Escape From Singapore

Across the Singapore Strait. More traffic in 13nm than I expect to see in the next 13000.

We're at Nongsa Point Marina, Batam, Indonesia, just across the Singapore Strait from Singapore. Nongsa is luxurious. It's  quiet and laid back and a nice resort is associated with the marina. All the amenities are here including a lovely pool and good restaurant where prices are a lot more reasonable than a few miles across the strait. It's a good start on the decompression from Singapore.

Nongsa Point Marina, Batam, Indonesia

And ok, ok, Singapore isn't that bad. Of course it's one of the most modern and well organized cities in the world. And one of the most closely governed. Lets just call it a dictatorship, well concealed. Some people love it and I used to think of it as a favorite layover. However, it's gotten to be a lot more expensive and congested and it often seems like one giant construction zone. 

Lunch in Little India

 We had left Keppel Marina for One15 Marina and we were berthed at One15 until coming  here. One15 is where we wanted to be in SIN all along but couldn't get a berth. It is a beautiful marina with the very best of facilities, probably the best marina in the orient. We stayed there a couple years ago and enjoyed the stay. Now they have a large and very excellent grocery at the marina (Cold Storage) that has about any western goodie you could want. Yes Tigs, they have Oreos! And, with all that, it's cheaper than Raffles or Keppel. That's why berths are hard to come by.

The pool, One15 Marina, Singapore

Our nephew, Scott DeVries, arrived from Denver on the 2nd after good flights in World Business Class (first class) on Delta. Us old retired pukes do still have some perks available. He's twenty four and just graduated from college and his recovery time for the trip and time zones seemed to be instant. Ah, youth!  He's never been to the orient and never sailed beyond an afternoon in small craft. We spent a couple days showing him around Singapore and now he's, quite literally, learning the ropes on this boat.

Across the Straits

We took a little trip by hotel van into the city of Nagoya (yep, Nagoya, Indonesia, not Japan) yesterday and got a sim card for the computer and a cheap cell phone for use in country. Also found, after a long search of an area consisting mostly of massage parlors and machine shops, a place where they can actually replace a damaged zipper on our dodger canvas. This is one of those unexpected small miracles which can make your day out here. Nagoya is crowded, chaotic, congested and rather a mess. It's a typical large Indonesian city but I am reminded that I like the Indonesian people very much. Even in a place like Nagoya, given half a chance, they are very sweet.

Ready to go aloft

So we'll be here until early morning on the 9th when we plan to shove off for Belitung. Should be about a four or five day trip back to the place we liked very much coming this way. We'll check out of Indonesia there. Please check our positions on either Shiptrak  http://www.shiptrak.org/  or Pangolin   http://www.pangolin.co.nz/yotreps_reporting_boat_list   using ki6ike as our call sign.

Love to all,
Bill, Janet and Scott

Interlude in Singapore

We've been marina hopping in Singapore. Our first choice of posh marinas has always been 115 Marina but at present they are "fully booked". So we arrived at Raffles Marina and checked in there from Malaysia. There's no good reason not to like Raffles but we just didn't care for the place itself. Janet says the 'vibe' is off and I couldn't come up with a better explanation. When you add to that the isolation of the marina, you have to take a twenty minute bus ride to get to the MRT (the Singapore subway) and then ride the MRT for at least half an hour to get anywhere you might want to go, and the fact that there's no store of any kind at the marina, it's pretty inconvenient. There is a nice pool and a gym of sorts and probably the best yacht chandlery in Singapore (still not all that great) but for us it didn't add up.

Raffles Marina

 So when we got an opening at Keppel Bay Marina we switched. Keppel is on the other side of the island and has really excellent access to the city. It's part of a very posh development and includes some of the most spectacular high rise architecture in the world. It's very well organized and the 'vibe' is friendly and efficient. True, there's no pool and no gym but the facilities are excellent and the atmosphere is quiet and easy going, especially by Singapore standards.

The Marina at Keppel Bay

Now we have a reservation for 115 Marina beginning the 30th and that's where all the goodies fall into place. If we've got to spend a fair chunk of change to be in a marina it may as well have it all and 115 does. Nice pool, good gym, great facilities, big 7-11 on the property, excellent access to the city, etc, etc. The only drawback is the very urban atmosphere but the marina itself is quiet and peaceful.

Most of the boat stuff is done and the boat is in good shape. I'm a little amazed at my very short "to do" list. I only hope it holds.

