’re out in force, small boys marching purposefully around with wooden swords and home-made bows and arrows, being ignored by their sisters who are intently ‘Facebooking’ friends all over the world, and more than likely MSM-ing the girls beside them! (Not only has the internet given us new ways of communication, it’s invented all these new verbs!)

Time for the next coat of tacky blue stuff… let’s see if I can get more of it onto the boat than onto me this time.

31 October 2008

31 October 2008

Langkawi Malaysia

Arrived here after three overnight sails through a few storms and heavy rain. Lots of large traditional fishing boats and tugs hauling dumb barges kept Lex and I on alert all night, especially when the rain reduced visibility. Had a very close call with a trawler towing a net, when we couldn't work out what it was doing in the dark and the heavy rain, and what its lights actually meant! Boats seem to be moving quite slowly when they're actually coming straight at you... then it's off with the autopilot and on with the throttle when you work out what it's doing. Usually not until the last minute...

There were three thunderstorms on the radar on the last night, right across our path. (Memories of that movie "Perfect Storm" kept surfacing...) Lex managed to weave us a route between the worst of them so we didn't have too much trouble from them. The fishing boats also were thankfully left behind early in the evening, so the last night's sail was relatively pleasant. We had been planning to stop at Penang but the weather reports encouraged us to push straight through to Langkawi as it was only going to get worse if we stopped, and we'd be held up for days.

Well, Langkawi is wonderful! The marina is very sheltered, and entered via a long curving breakwater. We arrived very early in the morning, well before the dockmaster was on duty, so we just pulled into the first empty berth we saw. Lots of boats from all over the world - Dutch, German, British, American, Canadian, Irish and of course no shortage of Australians. The marina is on Rebak Island, just off the island of Langkawi itself. There's a very flash resort a few hundred metres away, where yachties are allowed to use the pool by the sea, much to Ali's delight. Not that pool rules have stopped her anywhere else I should add. The marina facilities are good, and there's a real community feel amongst the boats, something I haven't encountered elsewhere. We were invited to a birthday celebration the following night, along with about 60 others, at the yacht bar/cafe, where for less than $20 Aus we had wonderful food, and then entertainment provided by several of the yachties who'd brought along their guitars and mandolins. And of course being seafarers they all drink like fish, but in Langkawi they can afford to, because the whole island is duty free, and a good quality beer costs about 30c a can from the wholesaler. 

Ali and I are flying to Melbourne on the 3rd November, and then up to Darwin the following week. Lex is hauling Malaika out of the water on the 6th, where it will stay for a couple of weeks while he puts new anti-foul below the water line, and repaints the topsides above. Our general plan is to leave for Thailand about the 16th December, and probably head west across the Indian Ocean in early January.

I'll be contactable on Lex's old mobile number 0412 302 127, while we're in Australia.