From Christophe Vandeplas:

We actually just hauled out of PD World Marina in Port Dickson. Our boat will be staying there for 6 months, here is our experience:

PD World Marina is located in the small encove just south of the Admiral Cove Marina in Port Dickson. Very well sheltered. They started the marina & hardstand during covid and consider themselves as a two star marina, while describing the Admiral Cove as 5 star marina. We prefer to call them “one big familly”.

When we arrived the team was there to catch our hawsers and pull the catamaran to the floating dock, just next to the Dickson Dragon sunset cruising boat. By the evening, our kids (7 and 9y old) were playing with their kids (5 – 7y), and we were sharing a drink sitting on the dock. When they heard our oldest had her birthday the next day the first offer was to organise a small birthday party. During the next 6 days we stayed there, while we prepped the boat for haul out, we witnessed true kindness from everyone in their team. Help was offered without asking anything in return. Our kids played together every day, despite not speaking the same language. From start on we felt we were part of their “big family”, sharing drinks, meals and stories together with the management and the staff.

Haul out is done by crane for now. (they plan to buy a lift in the future). The work is done by staff from Simpson Marine. Surprisingly our boat seemed to be much heavier than it should be, which triggered the safety mechanism of the crane while the boat was being lifted out of the water. Despite this setback the Simpson Marine team was very professional and solution oriented: The strategy was to wait an hour for a higher tide to bring the boat closer to shore, or worst-case rent a bigger crane in the next few days. No worries or stress. We clearly saw they have been doing this for years. The higher tide strategy paid and our catamaran was brought safely on the hardstand where it will remain for long-term storage. The current hardstand is small, with room for 15 boats, but the location has the capacity to expand to more than 100 boats. During the day the marina has multiple staff that are working on the hardstand. We’ve never seen it empty. Two of the workers are sleeping on the premises, so even at night there is always someone to keep an eye. A handful of dogs are also guarding the place.

We’ve clearly seen the effect on the monkeys that understood they are not welcome. No traces of rodents. A small town is at walking distance, where you can find restaurants, supermarkets, fuel, laundry and a few things to visit. As everywhere else in Malaysia, Grab is an excellent choice for longer distances. Nearby there is the Pusat Ikan Hiasan (sea life museum), a very well made Military Museum, a Chinese Temple and hides in the nature. While there are not many shipchandlers nearby for now, there are a few good hardware and DIY stores. Ordering parts online and delivering packages to the marina can be arranged. They also offered help for the tax-free ship-in-transit import of parts. Globally we are happy we chose PD World Marina to haul out and store our boat for multiple months. We expect this marina to grow over the years, although we believe they will be able to keep the simple, family-style, spirit sailors like.
All the best
Christophe from S/Y Ti’piko.