Graptolite - Pink in Klang
Graptolite's Sailing Log
Martyn Pickup & Heike Richter
Sat 20 Dec 2008 16:15
Saturday 20th December
The new parts for the steering system arrived and we sailed out of Singapore
on Thursday afternoon. There is no question in my mind that the shipping in
the Malacca Strait is heaviest anywhere in the world. This time though it
was more like walking up the hard-shoulder rather than crossing the
motorway. We arrived outside Port Klang last night and bobbed and weaved
through dozens of anchored and slow moving super tankers and anchored
ourselves near the harbour entrance until daylight. For you Old Colonials,
Port Klang used to be called Swettenham and is the port for Kuala Lumpur.
We had a bit of a treat this morning as we had a pod of Indo-Pacific
humpback dolphins playing around us. This species of dolphin are bright
pink, almost shocking pink. We saw some before in the dolphinarium at
Sentosa Island but never expected to see any wild ones.
The formalities clearing into Malaysia were the usual farce with the Port
Authority, Customs and Immigration all not understanding each others
paperwork. They were very friendly about it though and Customs drove us
around to various offices until they got their act together. I'm sure if I
had just unloaded a couple of hundred shipping containers stuffed full of
refugees and toxic waste it would have been a simpler process.
It now looks like Penang will be our Christmas destination with Langkawi
soon after and Phuket, Thailand for New Year.
M