The concierge of the Bon Ton resort gave as a call a few days ago and asked if we would be willing and capable to take a family with 5 little children. Of course this is no problem at all for us and we always see a chance to make future captains out of the little ones and to open their eyes for the beauty of being on the water with a yacht.
The oldest of these kids was eleven and the youngest one was about 1 1/2 years old.
Robin and Helen, the adults, are sister and brother coming together after many years for a first holiday. Robin lives in England and his sister in Australia. So they met” half-way”on Langkawi.
Robin is a passionate sailor who has also participated in some great races in his life. We offered the family to sail to the Lake of the Pregnant Maiden. That is the largest fresh water lake of Langkawi and the scenery is stunning.We have been there many times and still love to go there!
We left the marina of the Royal Langkawi Yacht Club at 10:30 and sailed for two hours to the island Dayang Bunting. There we dropped anchor, took the dinghi and went ashore.
It takes just a 10 minutes walk up and down through the jungle to finally come to the lake. The water is cooler than the ocean and you can be sure that there is no jelly fish at all! All of us were sweaty, so we jumped into the water and enjoyed this refreshment.
After that I took the family for a walk around the lake. Just a few months ago a new path has been built that leads you half around the lake and ends up at a platform from where you can overlook the ocean and the lake at the same time.
“Walk quietly, then we might be lucky to see some animals”, I told the kids and it was funny to see how excited they got. And indeed just a few meters away we saw a few monkeys right above us in the trees. Of course I had told them not to carry food or cans in their hands so the monkeys were not interested in us at all.
A few very colorful butterflies joined us for a while and some majestic eagles were flying above us in the mountains.
Noah, the little boy, went together with me and had a lot of fun climbing through the jungle and up and down the stairs. From the platform at the end of the walk we could see our boat DADDELDU on the anchorage.
On our way back we saw two big monitor lizards!
When we came back to the yacht, Shan, our Indian chef, had prepared the meal. Helen and her kids are vegetarian, but Robert enjoyed a piece of fresh mackerel.
On our way back we were lucky to see some dolphins and the kids had a lot of fun.
Coming back to the marina they were tired but happy.
Do not hesitate to go with your kids on a cruise! Langkawi is the safest cruising area we have ever seen in our 20 years of intensive sailing all over the world. The 99 islands are so close to each other that it is almost like sailing on a lake.