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The combination of the brilliant but tiring trip to Singapore, the jet lag and the humid heat meant that I was good for nothing for at least two days. I gave in to lethargy and sat in the cabin under the fans, mostly sleeping, reading, writing and listening to the radio. Not a bad way to recover ;). On Saturday I roused myself enough to take a bag of washing to the laundry and to have a look at the marina’s library. It’s basically a book swap facility from what I could tell, the difference being that the books are organised and they’re in a room (which also has admiralty charts and a table and chairs) instead of randomly piled on shelves in the bar or clubhouse. There was a wonderful old book in there on the development of literature but I couldn’t bring myself to take it without a book to swap. Unfortunately I never got the chance to take one up there again, so missed out on that delight. I wonder if it will still be there when/if we return.

We went for dinner that evening to one of the food outlets overlooking the marina. We thought it was an Indian fast food type of place (always good for veggies).  Before we even got to the counter, a lady descended on us as if they might be just about to close or something. Anyway since she was there, waiting for us to order, we questioned her about the choices listed on the menu. Quite a lengthy interaction took place about whether certain dishes had meat or fish in them (I know I should make an effort to learn the words and phrases regarding this but believe me it isn’t as straightforward as it sounds). I wasn’t convinced by her assurances, but when the chef came out and reaffirmed that he would prepare a noodle dish with no meat or fish, I gave him the go ahead. When it arrived, there was a huge pink, glistening prawn on top of it, so back it went.  After apologies and a bit of a wait, the second attempt arrived and as soon as I tasted it I knew it contained fish. I couldn’t eat it but didn’t want to send it back again. The reason I said it’s not easy to get across vegetarianism and veganism in Asia is because of their interpretation of it. Cooks and chefs in many places don’t count seafood or chicken in the meat/fish bracket, particularly if the sauces are made from stock using them (it’s just for flavour they claim (!)) so to explain preferences in Malaysian would be quite a convoluted affair. I think I’m safer (along with anyone allergic to seafood presumably) just having chips or plain rice when eating out, so when we stopped for a drink at the nearby Harbour Bar I had a nice bowl of fish-free spicy potato wedges.

We had another lazy day on Sunday (7th) due to the energy-sapping humidity. Paul checked us out at the office so that we could leave early in the morning, so we got the boat ready and planned the route to our first stop. This was to be just outside the boatyard where Sister Midnight would be hauled out for repairs to the cutlass bearing, caused by what will now forever be known as ‘the fishing line incident’ ;). We left the marina as planned at just before 7 am, with me steering us out. It was cool and cloudy – even a bit chilly – as we left the harbour and entered the open sea. By the time we approached the Second Link Bridge that links Singapore and Malaysia, it had warmed up and was fully light. We could see the traffic crawling along the road above us in the morning rush hour.

Paul had already been under this bridge when he journeyed to Puteri in April so he knew it was possible.  As with the one in Penang, however, it looked wholly impossible to me. Even when almost directly underneath, it seemed that the mast would hit the top. Apparently the best thing to do if the mast is set to break is to get as low as possible. It was fascinating to watch, and there really wasn’t a lot of spare room between the top of the mast and the underside of the road.

The bridge cleared, it was time to watch out for other potential obstacles. This list grew as we motored into the busy shipping lane just after 9 am. Paul brought his laptop up to the cockpit to study the AIS screen that displayed the location and direction of crafts in the vicinity and I took over the steering. As well as looking out for fishing buoys and fishing boats, other things to watch for and avoid were:

• Fish sticks
• Fish farms
• Marker buoys
• Floating pontoons
• Ferries (car and passenger)
• Dredgers
• Oil rigs
• Tugs
• Cargo/container ships
• Police and coastguard boats
• Cruise ships
• Large pieces of floating debris

We swapped roles after a while so that I could get the hang of how the AIS reports worked. It’s great once that ‘light bulb moment’ kicks in and understanding how it works becomes clear – it did take a bit of time, though I have to admit.

At 10 am we were approached by a Singaporean police boat. It drew alongside us and we slowed down so that Paul could help them with their enquiries ;). It turned out they weren’t too keen on us cutting the corner that took us into their patrol area, and what’s more we didn’t have our AIS transmitter on. They were very nice, actually. They gave us advice, confirmed our AIS was now doing its job and even escorted us for a short time until they were satisfied we were heading in the right direction.

By lunchtime we had the Singapore skyline on our left and Indonesian islands on our right, while all around us we could still see huge container ships and ferries.  A wide assortment of debris floated past us amid all this. Along with the usual organic clusters of reeds and leaves, tree branches and coconuts, I spotted several shoes & sandals; a crash helmet; carrier bags full of rubbish; large polystyrene boxes; rope and various sports’ balls. We’re both very wary of anything getting tangled in the propeller again but it’s also a sad sight to see bags of trash, food containers and hundreds of plastic bottles littering the sea. It was a lovely day to be out on the water, though: sunny but with a cooling breeze and it felt good to be on the move again.

Before anchoring near the yard, Paul wanted to get fuel from a nearby dock but it proved quite difficult to find and then when we did, there was no place to tie to. Time was getting on and we wanted to anchor before dark so we left and headed for the boatyard.  It was a beautiful evening. At 6 o’clock, in watery sunlight, we saw eagles soaring overhead, becoming completely still before dropping into the water to bag the fish they’d spied. We were both tired by the time we got to the outside of Dalac Marine Boatyard and the sun was about to set, but we managed to anchor in between two fish farms in 7.5 metres of water.

We were able to enjoy a lie-in on Tuesday morning because we couldn’t enter the yard until 10 30 when the tide would be high enough. It was a bit hairy motoring through the shallow river entrance. I had to shout out the depth readings as they changed and at one point it was down to 1.8 metres! I thought we were all set to go aground but the boat skirted along the soft mud and we made it to the wall where marine staff were waiting to take our lines.  We stood and watched them lift the boat out and then I had a look around the yard that would be our home for the next couple of days. It wasn’t much to look at, but then I wasn’t expecting it to be. It’s a hot, dusty yard where major repairs are carried out on vessels of all shapes and sizes. Still, it had toilets and we didn’t need to buy anything so it wasn’t a lot different from being berthed in a marina – we would just be up high, supported by chocks (providing an irresistible temptation to yell ‘chocks away’ when it was time to go).

