Just a quick post, I have a very poor 3g connection here at anchor at P. Pisang. But I got here just fine, and settled in, in time to watch the sunset, I didn’t notice the sunrise, I was busy trying to get the mainsail up, and get going. Up at 6:30 am, left at 7:30, arrived here at 6:30 pm, motored all the way as the wind dropped as soon as I left the anchorage.
I’m in a lovely spot here, again a bit rolly, but very calm and well protected. Just a short (6 hour short) motor up the Johor Strait, between Malaysia and Johor in the morning then I will be in the Marina at Puteri. I’m going to see about getting the cutless bearing replaced while I’m there, if it’s possible. It was fine all day, but it’s not right, and it worries me that it will fail catastrophically at a bad time. 
So today I travelled alongside the main shipping lanes of the Malacca Straits, they are separated into North bound and Southbound lanes, called a traffic separation zone, just like a dual carriageway, except it’s all virtual, theres no barriers or lines on the sea, not like the one they have at the equator ;-), which I am now only 1.5 degrees north of. I travelled right on the edge for a while, I had hoped to be impressed, but it turns out it’s just a long procession of ships that all look much alike, chugging along. Don’t know what I was expecting. This is also the most pirated area in the world, but they don’t seem to bother with little fish like me.
So I realised, a bit too late that I should have openCPN running with the AIS targets so I could see what was going on, after a bit of flapping around I got it all to work. This is a free piece of open software that does away with the need for dedicated very expensive ‘marine’ plotters, and runs on consumer devices like tablets and laptops. Unfortunately these devices don’t work so well in bright sunshine or when doused in a big wave, but for free, and if used carefully are fantastic. I have some screen shots, but I can’t upload them and I have run out of time, if I don’t start on the squid prep now, I will lose interest, and they will go off.
Paul Colister