Family Transportation in KL

Not something you see every day. This guy and his family were on the highway. Looks like the daily grocery trip. Notice the bag hanging from the handle bar. Mom has a bag too. That little pink shoe belongs to the little girl sitting on mom's left leg. Not sure of a number of things here. Like, what is the kid up front looking at? Maybe he is having a conversation with his sister? Like why aren't the kids wearing helmets? Like what was this guy thinking?

The "Comedy of Errors" Regatta

On Saturday, 2-28-09, I had an invite to the Royal Selangor Yacht Club regatta. Not sure where the people in Southeast Asia learned how to sail, but two races were held at the mouth of the Klang river. While we were sailing down current toward the race course, I noticed that a batten was sticking through the main. We proceeded to drop the main to pull the batten and another sailboat (which was motoring) was headed straight for our beam. He narrowly missed us. I thought for sure we were toast. I had the helm for the first race. Had a perfect start at the committee boat side of the line. We hit the line full speed. Before I knew it, a First 37.5 was above us and tacked right into us. Instead of falling below us, he realized he was going to hit us on our starboard quarter. So he tacked again and missed us by two, maybe three inches. We were all pushing off or he would have hit us for sure. Later in the same race, we got tangled with a hunter 49. He was to windward and I was taking him up to keep out of dead air. He fell off anyway and got his boom fouled in our backstay. "Are you kidding me" was about all that I could mutter! Fortunately, it came free on its own or we could have dismasted and been in a very serious situation. We also broke running rigging twice during the race. We Jibed to get away from this guy and our headsail fouled around the spinnaker halyard. We had to drop the genny and untie the sheets to correct. We ran back to the finish and actually, for all of the problems we had, we finished fifth in our class (out of ten boats) on corrected time. The second race was much better. Martin had the helm and we had another good start. There was a cargo ship heading up river from the Strait of Malacca so our start was posponed. You need to know how to read the nautical flags to determine when your start is. We were the only ones that properly determined our start and nailed it. Other boats were 1-2 minutes late to the line. We had no problems in the second race believe it or not, and we finished second. All things considered, it was still a joy to be out on the water racing in Malaysia!

The Royal Selangor Yacht Club

Me at the helm during the first race

Cold beer is always good after a race! To my right is Christophe (pronounced Christoff) from France. Across from him is Martin. Martin was the captain and Christophe was inexperience crew.

I went out to dinner at an outdoor restaurant afterwards. Ai Lin (pronounced Eileen) was the one that invited me to join them. Her husband Trevor to her left and Mazlan is to my right. We had a great time and the food was really good.

Chicken feet were served along with crab, prawns, and oyster omlettes!

China Town in KL 2-21-09

On Saturday, I went to China Town in Kuala Lumpur. What a hoot! There were tons of people and street vendors everywhere.

One of the less crowded streets

Typical food offerings...here are some geese

Of course we had to stop for a cold beer! On the right is my collegue Jeff (from the US).

An official Rolex distributor!

While we were having our beer, it started to rain. They brought the umbrellas out just in time. Within five minutes, the heavens opened with a rain like I had never seen before, China Town was cleared and a river ran through it!

The New Hood

It was a b-e-a-utiful day today and we went for a walk through our new neighborhood. Here are some shots depicting some of the intangibles that come with living in Annapolis Roads...


One of the coolest tree houses I have ever seen. This guy is definitely living vicariously through his kids!



This is a fence built around their garden and is made totally from trees and vines (to keep the deer out). We are really looking forward to meeting this family!

An eagle's nest just off the beach. One of the neighbors said they are expecting babies!

This is a portion of the 1,400 feet of private beach that we have access to!

Eileen and Lissa at the private picnic area (complete with playground for our grand children) along the Chesapeake, just above the beach!

Superbowl Sunday

60 degrees in Annapolis on February 1st! To all of my (sailing) friends in the Midwest and Northeast, here is a picture to let you know that the sailing season starts early and ends late here! Don't kid yourself, I was jonsing to be out there! Each Sunday during the winter months, the Annapolis Yacht Club hosts the frostbite series...a very non-competitive regatta. You can click on the picture to enlarge!