Long Trip Home

July 10, 2011--Our trip home was a challenge, to say the least. We repacked our bags the night of July 5 for the last time. We had to fit some clothes and other personal items that we had been using. This meant, of course, that we ended up having to shift some weight from some bags to other bags. We spent another three hours rearranging items until each of our NINE bags weighed no more than 50 pounds. Thank heavens for the scale that Wendy and Gary lent us. We thought that we would be bored our last day in Malaysia, but that was not the case.

The next day we got ready to leave, and then James picked us up at noon to take us to lunch along with Gary and Wendy. We ate at Lido's Restaurant where we enjoyed delicious fish, steamed potato leaves, pork, and rice. We had heard so much about this restaurant and how good the food was--it was the truth.

After lunch James dropped us off at the Star Shuttle Company, and we drug our nine bags plus four carry-on bags into the lobby. The people working at the counter could not believe how much baggage we had. Luckily, they did not charge us any extra for excess baggage. Our bus was about 30 minutes late in departing; however, the bus driver made excellent time so we arrived at Kuala Lumpur International Airport around seven that evening. We had to get two trolleys in order to move all the baggage and finding an empty elevator became quite a feat, but we finally managed to nab an empty one that had enough room for the two of us.

We had to stand in line for about an hour before we could check in, and unloading our nine bags at the counter became another interesting exercise. We had to pile all nine bags on the scale at the same time in order to weight them, so we had a very large pile sitting on the conveyor belt. When the agent finally figured out the charge for our excess baggage, it came to $750--ouch, that hurt!

After that ordeal we walked to Burger King where we enjoyed a Whopper with fries. It tasted so good and would help to hold us over until our next meal.

We went to the gate and tried to relax until our flight, which left at 10:50 p.m. We boarded on time and found our seats. We were carrying Steve's guitar so I had to ask the flight attendant if I could put it in a safer place than the overhead compartment. She was very helpful and placed it in the closet with the flight crew's jackets.

Our flight from KLIA to Tokyo took about seven hours. We had two seats together so it was not too bad, and the flight was not very full either. When we arrived in Tokyo, however, we were still pretty stiff from sitting for so long. Our first stop was to find the day room that we had booked for seven hours. We checked in and found the room to be very clean with two beds and a bathroom including a shower. We immediately climbed into bed and slept for the next four hours.

Around noon we got up and left to find some lunch. We found a bar that had food so we decided to have teriyaki chicken with noodles and rice. The food was delicious, and the cold beer tasted very good. We were a bit surprised by the cost of $40. It was good, but not that good.

Our next stop was at the American Airlines counter to see if we could get an isle seat for the leg from Tokyo to Dallas. The seats we had were the two center seats in a row of four, and we hoped to get one on the isle. We had no luck with that; however, the agent advised us that we could upgrade to business class. The amount was more than we wanted to spend, but Steve and I decided that it would be worth it for the 11-hour flight to DFW.

Knowing that we would be able to sleep on the next flight, we returned to our room, showered, and got dressed. We checked out two hours early and went to the Admiral's Club to enjoy WIFI, some food, and a drink.

At 5:30 p.m. we boarded the plane and settled into our wonderfully comfortable and wide seats. We spent the next 11 hours enjoying movies, a great dinner, and a glass of wine. We were able to sleep for several hours, and that made all the difference in the world.

We arrived in Dallas at 3:50 p.m. on July 7 and had just two hours before our flight left for Albuquerque. We went through Immigrations with no problems and proceeded to baggage claim to get our bags. We grabbed two trolley; however, they were smaller than the ones at KLIA, so we were worried about getting all nine bags on them. It took quite awhile for us to collect all of the bags, but they did fit, and as soon as we had them all, we went to Customs. We expected questions about so many bags so I had typed up a list of the contents of the bags in case the agent asked us. The Customs agent we got was very pleasant. We explained why we were returning to the states and why we had so many bags. All he asked was if we had any food. When we told him that we did not, he let us continue on. Thank goodness we didn't have to unload any of the bags. We never would have been able to repack them the same way.

We quickly rechecked our bags and headed for Terminal A to catch our flight. We had to wait just 30 minutes before we started boarding. There was a contingent of soldiers from Fort Hood, and I asked one of them if they were leaving or returning home. He told me that they were going to Albuquerque for some training and would then head to Afghanistan for another tour. When he told me that, I thanked him for his service.

