Escape Velocity

We’re off to the airport for another couple of flights. I don’t much like the idea of spending time in crowds and especially airports, not to mention crowded planes, or the new-normal of getting a deep poke in the brain with a cotton swab for the privilege, but we didn’t much like the alternative of not going anywhere either, so here we go.

To get anywhere from here you’ve got to go through Kuala Lumpur. The first flight we booked got canceled so we booked one much earlier than we need just in case the same happens again. We absolutely can NOT miss our international flight so KLIA will be our home for the better part of a day, and the lounge is closed. That’ll give us time to get copies of our Covid test results printed. We’ve been advised that our destination requires hard copies.

Our flight to Kuala Lumpur was on time and not crowded, and just before boarding we got our Covid test results.

They showed up as a small green banner in our national Covid tracking/tracing/vaccination app. Great idea, with everything in the same app, but we’re flying to a place that requires a hard copy in their hands on arrival. We were promised a detailed email and it wasn’t forthcoming. After several calls to the hospital with no success, we put our fate into the hands of a nice lady at the service counter of our airline. She called the hospital, got cut off a few times and eventually read the riot act to a poor unfortunate on the other end. We had our emails five minutes later.

Now we have six hours to kill in an airport with few seating areas land side, a Covid-reduced food court, and a closed lounge. CLOSED! We’ve commandeered the only bench we could find, between Lancôme and Swarovski, and maybe in a little while we’ll go back to the pathetic food court for a cuppa. I’ll definitely be ready for a nap by the time we board the first of two long flights.

By the way, we will miss the comprehensive, intelligent public health response to a global pandemic here in Malaysia. There is nearly universal mask compliance, including outdoors; there are very few places you can go without being vaccinated (they check at the door); there is mandatory contact tracing by scanning a QR code on a mobile app everywhere you go; and shops consider the vaccination of their staff critical to doing business. We feel very safe here. And we wish every other country did the same.

So where do you go to find the breathing space to make a plan to try to piece your life back together again? Cruisers always say that plans are written in the sand at low tide, and when you consider that the wind changing direction just a few degrees means you aren’t going where you thought you were going, you can see where this mystical fatalism comes from. Our answer is Penang.

We always stay in old Georgetown which is a world heritage site chock-a-block with crumbling colonial architecture, some being repurposed, some not.

Famous for street art. I don’t know why but this is a vibe I seem to really like.

This time we’re staying in an Airbnb which is a two story traditional family home, maybe middle class, with the craziest fixtures, hardwood floorboards one foot wide, omnipresent shutters, open air courtyard, dog bone windows and clay tile roof.

Some might think we moved here because we are right around the corner from the Mugshot which has the best bagels this side of New York City.

Only partly true because the pastries next door are sensational. We even found a new Banh Mi place that’s better than any we had in Vietnam.

Ah…the plan you ask. There is a destination and an activity. It involves Covid testing, visas, money changing and the kind of clothing we haven’t seen in years, so shopping in Penang’s massive malls is considered great sport for the huge towers filled with wealthy Hong Kong expats, but Yours Truly is not amused by the activity. All I know is every day I reach for something I need but now it’s missing. It’s going to take some time.

So check the box for the first step, done and dusted, and take a deep breath.

PS just heard that Escape Velocity is now called ESCAPE VELOCITY.

The offer on Escape Velocity came as a surprise since Malaysia’s international border is still closed and even interstate travel was restricted at the time. The buyer was eager to take possession and asked how soon we could vacate the premises, throwing us into a whirlwind of sorting, packing, selling and giving away all of our worldly goods. This is completely different from moving house, where you can toss it all in boxes, load up a truck and sort it out later. We chose the keepsakes we want to hang on to and arranged a shipment, but most of the contents of the boat can easily be replaced and will be cheaper to buy new than to ship.

Our friends and dock mates benefitted from the giveaway frenzy, just as we’ve benefitted when others near us sold their boats. The liveaboard community are masters of sharing and it makes me happy knowing that my beloved Cuisinart pots, the knives I bought in Berlin in the 80s, my well-used pressure cooker, and all the rest of our life’s accumulations will continue to be useful on other boats at Rebak Island Marina and beyond. I even gave my Atlas pasta machine and a kilo of semolina to the owner-chef of our favorite Italian restaurant. Thirty years of ravioli, tortellini, agnolotti, and caramella came out of that machine. I know Lorenzo will keep it busy.

A boat is not the best place to pack up a life, so we asked the resort, which is temporarily closed to guests while they repair the fresh water system, if we could possibly have a room where we can spread out and organize. Not only did they give us a room, but they put us beachfront, with the sunrise view I’ve been walking to most mornings.

