The anticipation of going home was dizzying. Much as we enjoyed cruising Thailand and Malaysia, as soon as we knew we were going to be back in Singapore, it was not soon enough.
We had wanted to be back in Singapore by May 5, which was Pauline’s birthday and we had only about a week when we left Langkawi for points south. It was for this reason we only spent 4 days in Penang and 2 days in Lumut.
The day before we left Lumut, which was a Saturday, it was raining all day. We were worried that it was a precursor of the weather we will have on our way down. However, Sunday dawned bright and clear. We were on our way!!
The journey took 52 hours non-stop of motor-sailing because the wind was coming from the direction we were heading. We only managed about 3 hours of sailing, which was a little frustrating but hey, we were heading home.
All through our trip down, we had clear skies, gentle breezes, pretty calm seas, and lots of stars at night (we even saw the Milky Way). There were ships around us but none gave us any problem. We had fishing boats around us during the day but they seemed to leave us alone at night. The closest encounter with other ships was when we passed 2 tugs with their tows as we were passing Pulau Pisang. All in all, you could say it was quite a boring trip. We were just really thankful that it was uneventful.
When we were in Malaysia, we bought a mobile broadband access thingy. As we passed Malacca, we sent an email message to our friend Toby, who was trying to organize a birthday party for Pauline, to tell him our location and when we expected to be back.
On Tuesday morning, we rounded the southern tip of Malaysia and were real excited to get back to Raffles Marina. We were really tired from the trip and Pauline was at the wheel, dodging some fishing nets. She looked up and saw what looked at a fishing boat coming towards us. When she looked hard enough, she thought it looked like a motorbike on water. This thing shot through the water and went past us. Then it stopped and the guy started waving at us. The statement was, is he a pirate or a crazy guy. As we approached each other, Pauline said that this guy looked like Toby, then it was, no, it is Toby, what the hell are you doing out here. Toby had guessed when we were getting close to Singapore and he took the morning off work and ridden his jet ski to welcome us back. It was a really nice gesture and we were so chaffed about it. Three hours later, we drove into Raffles Marina and here we will stay for about a month while we get ready for our next journey.
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