Our last flight was just over an hour, and when we landed in Albuquerque, we were very ready to be done. We went out to the curb with our carry-on bags to wait for James and Zelda to pick us up. Steve then proceeded to pick up the bags two at a tiime and bring them out to the curb. Just as he finished with the last bags, James drove up in our truck, and we loaded all the bags into the back.

It felt so good to be home again. The mountains were beautiful as the sunset shone on them, and there were big thunder clouds all around. The weather was warm but not uncomfortable, and we enjoyed the ride home and caught up on the latest happenings.

We have spent the past few days trying to get over our jet lag and to adjust to being back in the states. We are waking up at four in the morning and can hardly stay awake by the afternoon, but things will improve over the next few days.

I plan to post one or two more blogs during the next few weeks, so keep checking in with us.

Sale of sv Linda

July 6, 2011--On July 3, 2011, we finalized the sale of sv Linda. We fly out of Malaysia tonight and will arrive home on Thursday, July 7. I will post one or two more blogs with details of our last few weeks here at Pangkor Island.

Offer on sv Linda

June 22, 2011--The latest news is that we have received, and have accepted, an offer on sv Linda. Now we are waiting for the sea trial and survey to be done on July 2 and 3. We have spent our time taking care of a few last minute small jobs; but, other than that, she is in fine shape.

Last week James’ wife Ling drove four of us ladies to town to get a shampoo and cut. The salon turned out to very nice, and the man who cut my hair did a fine job. All of us were a bit surprised, however, at the price. My cut (no shampoo) was 22 RM—that amounts to about $9. Now that may sound like a bargain, but for this part of the world it is a bit pricey.

We continue to go to lunch every few days with Gary, Wendy, and James. We have found a bakery that has amazing baguettes, egg tarts, blueberry cheese tarts, and rolls; but, actually, we are trying not to go there too often as all the good food is beginning to take a toll. We also found a great restaurant called Foos Steak House that has wonderful steak sandwiches on homemade bread.

We took the ferry across to Pangkor Island with Gary and Wendy for lunch one day, only to find that our favorite restaurant was closed. We decided to eat at another one of the local eateries, and we enjoyed soup, chicken and rice, noodles, and barbecued pork. The food was very good, and we were pleased until we received the bill. The total was 58 RM, which is about $18. We questioned the bill, and, luckily, the woman had written the amounts down on a piece of cardboard. Instead of 4.50 RM for the chicken and rice, she wrote 45 RM. We pointed out the mistake, saying that it was the most expensive chicken and rice we had had in Malaysia. All the people working in the restaurant laughed, and the one man who spoke English said that it was a mistake. We knew that it wasn’t, but we just smiled, paid our bill, and left.

We have cleaned out and packed up most of our belongings that will go home with us. James has been gracious enough to let us store our bags—all eight of them—in a room in the office. The only problem with packing things up is that no sooner have we cleared it out than Steve needs a tool or something else to finish up a chore. The two ladies in the office, Akina and Azira, are very good natured about our coming in to get something out of a bag and then returning it to the bag the next day. The three dock workers, Shar, Adam, and Bear, are also very helpful with anything we might need.

Now we will just wait until the first weekend of July. Hopefully, everything will go smoothly, and then we will fly home on July 7.

Good Fishing in Malaysia

June 12, 2011—It has been busy for the past few weeks. As we work on the boat, we keep finding little things that need some work. The temperature has become even warmer so we are even more grateful to have the air conditioner. Any outside work, such as putting Cetol on the caprail or cleaning the decks, is done before nine o’clock. After that the surface of the caprail or the deck becomes too hot to work on.

We have unloaded all the aft lockers, and then Steve cleaned them and put on a new coat of paint so now they look very nice. We also took out all the sails and made sure that they were clean and had no mold on them. We then neatly repacked each locker. We also spent some time cleaning out the bilge, which had become a bit dirty.

I have spent quite a bit of time packing items that we will be taking home into suitcases. James, the marina manager, has been kind enough to let us store the bags in a locked room at the office. This has allowed us to move any unnecessary items from the boat to reduce the clutter. Before we leave, we will have to weigh the bags, as they have to be less than 50 pounds, and redistribute items as necessary.

One day about a week ago, James asked Steve if he would like to go fishing, which he did. Steve, Gary, Daniel, and Daniel’s oldest son all hopped on board. They left around 5:30 in the evening and returned around 9 o’clock. Steve had caught a lovely Queen fish, which is a nice, white meat fish. All together the guys caught 40 small tuna. We immediately set up a barbeque to cook the fish. Wendy brought some salad, I contributed some bread, and we all enjoyed a lovely meal. Some of the tuna became sushi, which as excellent. Daniel’s wife Hiro brought seaweed to wrap the rice in, and when you added some tuna, it was excellent.





