Pangkor, Malaysia …
Who’s checking that it is almost the end of MAY and we are finally getting out our “annual” holiday greeting! Oh well, what can we say? Living on land for the last 13 months has been a major adjustment for us sailors, time seemed to tick by at an incredible pace …
We were sort of “mainstream” for a bit with our life suddenly full with all the landlubber distractions we don’t really have when living abroad on our sail boat: road trips to visit family, eating all the foods we miss so dearly, back-country plane trips, TV series to catch up on, lots and lots of shopping on Amazon, dinner dates, movies, “real” school, parades, fireworks, festivals, county fairs, music lessons, museums, play dates, fishing, camping, sledding, tubing, ice skating, singing pageants, skiing, sleigh rides, snowshoeing, ice hockey, rodeos, horses, dogs, pigs, oh my!! Oh, did I mention we also built a house?
I get ahead of myself!! Let’s start in the beginning … we started 2016 in Thailand, sitting in an anchorage off a lovely beach restaurant, contemplating our situation. Kailani had been sailed hard for the last 6 years, taking us through many beautiful anchorages throughout Tonga, New Zealand, Fiji, New Caledonia, Chesterfield Reef, Minerva Reef, Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, and finally Thailand … over 29,500 miles of sailing since we bought her in Turkey, and she was in need of some serious TLC (the kind we have to get the paid experts in for!!). So looking down the road (so to speak) we realized that in order to fix Kailani’s most pressing issues (a leaking diesel fuel tank and a failing genset) we would need months of time … meaning we would miss the window to leave SE Asia. We had decided we wanted to sail further west, across the Indian Ocean, and for this journey Kailani’s systems need to be in top performing mode.
So, that first week in January, one day Jen said: “Let’s just take 6 months off and go build a small carriage house on that land we bought in Idaho a few years back…”. To which Harley’s eyes lit up (relief!!!) and he quickly agreed this was a good “work-around”. We found a workable house design online, emailed some contacts back in Idaho to hire a contractor, and off we started on our “escape from SE Asia” plan …. But first, we had to fully take in the sights …
We took trains, planes and tuk-tuks up into Thailand’s northern most regions bordering Burma. Chiang Mai, with all of its temples and culture was fabulous, but the highlights for us were definitely our side trip up through Thailand’s northland. We hired a car, and proceeded to encounter a “freak” cold snap – temperatures in the 30s and 40s (F not C!). Let me remind you that we are cruisers, completely ill equipped in our flip-flops for such weather!! But the plus side is we bought some FUN Thai hats. Because such cold weather is an anomaly, the cars in SE Asia don’t have heat! So off we drove in a raging rainstorm, running full air-con in the car to keep the humidity at bay, wearing every piece of clothing we had with us, and wondering what strange luck we have …
As we have experienced so often, the journey was ultimately worth it. We drove far into the northern hill regions near Thailand’s border with Burma, took a boat ride across a river, and spent a day wondering through a Kayan hill tribe village, where we visited with the “long-neck” women with brass rings coiled around their necks. We had tea at roadside cafes, meeting locals and watching the clouds wax and wane through the valleys. Once the weather cleared we spent a day with elephants, riding, bathing, feeding and engaging in a wonderful way with these amazing creatures.
Some time in Bangkok – CRAZY busy city!!! – rounded out our Thai experience, and then Jen went to Phuket and had knee surgery (not your typical tourist adventure…). In an attempt to delay the need for total knee replacement, Jen had her 8th knee surgery in Thailand, staying in the hospital for 3 days, while Harl and Sophia negotiated the 45 minute each way drive from the marina to the hospital to visit each day. This was Sophia’s first time being “chief navigator” – holding the tablet with our Google Maps navigating, she would call out upcoming turns so Harl could focus on driving in the crazy streets!!
Anyway, after almost 8 weeks of recovery for Jen, we sailed back down to Malaysia. Harley worked with the help of the local Malay workers and some generous cruisers to get Kailani put to “bed” in her slip: sails off, systems shut down, down below cleaned and stowed for the various pending repairs, and various mold prevention / insect & rodent protection devices launched, dock lines secured … And off we flew to the US!
We landed at SFO, where Harley hopped a flight down to San Diego to get our car …. Jen and Sophia took a bus north to Marin. We realized how much the the last 18 months had taken a toll on us – it was the first time in countless months that we saw a brilliant blue sky! We had been in third world or emerging economy countries so long that Sophia got very quiet as she looked out the window of the bus for a long long while as we made our way north along 19th Avenue in San Francisco. Then she quietly reflected out loud: “everything here is so beautiful … everyone here is so wealthy…” Our time abroad definitely has made an indelible impression us all.
Well, we did not know that our plan for 6 months in the US would turn into 13 months. It was all very fun, and very very busy, and yes, probably also very very stressful. A friend of ours commented: “Only you guys would think building a house would be a restful break from sailing” … and it was stressful!! But it got done, we moved in just before Thanksgiving, the snow began the next day and literally it snowed up until the week we left to return to the boat in May 2017.
Besides building a house, we busied ourselves to take full advantage of land life. We drove over 5,000 miles on road trips to spend time with family throughout the western US as well as for Harley and Sophia to participate in hockey tournaments. We visited cool museums and stood next to a troll, took a sleigh ride in the snow, watched rodeos and participated in local parades. Sophia went to the local elementary school for “dual enrollment”, volunteered at the library once a week, fell in love with every kind of ranch animal imaginable, started wearing glasses, and even started orthodontia! So mainstream indeed!!
And then the New Year came, which we rang in by having a fabulously robust and fancy “dinner out” in Boise (we were in town for Sophia’s ice hockey tournament) then returning to our camper in an RV park … hmmm. Minus 12F outside, but we could see three sets of fireworks go off around us through the windows. We could not have imagined how different our life would be from when we celebrated the start of 2016 watching fireworks from atop Kailani’s deck anchored off a beach in Thailand!
With 2017 started, we made plans for returning to Kailani. Turns out Jen’s surgery in Thailand did not do the trick, so she had a total knee replacement in March. Harley took advantage of turning 65 and had hernia surgery courtesy of the US government (nothing makes him happier!!) … we recovered, organized, and started the packing and stowing required to move back aboard Kailani.
And off we went – after 18 hours of driving and 18 hours of flying, we made it from McCall, Idaho all the way to Pangkor Marina, Malaysia, where our faithful steed, Kailani, gently swayed in her slip greeting our return. And so the sailing adventures of 2017 begin!!
04 11 N 100 36 E
Pangkor Marina
Lumut, Parak, Malaysia