The guys provided a set of steps so that we could climb up.  It was a bit vertigo inducing to start with but I got used to it.  Standing up on the bow just before sunset I looked around me and it struck me that the yard had a kind of beauty. The combination of evening sounds (crows cawing mainly), the fading light, the sight of the feral cats going about their business near the lake, and the marine guys chatting, laughing and listening to music, all combined to create a scene that appealed to me. The cats who roam around the yard seem healthy and the workers appear to be fond of them.  One cat was brave enough to climb the steps to our boat but could not be persuaded to come on board. Paul managed to get us some internet so we were able to listen to the radio and catch up on the news…and social media of course ;).

Kathy

 

We had a lively trip up to Tioman from Tinggi, we started with the headsail and a full main, and we were making a nice 5 knots in about 10 knots of wind on a full run (wind directly behind us). I turned off onto a broad reach after a while as the wind dropped and the headsail kept collapsing. This point of sail meant we were about 20 deg off course, but we could jibe half way and reach on the other side, we go faster this way anyway, and it all works out much the same. I have a spinnaker pole which I could put out onto the headsail to help it when we are running, but I don’t know how it works on this boat yet. It’s something I must investigate, but frankly, it’s a little intimidating, the one on the baba was big, and I could manhandle it out onto the sails myself, but this one is another 50% all round, it’s going to have to be hoisted, probably with a winch, and needs to be steadied in several directions, for/aft, up/down. It’s a job I have set for this week. Charts of our route are below.

Not long after the wind calmed, a squall came through, we quickly dropped the main and rolled up half the headsail, this was enough to push us along at 6 knots towards our destination as the squall passed through us, it came from the west, whereas the prevailing wind had been southerly for the last few days, this meant that after an hour we had big waves rolling in from the side combining with smaller ones from behind. This made the next few hours quite ‘rock and roll’.

I hooked up the wind steering, conscious that we weren’t getting any charge from the engine and the autopilot can use a lot of power. Also I need to have confidence in this particular piece of kit. It worked very well and sailed the boat nicely for a couple of hours.
About 3 miles before Tioman, the wind dropped right off and we motored the last bit in quite a rolly sea into Tekek Harbour, the main port on the island.  We anchored in 18m of water, with about 80m of rope and chain, always a worry for me, I had a swim and I think we are outside of the coral, the anchor seemed to set well.

Tuesday morning and the anchor held, but then it was a very calm night. We headed into the port to check in with the harbour master and customs. Then a walk around town. There’s not a lot here, a few basic shops, a couple of duty free stores, as this is a duty free island.

The most amazing thing is that it has an Airport, 

For such a small island, the land rises quickly into rocky hills covered in trees. It must be quite a thrill flying into here.

Managed to spot a couple of project boats in the harbour here.

Back on the boat and another squall came through, when I went up to have a look, there was another boat about 20ft in front of me, close enough to chat to the skipper, he had just moved because the boat by him was dragging its anchor, and he had miscalculated where my anchor was and had laid his over mine, he moved even closer, then decided to head off and try again. All the time I was trying to work out if we were dragging our anchor. I think we are in sand, and that’s not great for anchors, mud is the best. I let out another ten metres of rode, so now we had 90 metres, but when you have 90m or about 300ft, you have a swinging circle with a 600ft diameter (ish), thats a large area, and these boats point one way, and can pull on the chain in another. The upshot is I spend a lot of time wondering what is going on. Since we dragged in Ko Lipe with 100m out, I’m very wary. As I write this the wind has dropped, and we have moved from some distance out to sea, back to where we started yesterday, so I think we are holding fine.

Paul Collister

Quite horrible, a swarm of Flying Soldier Insects, Termites I suspect, left land in their hundreds, if not thousands and landed on our boat. They shed their wings then tried to take over, it was horrible, some of them were quite big. Most of them died on the deck, a few dozen wished they had kept their wings on as they couldn’t get out of the cockpit well, I suspect some found their way inside and went searching for some wood to munch on and make a new home in. This was on Friday evening as we were anchored in Johor Strait, off from a forest/jungle section. I spent the next morning spraying all the non teak wooden surfaces with a borax solution, which should see them off fairly quickly. I’m not going through the new bowsprit route again. I’m pretty confident we wont have any problems though.
We had left the boatyard that morning, and I took these pictures from the boat as we were craned to our launching spot.

From our anchorage a few hours from the boatyard, we headed off early on Saturday morning to put some distance between us and Singapore, and all the heavy shipping that goes with it. It was busy, but we were able to keep out of the shipping lanes and stay inshore, except inshore has mostly become new docks and oil/gas terminals now, and the charts, even though they are up to date in chart terms, they are out of date in reality. It took about 8 hours to reach Jason Bay, a quiet anchorage just up the eastern side of the Malaysian peninsular. We took these pictures along the way.

 

These jack up platforms are everywhere

We weaved our way through lots of tankers like this anchored along the coast.

The predicted wind didn’t materialise, except for a mini storm in the afternoon. It was mostly overcast and cool, which suited me. Jason bay had nothing special about it, it was just a way to break up the journey to Tioman, however it did provide us with another attack from the shore, this time smaller flying ants, they looked like little flies. They managed to fill the cabin while we had dinner. I had anchored a long way off shore in the hope nothing would get to us. By this morning, the ones I hadn’t killed had left of their own accord. I’m hopeful tonight will be bug free, but you do have to accept in this climate, when so close to jungle lined coast, there are going to be lots of living things wanting to join you.

