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| Straits Quay Marina. Penang |
We moved out of Straits Quay Marina on Sunday the 13th and headed down to the Queensbay Anchorage.
The marina is very nice and everyone is very helpful but the internet is diabolical. Even the phones are patchy. This is a real disappointment as a modern cruising yacht needs internet. Even with an external hi gain antenna the drop out rate was too high to be sustainable.
Queensbay anchorage at the south of the island is a great stop. Its a huge mall. Getting ashore is relatively easy but better towards high tide. The gently sloping rock retaining wall has very large boulders wedged together which we used to lock the dingy to. The area has several small food retail stands scattered about so there are always people about. We felt safe leaving the dingy there.
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| Queensbay Mall |
Down side is that the planes from the airport go over head. The water is dirty and sometimes smelly if a heavy downpour comes rushing out the nearby storm drain.
Upside is easy to get ashore and only 100m from the boat. The barnacles on the rocks are very tiny and not a danger to your inflatable. There are buses to everywhere from here. Post, phones. shopping, provisioning and American Hardware store Ace. and dont forget Coffee Bean!
We spent the week anchored at Queensbay and on Friday it was David birthday so we had a big day relaxing and eating.
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| Work underway on the new bridge link to the southern end of Penang |
Saturday it was up and on the job at 6am in preparation for the trip to Pankor. This run is some 65 NM and usually a pain because the current is almost always against you but never more so than when you try to do it during spring tides.
Its spring tide now so it took 14 hours of slow slogging into the wind and current. The seas were not much of a problem because it was off shore on the nose! Today is Sunday again and we have just come into Pankor Marina for a couple of days to let the spring tides GO AWAY!
Its spring tide now so it took 14 hours of slow slogging into the wind and current. The seas were not much of a problem because it was off shore on the nose! Today is Sunday again and we have just come into Pankor Marina for a couple of days to let the spring tides GO AWAY!
