Peaches and Cream...

This isn't all peaches and cream. The culture shock coming from sunny California to Malaysia is enough to straighten one right up. Today is Friday, the Moslem Sabbath. The shops only opened part of the day, but that is OK because it rained most of the day anyway. Not just rained, how about 3 inches /hr. and with a temperature of almost 90 degrees, it is summer! We are 6 degrees north of the equator, where there isn't a lot of difference between summer and winter except for the rain, not much in winter and more pleasant. We ate at a local restaurant last night. I had some noodle soup with salty fish and very hot with chilies, Ruth had the usual chicken over rice all served on a banana leaf. Total cost for both $3.50. I asked for a beer and the waiter was nice, but told me it was forbidden. We did a take-out this evening, KFC, Kitchen Fresh Chicken. We had the Spicy and boy was it hot, but then we washed the whole bucket down with lots of beer. This is a duty free port with great cigarettes, cigars, chocolate, perfume, and booze of all types. I bought a 24 case of beer for less than $10. One could easily drink too much here, while smelling good. We are in the Royal Langkawi Yacht Club marina. It is a bit rolly with the nearby ferries moving about a lot, bringing folks to/from the duty free shopping. Most of the smart people on the boats here have left, flown off to home or somewhere were the weather is nicer, so we don't have a lot of folks to talk to. That is OK anyway, since we spend most of our time trying to figure out this complicated boat. So for we have two toilets that don't work, we only have two. The windows leak, only when it rains. The GPS doesn't work, nor does the radar. I'll be damned if I can figure out the hot water heaters, we have one in each hull, but take cold showers. The boat is 110Volts AC, but works almost entirely on 12 Volts DC, and we are plugged into 220 Volts 50 Cycle, so we have smart chargers, inverters, transformers, and solar plates. The auto pilot works, but the GPS unit won't power up. The navigation system seems to work. The VHF radio works, the CD player doesn't, and the SSB/ Sailmail will maybe? work after I download new software compatible with the computer Microsoft XP. Other than that life is moving along OK. Ruth is still with me!! Yahoo!