So today we had a little Sunday morning lie in before heading North towards Tioman, we had a few options but settled on a protected area on the southern coast of Pulau Tinggi, The wind had been from the North yesterday and overnight, so I figured we would be safe there from any swell that might have built.
We had only just motored out of Jason Bay, past a dangerous reef, when the wind piped up from the SSE, which was great for us, it put the wind behind us, even though there was only about 10 knots, it pushed us along between 4 and 5 knots towards our goal. The engine went off and we sailed all the way to Tinggi. however the steady southerly built and by the time we reached Tinggi, the waves were getting big, we cut around inside the reef, Kathy Tried to drive us through the reef, and I had to point out that wouldn’t work, and a sharp left was made. Once behind the reef it was calmer but not that calm, especially if the wind increased, so we went for my fallback plan, which was a little cove on the north side of the island. Just 40 minutes motor away. Just as we decided that, a squall blew in causing a lot of wind, big waves and poor visibility,
We got soaked, and I just managed to get the electronics (iThings) hidden away before they got wrecked.

There are a lot of little islands, sixty or so, within 30 miles of Tioman Island, I think they are volcanic, but they all make up a national park, the waters are very clear here, there are lots of coral areas, protected by the state, and great snorkeling. So you have to be careful and not anchor on the reefs. I had the GPS co-ordinates of a sandy spot just on the north, were we were heading to, we arrived in this massive downpour, and found the area a bit deep, so we moved just a little further along and quickly dropped the hook in 7 meters of water. The chart had this as being out from the coral also. It didn’t land in sand, and as we reversed on it, I could feel the anchor bouncing by keeping a foot on the chain as we backed up. Not good I thought and hoped we would be onto sand any moment, pretty quickly the anchor seemed to dig in and we were set. However back in the cabin sheltering from the heavy rain, we could hear and feel vibration from the chain. I went up on deck, grabbed my snorkel and dived to look at the chain. What I saw shocked me, we were in fact over a lot of coral, not much sand in sight, and the anchor chain was wrapped around a few coral heads, whilst beautiful tropical fish swam all around.  I made a mental note of the convoluted path our chain took through the coral and went back up to the boat to try and get us out, without doing any more damage. It took a while of gently pulling on the chain and nudging the boat beyond some of the heads but we did it. I’m going to be a lot more careful from now on. I then went back to the original co-ordinates for the sandy bit and went offshore from there by about 50 metres until we were in 12 metres of water. I dived, and couldn’t see any coral, just a sandy bottom, so we dropped the hook, no vibrations this time, and it set well.

Tomorrow I want to dinghy over to some of the reefs here and have a proper snorkel.

All in all everything is going well, the Cutless bearing seems to be fine, I suspect the engine alignment might be improved on, as there is a little bit too much vibration when I run the engine flat out at 3000RPM, which is not something I would normally ever do anyway.

Tomorrow we will probably head to Tioman where we will explore the island and neighbouring area for a week or so.

Paul Collister

 

 

We have launched and we’re on our way to Pulau Tioman, an island on the Eastern side of the main Malaysian Peninsula, the location for the filming of South Pacific, even though it’s in the North Pacific.

So due to the holiday, and nothing happening on the boat, we popped into Johor Bahru town, I was keen to do a bit of cultural stuff, some Sultan, back in the day, built a lot of amazing buildings and we were keen to explore the main museum, which was meant to be amazing, but finding it was difficult, even the taxi drivers didn’t know where it was, asking them for the cultural sights would elicit the usual ‘No have any‘ response we get for anything slightly out of the normal. eventually we found it , but it was closed. we checked out the ‘happening’ down town duty free zone where all the clubs where, but it was mostly closed, the duty free zone was somewhat disappointing, so we headed over back to a local shopping mall. I left Kathy there to browse, while I jumped into an Uber and headed back to Puteri Harbour, to collect my parcel, the missing blade for the wind generator. then back to the boat.
Thursday arrived and I fitted the blade to the turbine, not very well as it turned out. The guys arrived earlier to fit the new cutless bearing and the engineer amongst them understood exactly what I meant about the stripped inside of the allen screw, I could tell by the groan and look of despair on his face. However after 40 minutes, he had drilled out the old screw, without damaging the thread at all.

 

He instructed his assistant to cut out the old bearing with a hacksaw blade, a tedious job, it took me all day last time I tried this, but he had it done in 30 minutes, and the old cutless removed. The damage was clear, after I had pulled out the shredded rubber on haulout, there was about an inch of rubber missing, that still left 3 1/2 inches remaining, in good nick too, but I think it best to replace it, even if it might have continued working for a long time, I wouldn’t feel confident.

It all went back together fine, however they seemed to have some problems getting the shaft to fit into the collar on the coupling, but nothing had changed, so I think there might be a slight alignment problem. By mid afternoon they had completed everything, and I did a few jobs, mostly cleaning up and we were ready for a Friday morning launch.
The yard informed me I had to pay cash, so an ATM was called for, we decided to get an Uber into a big mall so we could stock up a little more. This was an amazing Mall, I don’t normally think much of Malls, but they had everything here, and I especially like one huge section called the Japanese village, full of Japanese shops, obviously I suppose, but all done very well.

I was up at 6:30 Friday, The sunrise was lovely, the light much nicer than the camera’s false blue haze. I managed to shoot a few good pics, at this time it was low water, on a spring tide, so very low, and there was only a few inches of water on the path we would have to take out. So it was good to be able to work out our exit route.

We launched at 12, Kathy and I stayed on board as the travel lift took us to the launch bay, I didn’t want to, in Europe it wouldn’t be allowed, H&S, but we had no choice they just took the steps away and started lifting the boat! As we lowered into the water, there were several disturbing jerks, where the wire supporting the front of the boat snagged then jumped, I reassured Kathy that we were over the water now so it would just make a big splash if the wire snapped, a very big splash I expect.
I rigged up a block and tackle to the topping lift, and was able to pull the mast back far enough to get the backstay onto it’s turnbuckle. I was worried I might have to slacken the Furlers, which is a major job, but it all went very smoothly, topped off the fuel from a drum raised up on a fork lift truck, (Malay style Fuel Stop) and we headed out. Now we are at anchor 4 hours away, close to the SE of Singapore. Tomorrow we head off towards Tioman, the wind has been consistent and good from the SW for a few days now, I wonder if this is the SW monsoon settling in now, I hope so, as it means good sailing tomorrow. We will find an anchorage half way to Tioman off the coast of Malaysia tomorrow, and maybe another before we arrive.
It’s good to be afloat again. At the moment, our delay has made me think it’s too late to make Japan and then America, so it’s looking much more likely we will do that next year, when we are better prepared. So I’m really looking forward to just chilling in Tioman.

