Christmas in Denmark

Phew, Phil's very first 'cold' Christmas and my first in eight years. It hasn't been too bad, as we mostly have spent time indoor, but it's certainly a whole lot different from NZ summer Christmas! It's all about family time and food. I haven't even had any time to sort photos or blog until now.

Sophia is back in Langkawi in Malaysia in a really nice marina with swimming pool and everything, which makes me almost jealous she 'gets to be there' but without us! It's a really safe place and that's what matters though.

In one week we're back again and then my friend Louise from Denmark comes for a visit, so we're really looking forward to that.

Phil thinks the white spots looks a bit like sheep in NZ. It's swans!

Cool colonial style in Penang

Phew, we have finally arrived at Langkawi today, 11 days after we left Johor Bahru. We have had three rest days, one in Port Dickson and two in Penang, all the other days have pretty much been sailing (mostly motoring!) from dusk till dawn. It has been fairly uneventful and kind of boring sailing (again, motoring) along a mostly flat coast with lots of fishing boats, fish traps and various other obstacles to avoid.  Most of our stops weren't interesting, but merely just rests for the night. I'm sure if you put a bit more effort into it, there would be some more interesting things to do and see.

Georgetown on Penang was a super cool stop. The anchorage is blissfully very central to town and only slightly dodgy. Penang was one of the British Strait settlements along with Melaka (unfortunately it has no anchorage so we didn't stop there) and Singapore. Singapore eventually took over, but that meant Georgetown preserved many of its colonial style buildings. In 2008 it was declared a Unesco World Heritage Site for its unique architecture, it is, however, mostly known as THE foodie town in SE Asia. We are a bit boring food wise and usually always end up going for Indian and Georgetown was no exception to that, so we can't really say a lot about that. We did really like the city though and would definitely like to come back and spend more time later on. It definitely rivals Kuching as our favourite Malay city. A bunch of photos below, they are all pretty self explanatory. There are more on facebook.

Cruising expenses for November for Malaysia and Singapore

Our total expenses in November were NZ$ 1378. We spend half the month in Tioman island where we also left Sophia while we travelled to Singapore. Tioman marina is a tiny bit cheaper than Danga Bay to leave our sized boat at, so although travel expenses were higher, it was worth it to us, mostly because of timing.

This time I have kept our Singapore visit in amongst the other expenses and not as a separate sightseeing event. While we were in Singapore Phil flew to Hong Kong for a couple of days, but I have left out that expense, as it was pure business and I think even paid for itself as he carried sails back to Singapore.

All up we spent 22 days in marinas, which without a doubt is a record number. Our only big expense this month (besides transport) was miscellaneous, it's always surprising how all those little things add up, and well, shopping in Singapore is easy and fun (there's a Spotlight!!).