The Marina Bay Sands complex

Singapore is as flashy as ever in the flashy parts of town and Little India and Arab Town are as interesting as ever. The whole city is the most incredibly landscaped and vegetated urban environment. Much of that element is truly beautiful. Of course much of the city is high rise, very high density, public housing which is not appealing in itself but is still very well kept and squeaky clean. My understanding is that everyone who lives in this housing has to purchase their property. The purchase and selling arrangements are very carefully controlled but everyone does own their place and that probably has a lot to do with the success of these housing arrangements.

We went to the Jurong Bird Park on Janet's birthday where a Yellow Napped Amazon Parrot sang happy birthday to her in English. The bird park, along with the Singapore zoo, may be the best in the world.

All in all we've been to Singapore too often over the years of flying and now sailing. It's the perfect example of the "interesting place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there." We're waiting for my nephew Scott to show up on the 1st of August and within a few days after that we'll be outta here. Janet is still hoping some other friend will decide to crew with us and she can avoid doing this passage she dreads. We still have a few guys considering the idea. Anybody interested in a little Indian Ocean crossing?

Janet in her "spot".

Love to all,
Bill & Janet
S/V Airstream

Down The Straits of Malacca

We're now at Admiralty Marina, Port Dickson, Malaysia, a lovely place.  It's tropically  hot and humid. There are morning thunderstorms daily but it cools down enough at night to sleep comfortably on the boat.

Calm in the straits

In Rebak we found Airstream in pretty good condition considering it had been out of the water in the tropics for several months. No big trauma suffered. We used a nice night in the hotel at Rebak as a re-entry vehicle and launched the boat next afternoon.  Three days later we had completed enough prep to head south with reasonable confidence so we said a sad good bye to Peter and Misty of 'Tamoure' and a few other friends and slipped out early for Penang. Rebak has always been a very nice place and Noel of Yacht Services is  great.

Typical Malay trawler

Everything worked pretty much as advertised on the seventy mile motor down to Straits Quay Marina in Penang. No wind of course. Didn't tangle any trash or discarded fishing gear in the prop and had no problems getting into the shallow marina entrance at high tide.

Airstream at Straits Quay Marina

Straits Quay is a new marina in Penang and surrounded by a very posh housing and retail development. This isn't what comes to mind when I think of SE Asia. Think 'Singapore' and you'll be a lot closer. The Tanjong City Marina where we stayed a couple years ago has pretty much fallen apart from neglect. Now that seems familiar.

Tim & Ruth, Happy Anniversary!

We spent several nights socializing with Tim and Ruthie of 'Victory Cat' who are living aboard at the marina while Tim works for Honeywell as a little break from his second retirement. We even helped celebrate their 31st anniversary at a very nice restaurant. Ken and Audrey of 'Fast Forward' were there to enjoy as well. I got the new AIS transponder installed with only the usual cussing and deleted expletives.

Favorite Buddhist temple, George Town

  We spent a day tramping around George Town which is what Singapore's Little India and China Town were like 25 years ago. So after three days it was goodbye to friends again, definitely the saddest part of this life, and we shoved off for an overnight passage down to Port Dickson.

Ken & Audrey, Fast Forward is for sale folks!

You just can't expect any wind in the straits during the SW monsoon and what you do get will be out of the south. So, as expected, it was a motor boat job again all the way to Port Dickson. At least it was pretty much flat calm most of the trip. We dodged fishing boats and a few freighters, many, many freighters anchored off Port Klang, and got back into a little of the swing of night watches and being at sea. The AIS works great and is a really nice adjunct to radar. Now if there were  some way to detect prop fouling trash on the course ahead life would be just super ducky.

Motoring out of Penang

As it was we had no problems getting into Admiralty Marina which is even nicer than before with new docks and accessories. Barry and Maggs of 'JJ Moon' came in next day and we'll be circling in the same circles for the next few months, maybe all the way to South Africa, which will be fun. Janet and I took a day trip into the historic old city of Melaka which was the originally colonized outpost in the straits. First the Chinese forced their way in to trade, then the Portuguese in 1511, then the Dutch drove out the Portuguese, then the Brits drove out the Dutch, etc, etc. Melaka sits on a small river on an essentially featureless stretch of jungle coastline. It's a boggling to think of western Europeans sailing half way around the world in crummy ships with almost no charts or nav aids to come to this tiny disease ridden spot willing fight to the death to trade for spices.

The oldest Mosque in Malaysia. Melaka.

 The old town of Melaka is worth a visit for the architecture and cross cultural history. The new city is booming and modern. Another Penang in the making.

"You will live to be 94 years old, you have only one wife..."