Some pics from this morning before work started

Paul Collister

I had been excited about this trip ever since I’d learned we would be going there.  This is mainly due to my fascination with Raffles Hotel. It featured in Somerset Maugham’s short stories, a great favourite of mine, and also in the 80s drama series Tenko which told the story of a group of women who were taken prisoner in 1942 after getting caught up in the Japanese occupation after the fall of Singapore.  As with the location of ‘The Beach’ in Thailand, I never thought I would have the chance to visit it. So, despite the lingering lethargy from jet lag and heat, I was eager to get going on Tuesday morning. Thwarted in our intention to travel the short distance across the water via an Uber taxi, we asked the driver to take us to the Malaysian immigration building where we could get a bus across the Second Link Bridge which traverses the Strait of Johor. The taxi driver was most apologetic that she couldn’t take us (she hadn’t brought her passport and Uber drivers don’t necessarily know the destination when they take the booking), but she told us the bus service is regular and efficient. Once inside the building we joined a queue, our passports were stamped and we walked outside to wait for the bus. After a journey of about 5 minutes, we had crossed the mile long bridge into Singapore and we all trooped off the bus straight into another building to queue for the Singapore immigration process. This took slightly longer, especially as we had to sidestep the queue while immigration forms were found for us to fill in. This slight delay meant we missed the first bus into Jurong where we needed to be to get a train to our hotel in Chinatown.  It was raining heavily by then, so our first day in Singapore began somewhat unpromisingly in a cheerless, barn-like bus depot with several other people, wondering when the next bus would come along.

The first part of the journey to Jurong took us through through an industrial landscape of factories, trading estates and multi-storey office complexes. As we entered more rural areas, I noticed how well-maintained and wide the roads were. Further on, the views confirmed Singapore’s reputation as one of Southeast Asia’s wealthiest countries. The cars and motorbikes are mostly new and modern, while roadside shops, cafes, houses and even billboards all convey high standards of living and general affluence. The contrast to Thailand is staggering: there, the roads are bumpy and rock-strewn, cars and particularly motorbikes are often dangerously dilapidated. Singapore, at 580 square km is only slightly larger than the Isle of Wight but as the bus drew into Jurong and more and more skyscrapers appeared, it seemed incredible that we were in a small country. Its airport alone is a major hub for flights all over the world; one of the world’s busiest in fact. Looking around me at the huge town that isn’t even the capital I found it amazing to contemplate that the two islands are similar in size.

Navigating the MRT subway system proved to be gloriously simple. We bought cards that provided unlimited travel and boarded the train bound for Chinatown. Needless to say, the stations and trains are clean, spacious and efficient (chewing gum and eating on the subway carry sizeable fines).  It was 1 pm by the time we got to our hotel but we couldn’t access our room until 2 so we left our bags there and went for a wander around the area. The black and white-themed Mono Hotel is in the middle of charming Mosque Street which has some beautiful colonial-style buildings.

Chinatown itself was a delightfully busy hub of noise, colour and appetising smells, much like Chinatowns globally tend to be I guess, but this one seemed to me to convey an additional upmarket, wealthy vibe in its streets. One street we passed had a plaque displaying information about its history. Boon Tat Street used to known as Japanese Street because it was the street where the Japanese brothels were located. It states that in the early 19th century, the prostitutes ‘plied their trade in an oddly noble effort to finance their country’s military campaigns’. Other streets used to be full of opium dens and illegal gambling venues. It was all happening there!

It got steadily hotter as we walked so we went for lunch in an air-conditioned mall which offered an abundance of food options.  There were a lot more healthy choices here than I’ve seen in any other part of SE Asia. We opted for a place that was a bit like Subway but which used flavoured wraps instead of bread. After a bit of confusion and dithering on our part about how to choose from the options and deals, which the server handled with admirable patience and good humour, we ordered spinach wraps and chose from a delicious array of fillings (including a ‘protein’ section).  Back at the hotel, soon after we checked in, I felt ready to flake out again so Paul went off to buy some of the items on his list from SIMLIM, a huge shopping complex solely devoted to selling technical parts and components, while I slept for a couple of hours.

Chinatown had really begun to liven up early in the evening when we went out again. People were filling its prettily-lit streets looking for places to eat, or browsing the stalls and street markets. We headed for the waterfront, a short walk from Chinatown where the Singapore River runs through the central area of the city and empties into the ocean at Marina Bay. The river was lined on both sides with plush bars and restaurants offering al fresco dining where the average price for a glass of wine was, we worked out, £8 a glass! We bought a small bottle of wine, some water and a coke for half of that price in a Seven Eleven and sat on a riverside wall – thus achieving the same effect for a whole lot cheaper ;).

We ambled around the bay area and bought vegetable samosas from one of the street vendors to munch on as we walked. There was a warm wind blowing across the river but it was the coolest we had felt all day. Singapore’s skyline is famous for three buildings with what I think looks like a plane but is in fact a ship lying across the top of them. We hadn’t seen it during the day but came upon the view of it by chance further along the riverside. It’s quite striking in the dark, the blinking lights on the ‘fuselage’ giving the appearance that it is still operating while stationary in its incongruous position.

The structure as a whole is The Marina Bay Sands Resort, completed in 2010, with a state of the art hotel, shopping malls and casinos – the ship on top is a 340 metre SkyPark complete with a 150 metre infinity pool! Would you fancy a swim in there?!