In the midst of the packing, we had the marine survey and sea trial, all the various complications of selling a boat from one country to an owner from another for registration in a third. I admit to mostly being in a daze and just followed the expert guidance of our broker until it all got done.

Then we handed over the keys to the new owner, said our goodbyes, gathered up the rest of our belongings, and boarded a plane for Penang where we’re eating bagels and ice cream to our hearts’ content while we plan our next move.

One turns to the other and says, ”hey what’s all that moss about?” “Well I’ve been hanging around here for quite a while now and it kinda feels like a change would do us good.”

Where to start? I’m searching for the words. After all, I’ve found Rebak Island to be an amazingly safe hurricane hole, both for storms and Covid, quiet, friendly, beautiful, with abundant birds, sea eagles hornbills, monkeys, lizards and so many fish that it can be annoying.

We’ve even been able to carry out many projects, collecting boat bits from all over the world’s chandleries.

But after returning from our South East Asia travels and getting locked down by the pandemic, we took notice that a curiously odd bit of lurgy was spreading out from roughly our neck of the woods. Some of our cruiser friends provisioned up and asked to be excused. I mean they rolled right on out of here while the rolling was good, even though the traditional harbors along the way were closed. Even Thailand’s border, almost within sight, was closed. Many of those brave souls got involved in international imbroglios spending many months quarantined on their boat. Most, in true cruiser fashion, found a way to have fun and adventure regardless. Unable to travel off the boat because once you left Malaysia you couldn’t return, and feeling less and less inclined to cross the Indian Ocean, we stayed put.

We aren’t used to “put.” We don’t do “put.” It chafes. We watched as the world turned upside down under lockdown. Stuck in our own little tropical paradise doesn’t sound so tough, but it wears. A velvet lined trap for the traveling soul.

Maybe it was time for a serious change. A big change. It’s tricky changing when everything you own in this world is stashed into forty feet of sailing yacht.

For me it felt like a stealthy plan that formed out of the ether, which then snuck up on me while Yours Truly was dozing poolside. Much too soon, before anyone was even allowed into Malaysia, improbably an offer was proffered for our loyal home. Big changes were afoot. It was madness from the get go. Eleven large boxes, overstuffed with, well stuff, numbered, weighed, categorized, schlepped, ferried to Langkawi to await a slow boat to New Jersey.

But what will we do with us? I mean what’s the plan Stan? Every day we have to field that question and I usually say, ”I’m not driving this bus my friend.”

The logical destination would be Thailand but they’ve been working Covid as a money making proposition with weeks of quarantine at their special hotel eating their special food, with special testing, special visa prices, etc. We will pass on that at least for now, although rumors persist that they’re going to lighten up.

I don’t know, where do you Escapees think we should go? The problem is that we’ve been here so long we’ve got to calling it home.

It’s 6 am and I’m standing on the port side deck in the damp, chilly air. The moon is full and still high above the horizon. Orion and Gemini are almost directly overhead in the clear dark sky. All around are the sounds of land, waking birds, cicadas, peepers, and off in the distance, the muezzin. I’m remembering the sounds of the sea.

It’s been a long time since the magical night watches of a long passage. Far from land in deep water there’s little chance of encountering another vessel and I loved the 360° horizon, our tiny boat an insignificant dot suspended in what seems like outer space except for the rhythm of the ocean swell and the distinctive creaks and moans of a sailboat underway.

I grab my flip flops and a camera and walk in the dark to the other side of the island to watch the sun turn the clouds to gold. Two herons wade along the shore, pecking for breakfast at low tide, and as the sky brightens more birds join the chorus.

The sun breaks the horizon and just like that, it’s morning and the sky is a brilliant blue, with billowing clouds marching up the Malacca Strait to the west. A troop of macaques makes their way through the treetops and down to the water. More and more monkeys arrive until there must be 30 or so, the young ones racing up and down the tree trunks while the godfathers guard the perimeter on the ground.

I leave the shelter of the trees and I can see both the rising sun and the full moon from one vantage point, a phenomenon that never fails to bring me joy. I love living this close to nature, where the weather informs what you do on any given day, where the soundtrack is provided by birds and insects and other creatures, by the wind in the trees and in the rigging. These early mornings are precious to me, a walking meditation.