On June 5, all the cruisers on the dock were invited by Mr. Ding, a part owner in the marina, to his grandson’s first birthday party. We first met Mr. Ding at the Methodist church on Easter Sunday when we learned that his son’s wife had passed away recently leaving his son with a three-year-old daughter and a one-year-old boy. The son and his children live with Mr. Ding and his wife, and they seem to be a very close family.

Mr. Ding had arranged the dinner party at the Bar Restaurant, which is on the second floor of the main building and overlooks the ocean. We have seen some beautiful sunsets from there, and that evening was lovely as well. We enjoyed the traditional food of fried rice, fried noodles, prawns, fried chicken strips, small hot dogs, watermelon, and pineapple. Mr. Ding also brought some other wonderful fruit, of which I cannot begin to remember the names, to our table for us to enjoy. To finish it all off, we enjoyed a cream cheese birthday cake.

A couple of days ago we joined Gary, Wendy, and James and went to Fat Man’s Curry Restaurant. Now the name would imply that it has Indian food, but, actually, it is a Chinese restaurant that is owned by a large Chinese man and his wife. We enjoyed wild boar in red wine sauce, bok choy, and a tofu dish, along with rice and a local beer. It was all very good, and we were especially surprised at how good the boar was.

It is overcast today, which helps a bit with the heat, but the humidity is definitely higher. The night before last we had quite a bit of thunder and lightning during the evening, but, luckily, the wind never blew very hard. Last night we again had a bit of rain, but nothing very significant.

We plan to return to the states the first week of July, and we will just wait to see if anything happens with the boat. We may take a quick trip somewhere, but it all depends on the schedule with the boat. Things are pretty low key right now, but I guess that it won’t kill us to take it easy for awhile.

Out and About in Malaysia

May 24, 2011--I can’t believe that it is already May 24, and that I haven’t written a blog since May 11.

On Mother’s Day we went up to The Bar Restaurant and were surprised to see that they were offering a Set Meal that included pumpkin soup, a quarter roasted chicken with potato wedges and mixed vegetables, watermelon for dessert, and a fruit drink. We paid a total of 30 RM or $15 USD, and the meal was delicious, plus we were able to enjoy a lovely sunset from our outdoor table.

On Friday, May 13 we decided to take the ferry from Marina Island to Lumut for lunch. We boarded the ferry at 11 a.m. and arrived at Pangkor Island just in time to get on the ferry to Lumut. Before we left, we looked out the window and saw this monitor lizard swimming up to the boat. As we pulled away from the dock, Steve said that he watched the lizard actually running across the water trying to catch a bird. The whole trip took us about 30 minutes. We left the ferry terminal and walked to Jook’s Bar (the yachties call it Duke’s) where we enjoyed a steak sandwich on a baguette roll, French fries, and a cold beer. We had planned to spend the afternoon in Lumut, but it was so hot that we gave up after two hours and returned to the ferry to head back to the boat and the air-conditioning.

On May 20 we decided to go to Penang for our belated anniversary gift. We left the boat and took a taxi into Lumut where we caught the Internasional bus up to Butterworth. It was a three-hour ride that turned into a five-hour ride because the air-conditioner fan belt broke, so we had to wait in Kuala Kangsar for the mechanic to replace the belt. We took advantage of the time to eat some lunch at one of the stalls, and the food was quite good. We had chicken and pineapple in curry sauce over rice.

We arrived in Butterworth and walked from the bus station to the ferry station that was right next door, and we were able to get on the ferry immediately and enjoyed the ride across the channel to Penang. We have sailed in this channel twice on our boat and have had to dodge these ferries both times. In the picture I took on board the ferry a bird flew through the passenger level just as I clicked the shutter.

We arrived in Penang and walked to the taxi stop where we were immediately hussled into a waiting taxi and driven to the Traders Hotel Resort. As this was our anniversary celebration, we decided that a stay in a five-star resort would be nice. The hotel was beautiful, and we were pleased with our room. The pool was lovely, and we spent each afternoon relaxing there and reading our books.

We had seen much of Penang on our way through in November, so we just enjoyed a relaxing weekend. We went back to our favorite restaurant—Restauran Kapitan—each day for lunch because the Indian food there is exceptional. We enjoyed Chicken Tikka Masala, Butter Chicken Curry, and Kabobs with assorted meat on them. They also serve Naan, which is a type of flat bread that is wonderful, and you can order it plain, with butter and garlic, or one of seven other flavors.