As the hotel didn’t include breakfast, we went out to find something nice after having coffee in the room.  It was quite late by the time we hit the streets so when Paul led the way to a Chinese vegetarian place he’d found online, I was hungry enough to agree to the prospect of what was bound to be more substantial fare than cereal or toast.  It turned out to be absolutely amazing! Everything in the bain-marie dishes on display was vegetarian and the helpful Chinese lady who served us explained what all of them were (although it has to be said we were none the wiser with some of the dishes). We were both game enough to try anything, though so we simply pointed and she heaped our plates. We took them to a table on the pavement outside and ate like the locals. It was unusual and delicious and vegan and it set us up for the rest of the day.

I needed that sustenance for the next venture. After a quick change in our room we headed for Little India on the metro to collect more of the things Paul needed for the boat.  I got to see the SIMLIM complex that had impressed Paul the previous day. Keen to save my flagging energy for Raffles, I elected to stay in a café nursing a single glass of coke and reading while Paul browsed and shopped to his heart’s content. I think I even dozed off at one point I was so relaxed in there. I soon woke up when it was time to head to Raffles. It was only a short journey on the metro and a five minute walk from the station before the legendary beautiful building came into view. I still smile when I think of how pleasurable that sight was. Surrounded as it is by modern high rise apartments and hotels, Raffles shines both literally and metaphorically. The sunlight lit up the brilliant white façade and emphasised its immaculate, elegant appearance. The hotel doormen, dressed in Imperial Indian soldiers’ uniform, who were helping people out of a limousine as we approached completed the impression that this is still a place of opulence and luxury.

Visitors are welcome in the grounds and certain parts of the hotel but there is a dress code for specific areas. For afternoon tea it is smart casual – no shorts, bare shoulders or flip flops. We weren’t interested in that (especially at £36 a head), although I couldn’t resist a peek through the window at the three tier cake stands on tables loaded with dainty sandwiches, scones and fancy cakes and pastries. Refurbishment is taking place in some of the bars and restaurants so The Long Bar, where the famous Singapore Sling is usually served is closed and has moved to The Bar and Billiard Room, where there is thankfully no dress code. Before going there, though I had a browse in the souvenir shop while Paul sat in the courtyard to take a phone call.

There were enticing items in there (none of the usual ‘tat’ but the prices reflected that) and some intriguing books with information on the hotel’s development and history. I contented myself with some bookmarks and a small print of the building in colonial days. That it is expensive is not surprising – its reputation is built on its exclusivity: room rates here start at around £400 a night. I had wanted to see The Writers’ Bar but one of the doormen we asked explained that we couldn’t go in because it was open to residents’ only. Seeing my disappointment, however, the smartly dressed Indian doorman offered to escort me inside to show it to me (Paul couldn’t because he had shorts on). So I entered the palatial lobby and he led me over to the surprisingly small but stylish bar where writers, including Somerset Maugham, Joseph Conrad, Noel Coward and Rudyard Kipling used to drink, and it’s largely unchanged he told me.  It was really kind of him, and it also gave me a chance to see the beautiful grand staircase in the lobby (I wasn’t allowed to take pictures inside unfortunately).

On we went to get a Singapore Sling – well it would have been a shame to miss out :). Immaculately dressed staff wait to escort people to a table where they are then presented with a menu listing the drinks and snacks on offer. The prices were eye-watering! I knew Paul wouldn’t have entered the place had it not been for me, and since even the soft drinks were extortionately expensive, we ordered just one Singapore Sling for the princely sum of 31 Ringgit (about £6). I just hoped they wouldn’t bring two straws! The bar reminded us of some that we’d been to in London and, it has to be said, some Wetherspoons’ pubs – except that guests were provided with complimentary sacks of peanuts in their shells and were invited to follow the custom of throwing the empty shells on the floor. The floor was littered with them and we added to it by consuming copious amounts of those nuts – they weren’t just any nuts after all, they were ‘Raffles’ nuts.

The drink was nice enough, a bit sweet for my taste and it may have been the sweetness which masked the alcohol but I’m not convinced there was much alcohol in it at all. The ingredients are listed on my souvenir bookmark, shown below, but I would have got more from my usual white wine and soda. Still, it was nice to sit there people watching for an hour.

On the way out, I paid the cashier 36 ringgit (the hike in price was for service apparently) while Paul took a few shots on the billiard table. The story goes that in 1902 a wild tiger had found its way into the hotel and was hiding underneath a billiard table in this very room. A local man was called upon to remove it and fired five shots under the table before finally hitting it between the eyes. It’s said that this was the last tiger to be shot in Singapore, but the hotel claims that the tiger was not wild – it had in fact escaped from a travelling circus. I couldn’t resist looking under the table and trying to imagine the scared tiger cowering under there :(.

Returning to Chinatown late in the afternoon, we collected our bags from the hotel, got the train to Bugis and walked to Queen Street near the border control to find a taxi rank. It was a huge relief that Paul was able to get a taxi to take us all the way back to Puteri. My legs and feet were really aching and we had heavier bags than we’d arrived with.  All we had to do once we were sat in the back seat was hand our passports to the driver who presented them at the immigration and customs points along with his own. The immigration officer looked at us closely from his booth and held our passports up, said our names and we nodded.  Paul was questioned about his immigration stamp, probably because it wasn’t from an airport like mine was, but we were waved through with no delays. The boat was like a furnace after being shut up all day when we got back on board in the evening but I had a feeling we wouldn’t be awake long enough for it to be too troublesome.

Some more images of Singapore below

Kathy

We are hauled, and awaiting repair.

Not long after we anchored the sun set and the fishnets we anchored off moved a lot closer. I have noticed this before, at night hazards always seem to move closer, not sure if this is an optical or psychological effect, either way, it’s a pain, we moved very close to the nets, and I made a good note of where we are by taking transits around the area, that basically means lining up the edges of the net with something on the land, and making sure they stay lined up. Of course, a few hours later the tide turned, we swung and ended up even closer to the nets, which was odd as I thought we should have gone further away. I told Kathy we might need to re anchor, but I sat on the bowsprit for 20 minutes, enjoying the fading light and watching my transits, only to decide we were safe. After a lovely pasta & pesto dinner, I went to sleep in the cockpit, waking every hour or so to check my transits, until at 3am, when the tide swung us again, back to roughly were we started, then I slept through to sunrise.