We have sold Escape Velocity, our magic carpet, our life. Change is always hard and the next few weeks will be especially challenging as we transition away from this island that has sheltered us for nearly three years, from this vessel that has been our home for more than nine years. We will be off the water for the time being while we do some land travel to places we can’t sail to. We’re going to indulge in a buffer somewhere and take time to recover from the stress of the sale and the move before we fly back to the States to visit family for the holidays.

What comes next after that we haven’t a clue.

Back at the boat, I’m having coffee in the cockpit. A troop of monkeys is making a racket near the end of the hardstand, and I can hear at least five different birdsongs. Other than that, the marina is silent. Soon the boatyard will come alive with the sounds of sanding and grinding, and carts and bicycles rumbling along the docks. That’ll be time for me to get busy packing.

The particular topography of Rebak Island often deflects the storm cells we see heading across the Strait on radar. Looks like this one’s going to pass us by.

Ok, ok. Yes, it’s been a while, and we apologize to those loyal readers who’ve sent us increasingly worried messages asking if we’re ok. We are, sort of. Like nearly everyone else we’re trying, often unsuccessfully, to adjust to the pandemic spanner that got tossed into our best-laid plans. Actually, we didn’t really have plans but Covid-19 sure has limited our options. Let’s back up a bit.

When last we wrote Jack was appreciating some new hardware in his port side leg. He made steady progress and our plan was to sail north to Thailand around the end of February when he was fit enough to handle the boat.

While Jack was still rehabbing his knee we hired a local canvas company to replace our deteriorating cockpit enclosure and re-cover the cockpit cushions. We ran into a snag when the canvas people told us they couldn’t schedule our job before our Thai visas expired but they could easily finish before our current Malaysian visas ran out in early April. We were faced with a decision. The Thai visas weren’t cheap, but the canvas price was excellent and we really needed the new enclosure because it’s not only a comfort issue, keeping us sheltered from the elements, it’s also a safety concern for visibility underway in harsh weather.

In the end, we decided to sacrifice the Thai visas and wait in Malaysia for the canvas work to be done. It was a decision that sealed our fate, for good or for ill.

In mid-February, the canvas was ordered and the painstaking patterning work started. It’s a big job and we made some design modifications from the original so the canvas folks made several trips to our island over the next few weeks. During this time, just like everyone all over the world, we monitored the news as a contagious virus inched its way toward us. And suddenly, on March 18th, Malaysia went into full lockdown. All but essential businesses closed, and that included our canvas people. Our hearts ached for them, and all the other small businesses that were left with no income.

We assumed the lockdown would be temporary. As our April 13th visa expiration date approached we worried we’d have to leave the country with half our cockpit work done, bad for us, bad for the canvas business. Just in time, the Movement Control Order was extended and foreigners on tourist visas, including us, learned we could overstay our visas without penalty, but once the MCO was lifted, we’d have two weeks to clear out. At the same time, our embassy communicated to us that they recommended no unnecessary international travel. Flights were canceled left and right. Our choices were to either leave the boat and return to the US immediately or stay put. We stayed put.

As a reminder, we are in a marina on a tiny privately owned island. The only other business here is a small resort owned by Taj.

When the country went on lockdown, the resort closed and sent most of their employees home. Except for a skeleton crew, we yachties were the only residents on Rebak Island. At the time of lockdown, there were 110 marina residents and we were effectively quarantined together.

Back to the fate part. Had we declined the bid from the canvas people and left for Thailand when we intended, we’d have been locked down there instead of here. Would that have been better or worse? Who knows? Just different, I guess. We know people who are stuck in Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and the Maldives, and the movement restrictions and visa worries are largely the same. We feel lucky that our small island is virus-free and we’re safe both from infection and from weather. On the other hand for people accustomed to traveling, being tied to a dock for this long is taxing.

The community of long-distance sailors is far-flung but tight. We’ve been following the travails of our comrades all over the world, people like us who are on our boats but confined to a certain place and with bureaucratic worries, people who weren’t on their boats when the lockdown happened and can’t return to them, people who were underway when borders closed and weren’t allowed to clear in to their destinations. Some have been lucky enough to get to a safe place where they could wait out the worst of it and move on. Depending on your passport countries are either open or not. Unfortunately, as US citizens we are not welcome in the EU, and Malaysia just announced that citizens from the 23 nations with the greatest number of cases (we’re number 1!) are not allowed to enter the country. That means if we leave Escape Velocity and fly back to the States, we will not be allowed to return for the foreseeable future. The surrounding borders are all closed, probably until at least 2021. It’s quite the situation.