One evening we went to the Hawkers Stalls just up the street where we enjoyed roast duck and rice with a cold beer. There were so many stalls offering so many different dishes that it was hard to choose. The area was filled with locals and tourists who were enjoying their evening meals.

On Sunday night we went to the eight-story mall next door and saw the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie. It cost us 28 RM or $9 USD, and we got to sit in a “couples” seat. We had arrived a little early so we went into a room where people were sitting on couches watching previews until their movie was scheduled to start. We thought that was a novel idea.

On Monday we took the ferry back over to Butterworth and caught our bus back down to Lumut. We grabbed dinner at Kentucky Fried Chicken and took the taxi back to Marina Island. It was nice to get away for a few days, but it was also nice to return home.

We have a few additional jobs that we need to address on the boat, and we want to finish them during the next two weeks. After that, all the work that we feel needs to be done will be finished, and we can relax a bit.

sv Linda Brokerage Listing

May 11, 2011--The web page that lists Linda for sale is now online. I have included the link at the bottom right-hand side. Our listing can be found with the 40-foot yachts, and there are great pictures as well as information regarding her inventories. The listing is at

http://yachtbroker-charters.com/YBC%20monos%20page.htm

Preparing the Boat in Pangkor, Malaysia

May 7, 2011--We have spent the past three weeks working hard on the boat. We spent several days preping and then repainting the non-skid on the decks and coach roof. We also washed all the exterior canvas, cleaned out closets and cabinets, buffed the interior teak, and did a lot of general cleaning. Steve spent a whole day rewiring the engine, because after 13 years in the marine environment, it was needed.

James, who is the marina manager here, has been very helpful. If we need any supplies or groceries, he always volunteers to drive us to town. Also, Gary and Wendy on sv Spirit of Sabraon are right across the dock from us, and they kept an eye on the boat while we were in the states. They are well acquainted with the town and often will use James’ car to drive us around. Often we all go to lunch together and have been to some excellent local restaurants. It is much better when James is along because he orders the best dishes for us to try. The last lunch included some “drinks” that quite interesting. One was made from peanuts, another from tapioca, and another from squash. They were all room temperature, and most were pretty good just not cold enough. We had a variety of noodle dishes and one curry dish. They were all very good. Wendy and Gary added two herbal teas. The whole lunch cost 29 RM or $10 USD.

The Eastern Sail Malaysia Rally came through last week, but it was a much smaller rally with only about 15 boats. They were here for several days and then left to head for Singapore. From there they will sail along the eastern coast of Malaysia and then across to Brunei. We knew a few of the boats from the Indonesia Rally and the Western Sail Malaysia Rally.

There are only four boats here at the moment. The rainy season is setting in and the temperatures are hotter. Luckily, we got our painting done on some dry days. Of course, our air-conditioner is on all the time. We usually work outside in the mornings and then work inside during the heat of the day in the afternoons or just relax and do some reading. The evenings are not too bad, and there is always a sea breeze that helps to keep things a bit cooler.

We contacted Paul, who is a boat broker here in Malaysia, and he told us that he might have a prospective buyer for the boat. We called him when we had finished the major projects, and this past Friday he came to Pangkor to take pictures for the ad that will be on his web site and on Yacht World. His photographer Sue took quite a few pictures, and Steve showed them the workings of the boat. Keith and Kay, a couple from Australia, came down with Paul and came aboard to see the boat. They were very positive about her, and we were grateful for the feedback. Paul also felt that she would show well.

We had taken the air-conditioner off for the pictures and had unloaded more items that we plan to take home. We also had to remove the sun shade from the boat for the pictures. Naturally, the air-conditioner was the first thing to go back on after everyone left. We got the boat organized again, ate a small dinner, showered in our swimsuits on the dock, and went to bed. It had been a long day.

Today we went to Duke's Bar in town with Gary and Wendy and Jerry and Joanie from sv Lotus. Duke's has delicious steak sandwiches and cold beer. After that we made a quick trip to Tesco for some groceries, including rotissery chicken, and then we returned to the boat to put everything away.

As soon as the listing is posted, I will put a link to them so that you can see the pictures if you are interested. We plan to do a few additional smaller projects in the time that we are still here. We still do now know exactly when we will fly home; however, I will continue to write blogs as long as we are here.