Looking over to the yard, I could just make out the route in, but it looked shallow, sticks in the mud showed the way and later I watched a motor boat make its way in which gave me a boost.

The nets looked amazing in the morning sun, they are all different coloured 5 gallon plastic containers, large jerry can size.

These drums above on the right are spares I think, they were about 40ft to our stern. This is what you can see from space, credit to google earth.

So just 30 minutes before high water we headed in, Kathy called out the depth. We started with a metre more than when we went aground, so I was optimistic, however we soon hit 2 metres, but were still going, we should be aground at 2 metres, but I added a little into the calibration of the meter to help, but when we reached 1.8 I was wondering how we were still going forward, whatever was under us must have been very soft, so I upped the revs, and we raced in, I figured if I was going aground I wanted to plough through, into the deeper water in the boatyard. It quickly went back to 2 metres and stayed around that for the short trip to tie up alongside in front of the travel lift.

Once tied up, the first of several disappointments arrived, I was told the travel lift is to small to take us in the normal way, so I had to drop the backstay, remove the wind generator and reverse into the travel lift. I didn’t want to do the backstay as it’s going to be difficult to get it back together without loosening the forestays, which means taking the headsails off and removing the furling drum.  I will have to think of a cunning plan, probably involving rope and pulleys.

I managed to keep the wind generator on, the problem would come later once we were on land, then the travel lift wouldn’t be able to escape without decapitating the turbine, and that’s normally my job, using a fishing rod or forehead. To turn the boat around, a man was dispatched into the water to push it around, A dinghy might have been better, but who am I to judge.

The next blow was that rather than change the bearing and launch in the morning, I was told that they couldn’t start today as planned, as they had to do another boat in an emergency, and that tomorrow is national holiday, but they could start on Thursday. So the earliest we can launch will be Friday, I expect it will end up being Saturday. The tides are good until next Monday, after that we can’t get our for another week or more.

I was able to see that some more rubber had worked it’s way out of the cutless bearing, you can see a strip of it here, I have pulled it out to see better, but it didn’t take any effort, so I’m assuming it’s a bit of a mess inside the bearing.
I removed the blades and vane off the turbine so they can get the travel lift away, then I set about doing the job myself, I thought perhaps I could get the prop off, and pull the prop shaft, making it easier for them, I’m still going to be paying them, whoever does the work, but at least this way I might get away earlier. The prop came off no problem, but the PSS dripless shaft seal won’t come off. This is a device that stops the water getting into the boat through the tube that the prop shaft goes out of the boat through. It seems that the LBM engineer, who was the last one near it, had stripped one of the 2 allen grub screws that holds it in place. This is a tiny grub screw made of 316 stainless steel, inside a block of 316 stainless steel, in the bottom of the boat in a most inaccessible place.I’m at the point of drilling it out, but that might damage the seal, and I might end up having to wait a few weeks to get a replacement shipped in, so I’m going to wait until the yard’s engineer turns up, and get him to sort it. Good engineers know how to sort these things. I once had a similar problem on the baba 30 which required me to cut the prop shaft in half to get the job done, I really don’t want to go down that road again.

I forgot to add this AIS chart yesterday, you can see us as the little boat with the white dot, down in the middle, working our way east and edging across the channel getting ready to hang a left up to the eastern buoy and back into Malaysian waters. You can see it’s busy, each triangle is a boat, mostly big tankers or container ships, doing between 5 and 20 knots.

As it’s a holiday tomorrow, Kathy and I will pop into Johor Bahru and check it out, it’s supposed to be a bit of a party town, so I better get my John Travolta suit out, just in case we go dancing 😉

Paul Collister

 

Now if that isn’t clickbait, I don’t know what is.

So we arrived safely, at the entrance to Dalac Marina, We have to wait for high tide in the morning to get in, we went ashore earlier, well the boat did, we stayed onboard. We were looking for somewhere to anchor outside the boatyard. It’s a bit scraggy here, lots of rubbish in the water, we are kind of out of the way, tucked behind the docks, and opposite a big Singapore port, but the charts don’t cover this stretch, other than to say it’s all mud. When we arrived, we went right past the spot we are supposed to anchor in. All along the coast here for a few miles are fish farms, not a type I’m familiar with, they seem to be laid out in an S shape but with scores of bends. See pics below.

We found a gap, about 100m wide between two sets of nets that leads to the boatyard. We approached slowly as we are only a couple of hours after low water. The prospect looked great, the chart plotter said we were in 1-2m of water, but the depth gauge said 14m. the depth dropped steadily and Kathy called out each 1/2 metre drop every 30 seconds or so. When we got to about 5 meters I put her into astern to stop her as that would be fine, however, we went from 5 to 3 to 2.5 to 2 and aground as quick as Kathy could read them off, It wasn’t a problem, and I managed to reverse back after a few thrusts with the engine, and we anchored in 8 metres. It’s all mud here, perhaps a bicycle or two, but we’ve taken on Thai Granite rocks and survived, so there Mr Mud!

