First Visitors

We had a delightful weekend visit with long time friends, I was going to say "old friends", but decided against using the term. We have known John and Maureen Morgon since our time in Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia. John was the Commodore of the Ras Tanura Yacht Club where I first sailed a boat. The club had other Commodores, but to my way of thinking John was always "The Commodore". He has spent his life around boats, and drifted with us for a time along the Italian coast in 1998 in our first catamaran. It was especially nice that Maureen came too, knowing that she doesn't care for sailing. Back to our weekend in Langkawi - with John and Maureen's assistance we managed to get ToucanTango out and sailing about for the day. Even managed to get the spinnaker flying. The small symmetrical spinnaker, not the big kite. The first thing that hits you when you try sailing this house is that everything is BIG. I wrassled the spinnaker bag out of the locker and for awhile I wasn't sure who won. I pulled and it pulled back, I tugged and it tugged back, finally the spinnaker and I laid on the deck and caught our breath. Had a great day sailing along very slowly in the hot sun, followed by a few beers that evening back in port, and a great meal by my favorite cook: Ruth. Tough life! but somebody has to do it!

Next day we rented a car. Rental cars here are delivered to the Yacht Club with empty petrol tanks. The first petrol station is 2 miles away and we just made it on fumes. We turned the car back today, and it will be interesting to see if the owner can make it to the same petrol station. He will know he is dealing with a tightwad. Anyway back to our story, We drove all around the Island, always staying on the left side of the road; visited some nice beaches, had a great lunch at Telaga Marina, then rode the cable car to the top of the mountain where you can see most of our island and several others. There seems to be an Island every 5 miles as far as the eye can see. We got back to the boat in time to sample some of Marvin's latest really thrifty Gin. 3 Liters of gin for 38 Ringgits (about $12). I really only bought it because it came in a box, not a breakable bottle. It wasn't bad, with lots of ice, tonic, and lime. Got John and Maureen off to the airport for their flight back to Singapore, where they temporarily reside, when not at home in Cyprus or England.