E72 – LANGKAWI TO PENANG
Departing RLYC Langkawi
We left the Royal Langkawi Yacht club in calm conditions and motored a short distance to the fuel barge to take on diesel. We only needed about 60 liters, but I like to take every opportunity to have our tanks pressed up. Coming alongside was easy, but maybe on a day that’s not so calm, it might be a little more challenging.
We then motored down south through the beautiful limestone islets of the Langkawi Island group to a picture perfect anchorage, protected 360 degrees. Definitely one of the best we have encountered anywhere and worth a visit.
Fishing fleets
Next morning, we left very early while it was still dark and headed out through a medium density squid fishing fleet and finally found a little wind to sail towards Penang.
Straits Quay Marina – Penang
The Straits Quay Marina has a very shallow entrance (0.4m LAT as near as I could measure) at the entrance and so for keel boats, timing is everything. We waited till we had a 1.7m tide and made our way inside. We did touch bottom but pushed through soft mud not far from the berth, inside the marina. We draw 2.1m.
The marina can be surprisingly unsettled if there is any westerly swell, so make sure your lines are well set and you have plenty of fenders out. The berths couldn’t be closer to the restaurants, which we found a bit expensive after becoming used to paying remoter Asian prices, but I’m sure the quality would be good.
Fixing our troublesome Fisher Panda generator
Here we finally had our generator fixed and at the end of the video, we introduce the legend who made it happen. In the end, the final issue was that the Fisher Panda aluminum casing on the Alternator side of the engine, had corroded away with the raw water that flows through it and that had leaked onto the coil and destroyed the coil. Our mechanic knew a place to get it rewound and that turned out to be an excellent job. They have patched the raw water leak on the inside of the casing as best they can. Who knows how long it will last till it corrodes in another place.