As to the police bit, yes that was a touch embarrassing, to get from One side of the causeway that links Malaysia to Singapore you have to almost completely circumnavigate Singapore, it’s a bit like if they had built a causeway/low bridge from Gosport to Ryde on the Isle of Wight, boats would have to go all around the island to get from Portsmouth to Southampton. I realise that means nothing to many of our readers.
Anyway, the Singaporeans won’t let boats into there waters unless you are visiting and check in with an agent and all that entails, they have police patrolling the island in varying sizes of patrol boats from 30 fast launches, through 60 foot very fast motor boats, right up to Navy Destroyers and frigates. We got the middle size one. Add to this annoyance, there is a traffic separation zone all around the bottom of the island, which is a bit like a motorway, central reservation included, The separation zone ensures traffic heading west is in the lane near to Singapore, we were going East, so we have to be on the other side. This means crossing the separation lane, very much in the way someone on a pushbike might cross a busy motorway, very carefully. There is a little bit in the middle you can be safe in. The lane is about a mile wide. Once across, then we flow with the big ships steaming up from behind us for 30 odd miles, then do the frogger game imitation again and cross back to the other side. Now in most places I have sailed, small boats like me sneak along the outside of the separation zone, on either side, and nobody cares, but that puts me in Singapore’s waters, but I gave it a try. I got about 3 miles along when I accidentally strayed , just a tiny little bit into the traffic zone, it was quite safe because the big boats in the lane all go on the other edge as it’s more direct. I was only there for a couple of minutes before I noticed and quickly turned to head back to the inshore bit, but too late. Screaming towards me with spary gushing from either side of his bow was a Singapore police launch. They looked very much like they were going to escort us back to the nick, as one of them started organising ropes on the side the where they were approaching us. By now I was out of the lane, still no other traffic around so no harm done, but I was told in no uncertain terms, but in a very friendly manner that I could not do my journey in their waters and I must cross the separation zone to the Indonesian side to continue. I also got told off for having my AIS off, which surprised me as I was using it loads. I asked ever so nicely if I could motor through the anchorage ahead then cross the zone there, which would save me an hour, they agreed, but followed me all the way, and shadowed me across the separation zone.  I suppose it’s a bit like driving up the hard shoulder between a couple of junctions on a motorway, but being on the wrong side, and doing it in full view of the police.
I checked the AIS and found I had disabled the transmitter, yes that was right, I had assumed it defaulted to on after a power down, but no, I turned it back on, and a few minutes later the police launch screamed up to us again, just to tell us they had us on AIS and all was ok. Which was nice of them. Once across the zone, we were in Indonesian waters, and they don’t go there. But later we had to make a load more detours just to keep away from their coast. Seems a bit over the top to me.

 

The Johor Strait, which is were we spent all afternoon is full of shipyards and old ships, ferry ports and docks. Very busy really, but some parts had lovely beaches. I’m sure Kathy will have more in her post.

We left this morning at 6:50, just as the sun rose, and just a few hours before my replacement wind generator blade arrived. That’s a good game to play when cruising, “What’s my postal address”.
We arrived and dropped anchor just as the sun set at 7:10.

Paul Collister

Yes, our time lazing around in Puteri harbour marina is up and we head off to the boatyard tomorrow.  I’m hoping to leave at about 06:30 as it’s a good 10 hours+ and I’m planning to pick up some fuel on the way from a barge moored in a river. It’s going to be an interesting passage, we could save an hour or more if we pass south of two little islands, but I have been told we will be in trouble and chased away by the Singapore marine police, so we have to go to the north of them which adds a few miles. We will be motoring through one of the worlds busiest ports, looking at the chart it looks mad, millions of buoys, loads of no entry areas, and exclusion zones. and there will be scores of ships motoring through a hundred odd ships at anchor. It’s good Kathy will be here to help, she can steer while I stare at all the AIS targets on my MacBook, trying to work out which one is which, and is it heading our way. The worst of it should last for about 5 hours.
We will anchor outside the entrance to the yard tomorrow night and wait for the high tide in the morning before we can get in. That should be fun, we need to anchor in-between two fish farms. It’s a very rough looking yard, and we are living on the boat for one, maybe more nights, so out with the DEET (mossie spray), I don’t expect they have much in the way of toilets or showers, so it will be a relief to be back in the water later in the week.
I have been looking into the route to America from here and we will probably not go this year. Lots of reasons, but mainly it’s unlikely we will do this passage again, so I want to do it justice. To get to Japan missing the cyclones, we would have to race there, missing Taiwan, Japan would be rushed, Theres a port in Russia, north of Japan, that I hear is well worth a visit and I have heard Alaska is an amazing place, worth a year or two of cruising. Coming down from Alaska, I would love to spend a lot of time exploring the inner passage around Vancouver Island. All of these places would get crammed into a few weeks, plus the fact that we want to be home for all of September makes me think It’s just too much of a rush.
So I have put our next port of call as Tioman, a beautiful Island about 150 miles north of us, on the eastern side of Malaysia, as our next port of call.
We will spend about 5 days slowly making our way there, it would have been on our route to Japan, so if I revert back to the Japan plan, we don’t lose anything, but I expect by the time we have had a few days there we will have worked out some more destinations. We have a lot of options, which is nice, Staying in the gulf of Thailand is possibly and should provide good sailing during the SW Monsoon season, we can visit Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia. Or we can hop over to Eastern Malaysia on the island of Borneo, popping into The Kingdom of Bruni, or going to the rain forest music festival in Sarawak. We could head don to Indonesia and travel along those islands heading towards Austrailia. We shall have to see.

Our friends cat came to say goodbye yesterday, they have headed off to Tioman as part of the ‘Sailing east’ Malaysian rally, I expect we will bump into them later.
A lot of people use these air berths for their power boats, I think it’s because the warm waters cause growth under the boat to be accelerated. but they look strange. A small pump fills the big tanks with air to raise the berth, or the tanks are filed with water to lower it.

Here the boat has been driven into a submerged berth that has then been partly inflated

It looks like they have invented some kind of boat launcher

Fully inflated.

Paul Collister.

