Crossing a motorway on our hands and knees
Casamara
John & Susan Simpson
Thu 4 Sep 2025 04:48
| We are very grateful to Au Wei, the rigger from Pangkor Marina. He and three of his guys drove 7 hours (nearly 600kms) on a bank holiday from Pangkor in northern Malaysia to reach us in Puteri Harbour in the south. They then waited 2 hours for rain to stop before spending 5 hours troubleshooting and fixing Casamara’s rig issue, before finally driving home again. We established that the turnbuckle within the outer forestay had come undone when we let the Genoa out, which caused the forestay to come loose and then to twist when we rolled the sail away again. They made us a new forestay and secured the turnbuckle on the outer forestay. A quick check on the inner forestay revealed that the same thing was about to happen there too!! (gulp!!), so it was good to have discovered that in time. The rig was then retuned and is now looking strong again. Although it wasn’t a great start to this year’s journey, we are thankful that the issue happened where it did and not part way across the Indian Ocean. With Casamara ready to go again, we completed the procedures for checking out of Malaysia. Our passage from Puteri Harbour in southern Malaysia to Batam in Indonesia was only 45 miles but skirted Singapore waters and involved crossing one of the busiest shipping waterways in the world. Singapore is known as one of the world’s safest countries and they’re serious about marine security. On our way up the Johor Strait between Malaysia and Singapore we’d been questioned by a Singapore Police boat. Where had we come from? Where were we going? We were told in no uncertain terms to make sure to keep to the Malaysian side of the river. We were picked up on our way back down the river again, this time by a small Singaporean warship. They didn’t speak to us but steamed quickly towards us, circled behind and escorted us for a number of miles. A Police boat later took up the mantle and accompanied us as we edged around the Singapore waters boundary marked on the chart, making sure not to stray the wrong side of the line. We were relieved to leave the surveillance behind once we’d passed Singapore. Our chart plotter screen as we skirted Singapore The next challenge was to cross the Singapore Strait to Indonesia on the other side. Up to 3,000 commercial ships a day pass through this seaway, which is only 3 miles wide at its narrowest point. The Strait is divided into vessel separation zones so that all East-Westbound shipping is trundling together one way and all West-Eastbound ships are together going the other. In order to get across we have to judge when there’s a suitable gap in both lanes and then make a beeline straight across to the other side as fast as possible. The relentless march of big ships travelling much faster than we can manage makes it feel a bit like trying to cross a busy motorway on your hands and knees! Dare we cross yet? Anyway, we made it safely across and we are now tied up in Nongsa Point Marina in Batam, Indonesia. Once we’ve completed the check in process we’ll be on our way south through the Indonesian archipelago to Jakarta. Casamara at Nongsa Point Marina |