Champagne living, beer budget

It occurs to me that we haven’t described our current “residence.” Since right before Christmas we’ve been living at a marina, a very uncommon situation for the ever-wandering, usually-anchoring Escape Velocity and her crew. But this is Malaysia, a budget friendly country and a beautiful place to hang out for a while to regain financial solvency after 20 months of what we can only characterize as a spending spree in Australia, and to recover from sailing nearly 6000 miles in 9 months, from Sydney almost to the Thailand border. I think last year was the most distance covered in one season since 2015 when we crossed the Pacific from El Salvador to New Zealand. It was exhausting.

Many of the boats we met while traveling north along Australia’s east coast and through Indonesia and Malaysia have scattered to the winds, some sailing onward to Thailand, India, Djibouti or South Africa.

A goodbye dinner for two of our own who are off to caravan through Europe.

A temporary goodbye to the crew of Impetuous Too who will spend seven or eight months in England. We’ll see them again when they return before Christmas.

For some, this is the end of the line and their boats are for sale as they embrace new adventures. Some have parked their boats for longterm maintenance and upgrade projects, or extended trips home to Europe, Australia, or New Zealand. Others are poking around the general vicinity exploring the lifetime of beautiful anchorages along the Malacca Strait, and a few, like us, have ordered the combination platter.

We definitely need to tackle a few maintenance projects and do some upgrades and gear replacement, but we aren’t under any pressure to do it all at once — easier on our fixed income, gentler on our psyches — and we also want to do more land traveling like our wonderful trip to Cambodia. All of that lead to the decision to tie up at a marina for a while. It takes weather worries off our minds, allows us to step on and off the boat to a dock rather than have to dingy ashore every time we want to take a walk or visit a cafe. And it allows us to do some of the things we enjoy that are difficult if we’re constantly moving from anchorage to anchorage. I’ve been cooking a lot more, enjoying craft projects that I can’t do when everything needs to be stowed for travel every few days, catching up on reading and blogging, and just generally having a recognizably domestic life. It’s been fun!

We chose to come to Rebak Island Marina, part of the Vivanta Rebak Island Resort. This is a high end Taj hotel property in a gorgeous, if somewhat isolated, setting. Rebak is a tiny private island off the southwest corner of Langkawi, a larger island off the west coast of peninsular Malaysia. If that sounds confusing, find us here: https://goo.gl/maps/fxKRrJ3xkVq or here: http://www.farkwar.com/boats/escape-velocity

The resort is beautiful, nestled among mature trees and lovely gardens. There’s a pool with a swim-up bar and a private beach, nature trails with plenty of wildlife and a daily wake up serenade by the considerable bird population. Yachties have our own Hard Dock Café and generous discounts at the hotel restaurants and bars. We have the run of the joint, plus our own services like a small chandlery, yacht and insurance brokers, and some limited technical and mechanical repair services. There’s a tiny gym and a couple of women lead yoga classes three times a week. The hard stand, where boats haul out of the water for bottom work or longterm storage, is one of the cleanest we’ve ever been in.

That sounds pretty posh, you’re thinking, the escapees must have hit the lottery. Nope. As shiny-pants as this is, we are living here for pennies compared to what any longterm marina stay would cost us elsewhere. Most of that is a result of the favorable economy, but we’re aided by a healthy discount the marina offers to boats that participate in the rally that brought us here in the first place. It’s a golden opportunity for Escape Velocity to experience the life of a marina queen (don’t let her hear you say that) and for us to work on projects or travel off the boat without the pressure of a mounting marina bill.

We love the pool, we love the beach bar, we love the multinational breakfast and dinner buffets, we love being in the trees. We don’t love not being able to walk to a cafe for coffee and a pastry, or to a market for fresh produce. There are no businesses on the island beyond the resort, and though there’s a tiny convenience store it mostly stocks snack foods for the resort visitors. That means a grocery or parts run is generally a day-long trek involving a short ferry ride to the big island of Langkawi, then either a rental car ($12.50 a day from Mr. Din, no questions asked) or a Grab car (like Uber) that’ll drive you to the shopping district clear across the island for $6. We like to take our folding cart so we’re not schlepping too many parcels, and a Grab car back to the ferry drops us right at the jetty.

It really couldn’t be easier but we do sometimes feel a little isolated and dependent on the ferry schedule. Then we go to the pool to cool off and read for a while and we forget all about the isolation thing and just feel lucky that we can enjoy this lush life on our budget.

Friends and family, feel free to book yourselves into the resort. We’ll meet you at the beach for sundowners.

1 Comment

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One Response to Champagne living, beer budget

  1. Jim Kennedy

    Even though I can’t be there, it makes me happy that I know people who can! Love your updates and adventures. Be safe.
    Jim K

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