At midday on Friday 28th April I left my flat in Liverpool after a great month spent with friends and family in Liverpool, Wirral, Swindon and Milan to begin the journey back to Malaysia. From Lime Street I caught a train to Manchester Airport for my connecting flight to London. Luckily (for me at least) it wasn’t too hot and sticky a day because I was pulling a suitcase weighing 22kg, containing not only the usual clothes and toiletries, but also several items Paul needed for the boat and a fair few food items, including packets of vegan cheese and jars of peanut butter.  It was a relief to check it in at Manchester where I wouldn’t see it again until it was time to collect it from Kuala Lumpur Airport the following day.  It was late afternoon local time on Saturday 29th April when Paul met me after a 12 hour flight from Heathrow. My body clock was still on British time where it was mid-morning, and I hadn’t slept much on the plane so it was disorienting to say the least, especially when we went for dinner when I’d not long had breakfast on the plane! Still it felt good to be back ‘home’ and to see Paul again. I had been looking forward to being back on board Sister Midnight and seeing her new berth right on the southern tip of Peninsular Malaysia. There was one more flight to do before that, however. From KL we had to fly to Johor Bahru, a journey of about 45 minutes, but this flight was delayed for an hour and was followed by a 30 minute taxi ride from the airport to the marina, so it wasn’t until the early hours of Sunday morning that my journey back to SE Asia came to an end.  Walking along the pontoons in the dark I felt the residue of the day’s heat and it struck me that the journey had taken me from the comfort of a hot water bottle and heavy duvet at night in England and brought me instead to the relief of cooling fans and cold showers. Paul had added another fan to the boat in my absence which is set up to rotate above us like a ceiling fan to circulate the air more effectively.

I hadn’t been able to see much of my surroundings the night before, and when I woke up I almost expected to see the familiar sight of Langkawi’s Royal Yacht Club from the last time I’d woken up on the boat.  Talking to Paul and reading his blog posts about Puteri (pronounced Pootree) I was prepared to be unimpressed because he’d been fairly noncommittal in his descriptions. It had looked pretty enough all lit up in the darkness, and the short walk through the marina reception had revealed a clean, newish building leading out to a courtyard with bars, palm trees and benches overlooking the harbour. From the cockpit, viewing it all in the light of day, I was pleasantly surprised to see a hive of activity in the marina complex and resort. Music was playing from a stage on the second storey of a shopping mall where activities for children were in full swing by the sound of it. The marina was full of people who would be taking part in the Sail Malaysia ‘Passage to the East’ Rally the following week, and the associated festivities had culminated on Saturday night with a jazz festival (I wasn’t too disappointed to have missed that ;)). It was a bank holiday weekend here in Malaysia too so visitors had come to stroll around the complex and have their photos taken against the harbour background.  The semicircle of land around the public marina is taken up with attractive blocks of serviced apartments and a huge hotel, the marina clubhouse with its services and facilities (including a library), and several smart-looking bars, coffee shops and restaurants.

The floor above, accessed by an escalator, is signposted as a shopping boulevard.  I saw all this as we took a walk around so that I could get my bearings. Paul was right to state that the shops aren’t much to get excited about. They are mostly retail outlets for designer brands and a string of shops and stalls selling children’s toys, clothes and sweets. Quite a few units in the mall are still waiting to be sold. Hello Kitty is very popular here – there is a ‘land’ devoted to her somewhere close by and the hotel offers trips to nearby Legoland. The convenience store on the ground floor sells plenty of chocolate, crisps, and fizzy drinks but little else. Still the atmosphere was good and everywhere is very clean and well maintained. It’s a fairly new resort so it’s still being developed but it seems to be a popular destination for daytrippers at weekends and holidays already. Staff, especially the gate guards, are very friendly according to Paul. They are employed to let marina patrons in and out of the pontoons, but they also spend a lot of time blowing whistles to tell people not to stand on the marina walls. It’s a long drop down into the murky water but it’s a popular place to pose for photos and naturally, children can’t resist climbing them even though there’s a play area right next to them.

It was too hot to linger outside for long – it will take me a while to become reacclimatised to the heat and humidity I expect. It feels a lot more humid here than it did in Langkawi, but it is the height of summer and we’re that bit closer to the equator. Most of Sunday was spent unpacking and sleeping off more of the jet lag. Early in the evening we went to a shop inside the ferry terminal which is a short walk from the marina, to get some bread. Thunder was crashing around us and it had grown very dark. Paul told me storms are frequent here but they are over quite quickly. There were some interesting sculptures made out of bamboo in the green areas next to the path, and a quirky swing that I was keen to have a go on but it was full of people and we needed to get back to the boat before the rain fell. I did get to go on it a few days later though as the pic below shows (it looks better than it actually was).

On Monday I still felt very lethargic and only felt up to doing a bit more unpacking, looking up information relating to Singapore and Raffles Hotel on the internet, and lounging by the fans dozing or reading. In the evening we went for dinner in one of the waterside restaurants called The Olive Kitchen, although it specialised in Indian cuisine with not an olive in sight. TV screens were showing music videos featuring songs from The Eagles, Pink Floyd and The Bee Gees. Paul wasn’t impressed but I loved it, and the food was good too. Back on the boat I packed a small bag ready for our visit to Singapore, the third and smallest South East Asian country on our journey so far.

 

You can probably tell from the title, this post isn’t going to be a bundle of laughs, but I just managed to upload these pics, my iPhone wouldn’t hand them over yesterday until I rebooted my mac, an iPhotos problem I expect.

If you look closely you can see the one above has some rubber on the edge, and is noticeably thinner at that point. The other end is fine, so I suspect there was a manufacturing problem at some point with this one. I’m going to use the other one and keep this one as a spare.

It does make me wonder about the provenance of this, it’s marked as being made by MORSE in the USA, and has a morse part number on it, but the quality and finish seem a bit rough and ready compared with the countrose one I bought in the UK.
So could this be a ‘knock off’ cheap Asian counterfeit, or possibly as is more and more common, Morse now subcontract the production of their bearings to an Asian company. I would think it’s come from the same source as the one it is replacing, also bought and fitted in Malaysia a year ago, so I’m no worse off. I will have a look at them when we reach the shores of North America and ‘compare and contrast’

Other techie news, I bought a new PSU for the macbook air and that’s solved my charging problems, Apple now have another £60 to hide away somewhere offshore 😉 but I’m made up, what with a brand new replacement iPhone that charges quickly and takes brilliant pics, I’m feeling properly tooled up (IT wise) again. However WhatsApp is weird with new phones, and deleted all my history, which is a pain.

We have just had a load of fighter jets fly over us, the Singapore military have a base directly over the Johor strait from us, less than a mile, and every few days they make their presence felt with an air display, or a display of firepower.

Paul Collister