The Malacca Strait and Langkawi
Aliens, pirate ships, freighters and falling stars
It took us approximately four nights and five days to travel up the Malacca strait from Puteri to Langkawi, hugging the Malaysian coast on one side and the shipping channel to the other. The strait is home to the busiest shipping lanes in the world. It is heavily trafficked by freighters and fishing boats, and is infamous for strong currents and unpredictable localized weather patterns. For this leg of the journey, we were joined by the one and only Kelly Foote, an American filmmaker and experienced sailor. To put it one way, we were nervous. To put it another, our pants were poo-ed. Before this trip, everything we had heard was that this would be the most difficult and dangerous passage we would undertake. A quick google search described the Malacca Strait as the third most dangerous sailing destination in the whole freakin’ world. As novices, we did not feel particularly confident as we pulled out of Puteri and headed out. We did it anyway though, which I’m sure by now you’re beginning to realize is a bit of a theme for our trip.
Our first night out at about 1am we hit a big squall. Kelly was on watch and we were cruising at five knots with the headsail up, when almost instantaneously the wind picked up and lightening began to strike all around the boat. We were beating straight into the wind, and waves were breaking over our bow and washing through the cockpit. The wind was blowing about 45 knots and our little boat rocked and crashed up and down throwing everything in the cabin off the shelves. One of the hatches wasn’t latched properly and a particularly big wave forced it open, absolutely swamping both our beds. The squall lasted for about two and a half hours before moving away and leaving us to mop up the mess. The Malacca Strait was living up to its reputation.
As we moved up the strait, we watched a steady stream of enormous shipping freighters march through the ocean a few kilometers to our west. These freighters move at an intimidating 14-21 knots, and they don’t stop for anyone. Our AIS was not working properly, so while we could see them on ours, they could not see us. It was vitally important to stay out of the shipping lanes, and to steer clear of the other marine traffic that clogged up the strait. This meant that watches were particularly tense, and the nights felt long.
In the dark, our entire horizon would turn an eery green, illuminated by the lights of hundreds of fishing boats. It was relatively easy to avoid the brightly lit shrimp boats, and navigate through the industrial-sized bottom trawlers. What was more difficult was avoiding the tiny, canoe-sized fishing boats who often weren’t lit at all. We would be gliding along at four knots in the dark night, watching the AIS and the horizon, when all of a sudden a fishermen would turn on a flashlight a few meters away. It was always shocking, and the night watches on this stretch exhausted all of us.
One morning, just before daybreak, I sat on watch half-asleep and looking up the stars. Suddenly, a great flash lit the entire sky. I started. In that moment, no other boats were nearby. We were alone in the wild ocean, fighting three knots of current, moving slowly. The flash grew, and then a big star fell down across the sky, fell into the ocean. I grabbed the log book and scrawled ‘definite alien sighting’ along with our longitude and latitude. I think I was beginning to lose my mind.
We made it into Langkawi on May 8, entering the harbor and pulling into a slip. We were all tired, but had a few repairs and refuels to take care of before we continued across the strait towards Aceh on the northwestern tip of Sumatra.
Langkawi is a hub for cruisers, and the marina there is well-equipped. We were able to refill our gas bottles for cooking, fill up diesel at a floating fuel barge (Torren nearly crashed Calypte into the fuel barge, but that’s another story), and provision well. In Langkawi, we practiced man overboard drills and went through a few safety protocols, including fire safety and what to do if our hull got damaged and the boat was taking on water. Kelly kept us entertained with lengthy musings on the surf industry, filming, Americanism, and other Kelly-ified topics. After a few days, on May 12, we cleared out of Malaysia and headed towards Sumatra.
It was my 29th birthday during that crossing, and I took the dawn watch. As the sun came up, the whole sky became gold. Towering cumulous clouds filled the sky and it looked like Calypte would chug along into heaven. I sat, feeling both old and young, in the cockpit. There was a bit of windswell, and the boat bobbed up and down in the deep blue water. Fish jumped all around us, and little seabirds floated by debris rafts. As I sat ponderously, a small fishing boat made a 360 degree turn from its course, and started heading straight towards us. I woke up Torren, and we peered through the binoculars with our hearts beating out of our chests. Pirates. Torren kept asking, “do you think they have guns?” We were both half laughing, but we were also scared. This part of the straight is notorious for pirate activity because of the drug trade running out of Banda Aceh. I was preparing for the end, and it was Friday the 13th.
We increased the revs on our engine, but there was no outrunning the pirates as they hooned towards us. Torren and I looked at each other, unsure of what to say or do. As they got closer, we could see one of the guys waving a fish in the air. Another was leaning over the edge of their boat, pantomiming smoking a cigarette.
“They want durries and booze,” Torren said and I rushed into the cabin to look for something to give them. As the men’s faces came into focus, my fears instantly subsided. The fishermen had wide, open smiles, and their boat was weatherbeaten and ancient. One guy was relaxing at the back of the boat with his feet up, and the others were waving enthusiastically at us. We chucked them a small bottle of whiskey and a packet of Rexo’s and they chucked us a couple of fish. We were all laughing as we said goodbye. It was a moment too pure to be real, a miracle.
I wrote in my journal:
“Out here on the ocean, we give and receive like free beings. We feel fear, relief, exhilaration, joy, calm all at once. We’re really in it.”
That afternoon, I stripped naked and took a bucket bath on the bowsprit. The warm sun felt good on my skin. I felt deep gratitude for my life, for the sea spray, for the blue. I could never have anticipated this 29th birthday, rolling on open ocean swells. I felt so thankful for the wildness, for my leathery skin, and the crows nests around my eyes. I felt thankful for Torren, for family, for the wind. I felt thankful for hot coffee and sleepless nights, for wispy cirrus clouds blanketing a vast sky, and for the time to take it all in.
We arrived in Aceh on May 15th, and it felt like a massive accomplishment. Indonesia. The promised land.