Jackamy - Port Klang, Malaysia

Port Klang, Malaysia

Jackamy

Paul & Derry Harper

Sat 27 Nov 2010 04:15

02:59.824N 102:22.776E

Saturday 27th November

The next stage of our journey was expected to be challenging due to the big ships, the little boats, fishing nets, fishing stakes and the masses of debris floating around - all in the Malacca Straits!!!! We'd been advised not to sail through the night here due to the likelihood of getting caught up with fishing nets and/or hitting a floating tree trunk, but that just isn't realistic. The only option to anchor between Singapore and our undecided port to check in to Malaysia came and went within a couple of hours of leaving Singapore and it just didn't seem right to stop so soon. We were sailing with Blue Magic and Bionic and as we'd had to manouvre around fishing stakes and boats in daylight we decided it would be best to travel along the very edge of the shipping lanes running up through the straits. Our plan worked and we had no problems, a least not with fishing lines anyway but the big boats were passing us very close by. The reason for so much indecision about where we would be stopping next was because of so many mixed reports about ports in Malaysia. Our first option was to visit Malacca, but this involved anchoring some 6 miles away at a group of islands and dinghying across - not the best idea. Our second option was to head into Port Dickinson, clear in and possibly venture into Kuala Lumpur, however, the marina could not accommodate us and we were strongly advised not to use the anchorage. Ok, decision made, our third option, make our way up the river to Port Klang, Malaysia's main seaport.

Follow these 4 pictures from the top left to the bottom right, these were taken on our starboard side from the stern to bow. How many boats can you see? We had to make our way through hundreds of tankers, cargo ships and tugs, most at anchor but others were mooching around in between

2 tugs during the day......and again as night falls

How would you fancy him bearing down on you doing 18 knots!!!

As we made our way up the river we were faced with stark contrasts. For the majority of the two hour journey up to Port Klang, the eastern side was a mass of tankers alongside the hard loading and unloading their precious cargo of fuel, grain, cars and whatever else these big beasts carry. Then as we ventured further up we we noticed houses built on stilts over the water to our port. So here to our right we have million pound businesses conducting their daily routine of transporting goods and on the other there are families struggling to make ends meet living in houses that appear as if they could fall down at any minute.

The tide was ripping down the river as we came to moor up onto a floating pontoon, there was no room for manouvering, we just had to drive straight at the pontoon and get some lines on. The current was so strong and with it came masses of debris. The waters in this part of the world have been disgusting, poor Jack hasn't managed to have a swim yet! A free water taxi came over from the Royal Selangor Yacht Club to ferry us over to the other side to complete the check in procedure. The first stage, checking in at the marina went smoothly but then things got a little more difficult as we set off in search of customs and the naval base with a very basic not to scale map. The short road into town actually turned out to be quite long, particularly in the blistering midday heat and to make matters worse the locals wanted to help but consistently sent us in the wrong direction, we think to save face if they didn't know where we were after. We eventually found the customs and immigration tucked around a corner in the ferry terminal. One thing that we noticed immediately was that the women were covered from head to toe, with head scarves on, long sleeved tops and trousers, this must be a very Muslim town. We felt all eyes on us and very under dressed!