So my boat jobs list is pretty short and is best finished off in Singapore. We're in pleasant surroundings here at Admiralty. Janet says she's " coming to grips" with being back on the boat. Whatta girl! Tomorrow we'll go into town and do the check out formalities to leave Malaysia. The 4th we'll depart on an overnighter bound for Raffles Marina in Singapore. To coin a phrase, "the good lord willing and the creek don't rise",  we'll be there the afternoon of the 5th.

Love to all,
Bill & Janet

Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Mauritius

Not even close to Mauritius. It's the 2nd of March and I'm with the boat at Rebak Marina in Langkawi, Malaysia. John, Booth and Danny left from here a few days ago and today I believe they departed Singapore for the USA. We had a good time together but we didn't do the voyage we planned.

Departing Phuket

So what the hell happened, as in "stuff" happens? No wind is what happened.  Before departure we got a final forecast from Commanders Weather and it looked pretty light across the Andaman Sea and the NE Indian Ocean but there was no reason not to give it a try and see what progress could be made. Maybe something would fill in and we'd be able to sail. So we departed with the tide about 1100 on the 22nd. We did a sea trial commissioning of the new auto pilot course computer and it went perfectly. We met up with Shilling who was heading north into the gulf and tossed them a can opener as a parting gift. It will be too long till we see them again.

Nice catch Dennis! Dennis and Janet, Shilling of Hamble.

 We had a nice little onshore breeze and sailed down the Phang Nga Gulf until bearing off to the SW into the Andaman Sea. And the wind died and never came back. So we motored two hundred miles out to the SW. At the end of the second day I got ahold of Commander's by SAT phone and got an updated forecast. The gist of it being there was no wind and no wind was forecast for at least the next week into our voyage. We were carrying twice as much fuel as I've ever carried before but that still gave us only about nine hundred miles range and it looked like that would not get us close to where any wind might come up, or might not, over the next couple weeks. Bummer. We wouldn't have enough fuel to get to the Chagos (and there's no fuel in the Chagos)  much less anywhere else. I know it's a sailboat but that little Yanmar diesel is pretty handy sometimes, like when there's no wind and the current is taking you somewhere you really don't want to go. 

TRW over the Andaman Sea. Flat calm.

So after a long hard think it seemed the only reasonable thing to do was to turn back. And since IMHO Langkawi is a much nicer place than Phuket for anything but boat work and massage we headed for Rebak Marina in Langkawi which was two hundred and forty eight miles to the SE when we made the turn. With the exception of a few hours of light wind from the NE we motored the entire way back in very, very flat calm conditions. Never before have I seen so little wind and sea over such a broad area. Arrival in Rebak was uneventful except that Glenn and Marilyn  from Tin Soldier were there to take our lines. They had arrived a few hours earlier from up in the gulf.

Cooling off at sea.

The decision has proved to be the right one over the past several days. The various forms of weather info available all show there's still no wind out there until the final couple hundred miles to the Mauritius and even that is fluky. The weather here has been nearly calm winds with thunderstorms in the late afternoon and night. It seems the transition to the SW monsoon is early this year and that's what caught us. A couple boats that headed for Sri Lanka a few days ago are bobbing around out there whining about no wind.

Steve, toughing it out at Rebak

So now the question is what to do next.

Heading SW across the Andaman Sea isn't going to be possible now. The next way to go west would be to go back down through the Straits of Malacca to Singapore and then back into Indonesia along the east side of Sumatra. Then we could exit the Java Sea through the Sunda Strait between Sumatra and Java and head west in the SE trades to Cocos Keeling Island and then on to Mauritius. We wouldn't want to exit the strait until May or June. And September might be best.

We could stay in SE Asia another year and do the Similans and Surins and some other islands we haven't seen yet. We could do some land travel in Myanmar. Then we could head west next year.

We could head east up into the Gulf of Thailand and the east coast of the Malay Peninsula.

Maybe our pirate friends will out of business by the time another year has passed  and it would again be feasible to go up into the Med as we had originally planned.

The Hard Dock Cafe, Rebak

For now I'm hauling the boat and putting it on the hard here at Rebak on the 5th. I'll catch a flight to Singapore on the 6th and should be home on the 7th of March. It's been a very nice time here at Rebak. Good friends from Baraka, Tin Soldier, Scarlet O'Hara, Tamoure and others are here and the socializing has been excellent. Rebak itself is the nicest of places. But it is lonely here without Janet and I'm heading home for  a few months at least. Please stay tuned. We'll let you know how the "plan" evolves.

Love to all,

Bill