Arrival at Rebak

Well I've made it to Rebak Resort and love it here. The alcohol is cheap, the people are unbelievably friendly and the food is fantastic. There are very few guests on the island aside from the yachties, so the place is extremely empty and peaceful. The mooring fees in the harbour account for most of the resorts income over the year aside from the Dec-Jan peak holiday season.

Apparently the story is that the Malaysian government insisted the RAJ hotel group, which owns the resort, had to build one on Rebak even if it didn’t return a profit or they would be refused licensing to build any other hotels in Malaysia.

The flight was great, and when I arrived at KL, I passed through customs and immigration without problems - causing only slight confusion about my German passport and Australian residency, but as I was playing it safe I'd booked a later connecting flight so was prepared to hang around the airport for 3 hrs. Unfortunately the connecting flight was delayed so it was 10pm local time before I landed in Langkawi.

Dad met me at the airport with a hire car (15 RM a day – about A$7) and we drove the short distance down a dirt road to the ferry pickup point. As we'd missed the last ferry to Rebak due to my late arrival, we jumped aboard a 20 foot aluminium dinghy with 2x 150hp Evinrudes, transferring the night shift staff to Rebak resort across a choppy stretch of open water between Langkawi and Rebak in choppy pitch black conditions. The skipper obviously knew the waters as he was absolutely flying and we were hitting some decent waves due the gusty wind.

Arrived at Blue Lagoon, had a quick shower after 18 hrs spent on planes and at airports before dad and I hit the resort bar for a few rum and cokes until the early hours of the morning. Was woken up after a few hours by a thunderstorm and getting rained on as the hatch above me was open. There seems to be a pattern to the weather here, a couple of storms each day, sunshine in between and close to maximum humidity.

After a morning visit to the pool and cooking up a feed of snags on the boat, dad took me for a tour around the resort and marina to meet some of his mates and check out the other boats moored here, anything from multimillion dollar luxury cruisers to home made kit boats, sailed here from all over of the world.

The rest of the day was spent around Blue Lagoon, polishing the stainless steel derricks, putting soft covers on all the fenders, installing a cooling fan under the port bunks where the batteries are located, rigging up some diving buoys and just tidying up on board.

In the evening we caught up with a Swiss bloke named Rolf for dinner, who has been sailing the past 6 years in his 39 foot monohull. Good company, several shouts at the bar and some great Malaysian food made for a very pleasant evening.

 

Kuala Lumpur

An early taste of the monsoon season.