Langkawi Paddling Day 6 - Eventful evening

As usual, we have a slow breakfast and check out around noon. Packing really gets easier by the day, and we launch off very easily, with the kayaks packed just above the beach. I think it must have attracted much stares throughout the night.

We are aiming to reach Datai in around 4 hours at a leisurely pace, but it turns out to be a little tough with the strong winds again. The heat spell is still on us too, and at some parts paddling can get real slow. We are going past one of the 'geopark' on the island, and it's all layers and layers of rocks on the cliffs.

Here's an interesting area where the rock gets folded like a large slab of plasticine after pressure from the side produces arches and whorls in the structure.

A pee break at this nice sheltered stream outlet to the sea. It's filled with smooth round pebbles and rocks all over, and I find it endlessly fascinating marvelling at their smooth shapes and natural colours.

I can't tell you why, but I really would love to cart a whole bag of these back home to display at my new place. I have a strong attraction to rocks apparently.

The wind was pretty bad when we turned round the corner of the island - Karen was going at 2km/h again, and if you were to stare at the cliff when you paddle you wouldn't be seeing yourself moving away from a fixed spot for 5 minutes. But I had loads of energy and towed her in, taking the chance to do sprinting strokes. Towing her, we were going at 5km/h and I didn't stop till we reached the beach a kilometer away. It was hard but quite exhilarating really, to fight the wind and waves.

We rested at a beach just after the turn and before Pantai Datai. Cute hermit crabs were everywhere around here too - how many can you spot here? Apparently, some of them are terrestrial, and maybe that's why they are always a handful scuttling across the beaches here.

The Nautiraid is point at Datai island here, which is a very short distance away from the end of Datai bay. The beach and the scenery here is nothing impressive, but apparently Datai resort is the most expensive one on the island because of its golf course.

I wanted to camp on Datai island and not feel like an alien staying between the 2 resorts on Datai beach with tourists walking around. The water was very shallow and rocks were all around in the water as we landed. It was here that we got our first sandfly bites for the trip, and we doused our feet with medicated oil (a very good idea, but we should have done it earlier).

In the evening, fishermen were out wading out from mainland and coming over to the island to fish. We had early dinner again and were in our tents before 9pm.

Due to the early nights, I have the tendency to wake up in the middle of the night. I woke up at half past two in the morning, hearing the loud lapping noises of the waves on the shore. It seems that the water level has climbed quite fast, and might possibly flooded the entire beach area! It was close to spring tide with the moon just waning from its fullness, and the big pile of shell debris behind our tent indicated the possible height of the water level at its peak.

In haste, we hurriedly pack up for our first night paddle. With all extraneous things already in the dry bags after dinner, we managed to break camp and get on the water in only 20 minutes! Headlights on us, we paddled easy for only ten minutes before reaching the Datai beach. There was a light somewhere in the middle of the stretch and we decided to land there, as it has a relatively flat area beside it for camping.

It turns out to be a walkway to the beach from Datai resort restaurant. 3 men came out eventually to the beach making their rounds while we were getting comfortable making milo for ourselves, but they wasn't very interested in us at all, which was nice because I had wondered if the resort would drive campers off their areas.

With another 3 hours to go before sunrise, I decided that it was still worthwhile to pitch the tent and get good sleep, and so we did.