So, like everyone else, we’re in limbo, trying to adjust to this new reality and wavering about whether to leave our home and return to the States until the world gets to the other side of this. On the one hand, we’d be able to see friends and family and do a little safe road tripping in a big country. On the other hand, we’d hate to leave our home, we’re definitely safer here, and SE Asia is affordable on our social security income, which America definitely is not.

Meanwhile, here we sit.

We do have some stories to tell, and Jack and I are determined to do some blogging again. We’ve missed it, but I admit the realities of life during a global pandemic too often take our attention away from our own day to day life. We need to remedy that. Life is short.

So…lets see…where was I? Oh yes, with EV stashed safely floating in Malaysia in the lagoon Marina at Rebak Island, a tiny speck a mile off a somewhat larger island called Langkawi, as previously noted, we’ve been able to do a spot of soul-enriching deep traveling in Asia.

After our quickly improvised visit to the states to see a surprise new family member, it was obvious that it was time to pull the trigger on a new and improved knee. Stainless or titanium? My doc squints at Yours Truly and says, “At your age, you’re not going to need the titanium” and he can do it tomorrow! They don’t mess around here in Malaysia. I thought it was a nice touch when my nurse presented a plastic zip bag with my old knee to me, just like a car repair shop that shows you your old shocks so you can say, “Yep, they were bad.” And so it goes.

Maybe you don’t have to endure as much pain as I did while rehabbing a new knee but I can say, not much happens until the swelling goes down.

I’d devised ways to get around Escape Velocity with a bad knee so I found it surprisingly easy to negotiate the boat with a rather stiff new one. One day as I was mounting the three giant “Simon says” boarding ladder steps up to EV’s deck, I noticed that it’s getting a bit easier and I wonder if I can get the knee bent enough to pedal my folding bike. There’s only one way to find out. “Johnny Fairplay” has to admit that the first couple of strokes put a few tears in my eyes but riding my bike was like freedom to me.

We were both finishing so many projects on EV that I can’t remember them all and that’s the way it’s supposed to work. If we’d remember them all we wouldn’t do this to ourselves.

That’s when we heard of something called Covid-19. Seemed quite remote but China is in our neck of the woods and the Chinese seem to like visiting the resort on Rebak Island. It bears watching.

In no time the world turned upside down. The resort closed. Langkawi shutdown. Malaysia shutdown. Asia shut down leaving a handful of us yachties stranded at our marina with nowhere to go, and visas expiring. We wouldn’t even consider the descent into the chaos and madness of the twinkle toes magical thinking of anti-science USA.

We watched them drain the pool, close the resort, kick out all the guests, close our beach Tiki bar and the yachtie’s own Hard Dock Cafe. This is probably one of the safest quarantines on earth. Nothing but hornbills, sea eagles, monkeys, monitor lizards, and more snakes than any of us want to think about. Especially the three-meter python that squished a little ship’s cat one night, right beside a sleeping yachty. Yikes!

Our friend Mike was on his way to Japan when the border closed while he was airborne. Five or six canceled flights later he barely made it back to Rebak as borders slammed shut behind him. Many of our friends are trapped on islands in a long stream heading west across the Indian Ocean.

So here we sit, with EV gently tugging on her dock lines as the tide slowly flows in and out of the lagoon, taking a morning walk or maybe a ride on our only nature trail which loops around the island, past the empty pool, to the ghost town of our resort.

There are rumors, but there’s always scuttlebutt around a Marina.

“There is no more status quo,

But the sun comes up and the world still spins.”

We’ve been lax about blogging for so long that we’re starting to get messages of concern from readers wondering if we’re ok. We are, but it’s definitely past time to paint the picture of where we are now and what’s happening in our life.

For several years now both Jack and I have been suffering the predictable — but not welcome — physical deterioration that advancing age can bring. Jack’s left knee became so worn down and painful that many of our travel decisions and even shopping trips had to be planned around how far he can walk between resting spots. Gone were our spectacular but arduous hikes that made many of our destinations as thrilling as the beautiful anchorages.

For my part, you may remember I injured my back in 2015 in Huahine, French Polynesia. For the past four years I’ve gone through good periods and bad ones where my back would flare up and change my whole attitude toward life. Ocean passages have become torture for me, as are long bus rides, or even retrieving cookware from the bottom cupboard. I’m definitely too young to accept this as the new normal.

Between the two of us, we slowed down so much that eventually we stopped. We’ve been in the same place, parked in a marina, for over a year. This is not the life we imagined, or the one we enjoyed for more than 7 years. We’ve become less and less active, in effect surrendering to aging. Something had to change.

