Palau Bidan

Anchored at Pulau Bidan
Kedah
Malaysia
5'44.4N/100'17.3E

Yesterday we got our cell phone fixed. It has just never worked right after I left it out in the cockpit in a major deluge of rain while sailing to Borneo. We found a cell phone shop in a huge 8-story mall in downtown Georgetown with a bunch of nerdy guys with soldering irons fixing all kinds of electronics. They gave the phone a bath in alcohol to get all the water out. So far it seems to be working much better!

We also found the mother of all grocery stores... Tesco. Amy was in heaven loading up our overflowing shopping cart with items we have not seen since Australia. Penang gets 4 thumbs up from Team Sandpiper as there is so much to do and see, and as usual we just did not have enough time to see everything that we wanted to see.

Sandpiper left the Penang Yacht Club at 9am this morning for a 20 mile hop up the coast to where we are currently anchored. We are anchored off a small island named Pulau Bidan which offers limited protection from the swells since it is a very small island. This island is not in any guide books. We picked it out just by looking at our charts because we could not have made the trip over to Langkawi without doing part of the trip after dark. We are only making day trips for a while. So no more night time fishing net encounters!

We are staying here until tomorrow morning for a 40 mile run over to Langkawi. Once there we are planning to spend a week exploring its many anchorages and harbors.

More in 24,
Tom & Amy