Crossing the Singapore Straits

Jackamy
Paul & Derry Harper
Sat 20 Nov 2010 08:50
01:15.907N 103:48.755E
 
Saturday 20th November
 
 
Paul was up bright and early to check us out whilst we prepared the boat to leave. Today was going to be Amy's day to shine. She was setting the route, taking us out the berth and marina, across the busy Strait and berthing us in Singapore, all for the first time. It didn't start well as she couldn't turn the chart plotter on and wondered what on earth she was doing wrong. When Paul returned expecting to leave that minute, Amy broke the bad news - the brand new chart plotter is broken! He was furious but decided to leave anyway and stick very close to the other yachts who were leaving as well, we'd deal with the problem later. The reason for the urgency was to get over to Singapore as early as possible so that Amanda could see as much as she could before she flew home that evening.
 
Once out the marina we teamed up with Aspen as we knew they could transmit and receive AIS, meaning they'd be able to see all the big boats and where they were going and the big boats would be able to see them. Something we deemed very important when crossing the world's busiest waterway, the Singapore Straits! Soon after leaving the marina Aspen called up one tanker who was heading straight for us, Steve asked that we pass port-to-port, no answer, he called again, no answer, he called again, the response was "Where are you? I can't see a ship". Just what you need! And that was with AIS!
 
The sky became darker and darker as the weather took a turn for the worse, a huge storm was on it's way. The only positive about this was that we were lucky enough to see a waterspout only a short distance away. Incredible! As we neared the shipping lanes though the weather and visibility became an important issue. If we were going to have to dodge in between these 600ft long ships we need to be able to see them!
 
When we reached the waypoint scheduling the spot at which we should cross the shipping lanes at a 90 degree angle we made sure we were very close to Aspen so that any dangerous targets would show up on their AIS. We waited for one tanker to pass in front, only 0.2 miles away and then we made a run for it before the next one came bearing down, they're moving quicker than they appear to be. Now we're in the middle of the channel and suddenly realise that we're on a collision course with a cargo ship to our port. Instead of trying to make it in front of him we turned and passed starboard-to-starboard and nipped across to "safety" as soon as he'd passed. It wasn't over yet though! As we rounded an island to make the 4-5 mile journey up to Keppel Bay Marina about 45 tankers and cargo ships were at anchor. We managed to stick close to the islands and make our way up through a channel, the same as the very quick moving ferries who weren't afraid to come within a few metres of us!
 
  
 
Sticking close to Aspen..............Busy shipping channels
 
  
 
Passing 0.2 miles ahead............That's what we like to see, moving away from us!
 
  
 
 
 
Eventually after a very busy morning we made it Keppel Bay Marina - first impressions - excellent! The brand new marina is adjacent to some very swish looking sky-risers that are in development and some new apartments, it's all very nice. The staff continuously communicated on the radio and were waiting in the torrential rain to catch our lines and guide us in to the quarantine berth. Paul hopped ashore for a few minutes into their state of the art immigration booth and we were off again to make our way to our berth, where we will be the very first users on a brand new pontoon. Again the staff were waiting to assist us with our lines. So far so good!