In the beginning of November we flew to Penang, a well-respected “medical tourism” destination and made appointments for both of us to see an orthopedist. For my part, I was assured that with proper physiotherapy my back can be pain free and I can regain my former strength and flexibility. For Jack, the answer was simple and unavoidable: total knee replacement. Remarkably, they could schedule it for two days later. That was a shocker, but we needed to think it through, do some research and financial calculations. Besides, we had flights booked for the end of the week and we’d need to repack for a longer trip.

I spent the next three days in physiotherapy with a wonderful woman who not only released the muscle spasms that cause much of my pain, but also taught me strengthening exercises and reassured me that the stretching she recommended would not reinjure my discs. I’m on the road to recovery, but it will take a long time to rebuild the strength I used to have in my back and to live pain free.

We flew home to Escape Velocity where we tried to compare the out-of-pocket cost of a knee replacement in Malaysia vs. the cost of flying back to the states where Medicare would cover most of the hospital costs but not the flights, car rental, Airbnb, etc. It’s apples to oranges and impossible to reckon. The final decision was based on our assumption that scheduling the surgery in America would probably take weeks, if not months, and here in Malaysia the only scheduling factor is which days of the week the surgeon operates.

In the end we called the hospital and scheduled the surgery for Thursday of the following week which just happened to be Jack’s 70th birthday. By paying a little extra for a private room in the hospital I was allowed to stay with Jack and sleep on a daybed, saving us a few bucks in hotel costs. We packed what we needed for a couple of weeks, flew back to Penang and checked into the hospital on the 20th of November.

Dr. Aaron Lim replaced Jack’s knee in little more than an hour. Later that day he came to check on his work, and the following day Jack started the long road of physical therapy.

After a week in the hospital we moved to a hotel and made daily trips to rehab. Jack made great progress and after another week he could walk without a cane. We moved to another hotel closer to restaurants and part of Jack’s daily exercise became walking to a café or to dinner in the evening. Penang is a food paradise, especially compared to Langkawi.

Finally, twenty-four days after flying to Penang, we returned to Escape Velocity. I was a little worried about whether Jack could get on and off the boat, and if he could continue rehabbing without the supervision and encouragement of the physiotherapist. On the first point, he had no problem. His knee was so bad for so long that he had already figured out workarounds for most movements. This turned out to be a mixed blessing and Jack sometimes needs reminders that he’s got a perfectly functioning knee now that doesn’t require favoring.

Back to my back. After making great progress while I saw the physiotherapist and diligently doing the exercises she suggested, at home my back returned to its new not-normal bad condition. It’s clear I need longer term help to get better. We both do.

So here we are, making progress but much more slowly than we hoped. We’re still in a marina, me unhappily so, Jack, the more zen of us, content for the moment. I still love boat life, but not being in one place for so long. Jack wants to keep on keeping on, whatever that means to him.

We are definitely at a time of re-evaluation. We have to consider what we can do physically, how many more years of active life we can expect, what our priorities are travel-wise, and what our options are from where we are now.

Most options are on the table. Negotiations continue….

It’s 3am and the gentle rain we were having has suddenly turned into a howling squall. Escape Velocity is tugging at her docklines and Jack climbs down to the dock in his underwear to lay his bicycle down while I retrieve a few loose items out of the cockpit before they blow away.

When we’re at anchor the boat generally swings to face into the wind, which means wind-borne rain is blocked by the forward cockpit enclosure and we’re safe and dry while we check on things. Tied to a dock the boat is held in one position and we’re at the mercy of whatever direction the weather comes from. Right now it’s blowing in from behind so even a quick foray outside leaves us dripping.

Jack climbs back aboard and I check that our rain collector hose is feeding into the water tank. We’re both barely back in bed when a white flash lights the cabin accompanied by a loud thunderclap.

“That was close!” we both say at once and I jump out of bed again and out into the cockpit to see — what? I don’t know. I just feel the need to do something. Back inside I adjust the position of the yellow plastic bowl that collects the drips coming in where I haven’t perfectly taped the plastic around the temporary room air conditioner over the main galley hatch. I make a mental note to look into that tomorrow.

Within minutes the wind dies down and the rain is back to its gentle pitterpat but I can still hear thunder rumbling in the distance. Whether it’s coming or going I can’t tell. Squalls often come in bands around here and may go on for hours. I could check the weather radar but it’s now almost 4am and it seems more important to close my eyes again and try to get some sleep. Jack’s already in dreamland, blissfully trusting our boat, the docklines and his own instincts. As the more analytical partner I go through my standard mental checklist of What Could Go Wrong and What To Do About It before I can begin to think about sleep. But I’m going to try. Here goes. Good night.