We found the right grocery store in Puteri Harbor, topped off the diesel yet again, and set off to make our way north up the Strait of Malacca. Light headwinds and timing the currents meant all we’d be doing is motoring north. This is definitely not a sailors paradise.
Don’t let the sail fool you, it was only up for a few miles of motorsailing while we made our way out of Puteri and into the Strait. Once we turned north we’d be packing the sails away for good.
Little islands like this dot the strait, and because the water is so shallow everywhere it’s easy to motor north during the day and drop the anchor for the night.
Searching for monkeys and crocs. We didn’t find any, but did have a lizard fall out of a tree with a big plop into the water below.
I wonder how many times we could climb to the moon and back on lost fishing net line.
Setting off north again in the morning.
We anchored the next night a couple of miles offshore but still had to carefully pick our spot in between fishing buoys.
Boat short cut.
After a couple of days we made our way to Melaka. The city is a Unesco World Heritage Site and is chock-full of historical significance. We anchored right out front behind yet another huge land reclamation project that has the feel of being completely pointless. The depth on the charts is marked at 15 feet, but with all the silt piled up from the project there is hardly 7 feet of water left.
There’s a tiny marina behind a breakwater that is full of tour boats where we could leave the dinghy. The marina is in a guarded government building area. The guard was friendly and seemed happy to have us there. He asked where we were going and warned us about a pack of dogs that had attacked someone under the bridge, then waved us goodbye. Great.
Fortunately, no attacks this night, though we did spot one big dog hanging out under the bridge that had everyone on edge for a minute.
On the hunt for some dinner.
I like the use of beach detritus in this sign. Those little circles are fishing net floats and can be found by the gazillions on nearly every beach.
It’s easy to forget Christmas is right around the corner. Every once in a while there is a reminder somewhere.
The ubiquitous durian fruit.
We’d learn later that there was a hunt on for a large crocodile plying the canals in the area. They caught him just a couple days after we left. A monster at 14 feet long and nearly 900 pounds. We’re lucky we didn’t help him get to 1,000.
Back to the dinghy, and home, as the sun sets on a nice night in Melacca.
