Port Dickson, I hope

I decided to leave at 10:30 this morning and try to get a web page built first, that I had promised to do this week. I had estimated the journey to port Dickson from Port Klang would be 6 hours, not the 10 it took. So I ended up arriving in the dark. The pilot suggested anchoring next to a small island in the bay, which is what I have done, except it’s too dark to see the island. I can’t wait till the morning to see where I am.

The route below shows I hugged the coast most of the way. There’s lots of ships around here, not many moving, but also lots of fishing nets.

Getting out of Klang was fun, I kept close to the mangroves on the way out, but at some point I had to cross the main channel as I was going south at the end. Lot’s of ships coming and going, but I sneaked behind a gigantic container ship and all was fine. I took some good pictures on the way out.

Once out of the river I was into an anchorage with about 25 big boats, tankers, lpg ships, bulk carriers and container ships. all sitting there looking a little sorry for themselves. It’s odd motoring past these huge ships when they are motionless and looking deserted. At the mouth of the river there were a load of dredgers/land planting ships

The coast here is very low lying, no hills or mountains in sight. I think we are roughly level with the Kualar Lumpur Main Airport.

No wind and a very flat sea, but that made the fishing nets easier to spot. The fishermen still come out to me to guide me around their nets. However there was so much debris in the water, I kept mistaking it for net markers.
I have mentioned before, the tides are crazy here, they rush in, and rush out, but the rushing out is mostly just more rushing in, so as the tides fell this morning I got 2.5 knots of current against me, slowing me down loads, but 6 hours later when it should have flipped and I would be racing along, the tide was still against me. It was only for half an hour that we were faster than our speed thru water. Consequently, we didn’t get here till dark. 

This is port Dickson in the distance, the tall white tower is the power station

And this is the pier and cranes for unloading the ships that bring the fuel for the station

It was just hitting sunset as I arrived at the edge of the bay, by the time I was inside it was quite dark, I had to look hard for the nets, the first one, a fishing boat guided me to the end of the floats, the second was to long and by the time I saw it I couldn’t be bothered backtracking to find the end. As I approached it, lots of concerned fishermen shone their torches at me from the end of the nets lines, maybe 500 mtrs away. I just slipped over the nets with no effect, which was nice.

Then I anchored near an invisible island, its on the GPS chart-plotter, but I can’t see it. It all seems very safe and calm here, tomorrow it’s just an hour or two to the marina, so I will have an easy morning, then head over. Time to go shopping, I’m out of eggs.

Paul Collister