Serenity of Swanwick - Across the South China Sea 03:13.14N, 106:13.17E

Across the South China Sea 03:13.14N, 106:13.17E

Serenity of Swanwick

Phil and Sarah Tadd

Tue 11 Jun 2024 06:26

Clearing out from Terengganu was pretty painless. We had been told that the company acting as agents would bring our clearance documents and passports to us and we could then leave but this was not the case. Immigration decided that they had to see us in person and scan our finger prints (normally done when clearing in only) so we had to be taken to their airport office for this to happen. The agents organised a minibus and it took a short time to clear four yachts. We then did a final shopping trip and we were ready to go. You normally have to leave the country within 12 hours of doing clearance, sometimes less but really no one checks up. We left Terengganu quite quickly and headed for Kapas the first island to the south for an overnight stop. We had decided to go south as far as Chukai before heading East to the Anambas Islands, and this would give us a more favourable angle on the wind and hopefully less need to motor or take long tacks. If anyone had questioned us stopping in Malaysian waters we would have claimed that for safety it was necessary due the chance of getting caught in fishing gear if we sailed at night down this coast.

The route we chose to take from Terengganu to Anambas

It was only a short distance to Kapas and after clearing the harbour we hoisted sails, stopped the engine and enjoyed the windward sail down there. Phil noticed that the leeward shrouds (wires that hold the mast up) were rather slack and needed tightening. Most of our sailing since we had the rigging replaced in Australia had been off the wind or only sailing to windward in light airs. Rigging needs time to stretch and settle in, after which it needs a bit of tightening and this was now needed. A turn was taken on the adjusting screws when we were anchored for the night.

The next days sail down to Chukai was again to windward, the apparent wind blowing to over 20knots. We had set out with one reef in the main and for comfort and to maintain a good heading, minimising leeway, we soon put in a second one. These conditions showed up the remaining slackness in the rigging and in Chukai another 2-3 turns were taken. This now appears to be about right.

So from Chukai 70 miles south of Terengganu we were ready to head for Anambas, 175 miles just south of east. We rested in Chukai for a day and Sabbatical II and Kaihanu arrived in the late afternoon giving us some company for the crossing.

As the slowest boat we set off in the very early hours, 05.00, flat calm as we motored down the fairway. Just after 10.00 the wind picked up and we managed to sail for 40 minutes, we then sailed when there was wind and motored when necessary, we managed to sail about a quarter of the passage. The one point of interest on this passage was in the afternoon when a survey vessel towing a long cable and accompanied by two tugs and a work boat showed up on AIS. They were going right across our path and requested that all vessels gave them clearance either side and ahead of 3 miles and 7 miles astern. Our 5 mile lead on Kaihanu was about to disappear, they made a small alteration in course and we had to make a major one!

The main shipping lane from China, Taiwan, Korea etc. to Singapore and the west had to be crossed.

At 03.00 we entered the major shipping and spent the next three hours carefully checking that we were clear of all the large ships going north and south through the South China Sea. All stayed clear of us and by 14.30 we were in Terempa, Anambas Islands, anchored and ready to carry out our clearance into Indonesia.

Beautiful mosque at the entrance to Terempa harbour.

We had paid Raymond, the organiser of Sail 2 Indonesia rally, 250US Dollars to organise our clearance into Indonesia and our Vessel Declaration paperwork. Although you can do this yourself using Raymond’s services means that you have an agent in the port ready to organise everything for you on your arrival. Our agent here was Iski. There were four boats to clear in and Iski came out with the Quarantine and Customs officers. He made sure that we had the correct paperwork at each stage, took us to the bank to pay for our visas and to the Immigration and Customs offices ashore. It was evening by the time we were finished but the offices had stayed open for us. Iski then sat us in local restaurant and ordered a selection of dishes for us to share while he copied the paperwork for the harbourmaster clearance. An excellent meal with a couple of cans of Bintang (the local beer) each, all at a cost of about £6 a head. Welcome to Wonderful Indonesia.