Bangkok to Singapore - Grounded: A Down to Earth Journey Around the World - page 81

here in Langkawi but spends much of his time at a house in Jakarta. When he left Langkawi a few days
after Forbes and Mike met him, the oil guy invited them to live on his empty sailboat. They accepted, and
ripped up their plane tickets back to Canada.
Now they spend their days lounging on the deck of a yacht—fixtures in this weird little community of
marina dwellers. They occasionally pump out the Lady Kathleen 's bilge or make light repairs to her rig-
ging. Sometimes they crew in sailboat races at regional regattas. But mostly they play guitar, do push-ups,
and get tan.
Forbes was an experienced sailor before he came aboard this boat. His father designed and built a
schooner, back in Vancouver, and Forbes himself has refurbished a yacht. While he can't offer to pilot me
south on the Lady Kathleen —he doesn't want to push his luck by asking the owner for permission—he
thinks he might be able to help me by making some introductions. “Come on,” he says, “let's take a walk
around the docks and see what happens.”
Barefoot, still shirtless, a tumbler of iced tea in his hand, Forbes leads me up and down the finger piers.
He offers a running commentary along the way, pointing to various boats and exclaiming, “That one is
sooooo seaworthy” or “Look how they've got that autopilot rigged.” He's hoping to find me a spot on a
beautiful trimaran that's been docked here a couple days, but the Canadian guy who owns it says he doesn't
feel like going anywhere.
Further efforts are similarly fruitless. Everyone's very cordial—they always invite us aboard their boats
and offer us cold beers—but no one's in the mood to, you know, sail. They seem more in the mood to drink.
One guy emerges from his yacht's cabin exhibiting visible alcoholic shakes. It's a troubling scene. At this
point, Forbes suggests I come back tomorrow to see if I have better luck.
I return the next afternoon, this time bringing along Rebecca on the back of the moto. We shoot the
breeze for a while with the boys on the Lady Kathleen , and then Forbes and I take another stroll around the
marina. Again it turns up nothing. Out of curiosity, I start asking folks if I can pay them a fee to sail me
south. Nobody's interested. Chances are, if you're lounging on your yacht in paradise, money's not a major
need.
More than that, though, people just don't want to leave. They're having waaaay too much fun. Langkawi
has duty-free beer and, as best I can tell, half the boaters here are soused day and night. As Forbes and I
head back to the Lady Kathleen , we dodge a man riding a fold-up bicycle down the docks. He's just re-
turned from the liquor store, and he's carrying a case of beer under one arm and a bottle of booze in his free
hand. As he passes a row of boats, people look up from their paperbacks and wave hello. “They come here
not intending to stay,” says Forbes, “and then they look up and it's three months later.”
We hang out on the Lady Kathleen awhile longer, and some other young folks join us—a Brit, an Aussie
woman, and a Langkawian who does boat repairs around the marina. We're having such a lovely time that
we invite them all back to our hotel for sunset cocktails.
Rebecca and I take the moto—getting caught in a brief tropical downpour, raindrops stinging my
eyes—and the rest of them show up in a cab a little later. We call room service and order up a bucket of
beers, a bottle of rum, and some plates of food. Everyone's getting tipsy. We spot a hornbill in one of the
trees near the porch, and Lee, the Langkawian, tells us he sometimes hunts them with a slingshot. When
he gets one, he eats it. “But they mate for life,” he says, “so if you kill one, you have to kill the other. You
don't want it to be lonely.”
“How many piercings do you have?” somebody asks the Aussie woman. She touches one ear and counts,
“One . . . two.” She turns her head to touch the other ear. “Three.” She pauses thoughtfully for a moment,
looking downward. “Seven,” she says with finality.