1:26.90N  103:41.91E

Saturday 16th October 2010

Thank goodness we made an early start at 8am.  We had a rough idea where to get off the bus to find the terminal building to cross the border, but on enquiring with a fellow passenger as we alighted, he told us to follow him as he was going the same way to meet a friend.  This guy (introduced himself as Mani) was a true present sent from heaven it turned out!  We got to the passport control, and both Ollie and I were given a strange look, and asked where we had come from. It suddenly dawned on me that we had not checkd into Malaysia yet, as we had arrived too late the night before, and the immigration department had been shut! 

Mani and Valerie waiting for a bus at the fery terminal

We were carted off to the immigration office, Mani followed us, realising that he might be helpful, in fact he spoke better English than the immigration officers, so it was very kind of him.  The officials got their boss to come and explain to us that we had to get our passports stamped at the ferry terminal, as they did not have the correct one at their control office, but first we would have to get the crew list to show them that we had indeed just arrived from Indonesia on board a yacht!  So back to the marina we went, and Mani came too, so that he could show us where to get our passports stamped.  We couldn’t believe he would give us so much of his time. ‘ Don’t worry’, he said,’ if I help you, somebody else will help me later.  I was only going to see a friend in Singapore to ask him is he could find me a job there.  I can go again tomorrow, to do that, so today I will stay with you to help you out’.

Ollie showed him round the boat whilst I sorted out the papers, and completely forgot to tell him about the sticky glue rat trap – which he promptly put his foot straight into!  Then put his foot down on the carpet and got stuck to that!  At the same moment, David came back on board with a friend, having just bought three heavy duty house batteries to replace those which had given up the ghost in our battery bank.  Chaos reigned!  I pannicked looking for some solvent to get the sticky glue off with whilst David was wondering what the hell was going on, why were we back etc....? it was like something out of a farce for a short while!

So it took us until 1 p.m. finally to get to the ferry terminal, find out where to get our passports stamped, wait for a bus back to the bus terminal and back through immigration again.  We most definately would not have done all that without our acquired guide, Many!  He was starving by the time we arrived in Old Singapore, refusing to eat until we arrived, and he hadn’t even had breakfast poor thing!

We opted for an air conditioned Chinese restaurant, which was just great, as so many Chinese eat out at the week-end with all their family, the place was buzzing, and the food was simply delicious!  Ollie was in heaven being able to indulge in the most delicious pork dumplings which he’d not had since Chinatown in London.  But we nearly ended up having to do the dishes, as neither of us had exchanged enough money into Singapore Dollars to pay for it, and neither of our cards would work in their machines.  Mani took Ollie off to find an ATM whilst I waited, and thank goodness, he managed to get some cash!

Colourful Portuguese style town houses in Old Singapore

The shaded arcades were a delight to walk through during the heat of the day

Double Deckers get about don’t they?

In

The temple in Little India, Singapore

The Aladin’s cave effect in the Indian Festival of Light market, Deepavali

It was so exciting being part of the buzz and the noise of the Festival of Light, Divali, after the quiet backwaters of Indonesia we had been visiting

We walked to the nearest Metro station, and found our way to the Raffles Plaza, buying an’oyster’ type card with a chip in it, which you put back in the similar machine that you buy it from, at the end of your journey, and get a dollar refund – great idea.  Not only is the metro beautifully clean and air conditioned, but also has the same ladies voice as we have in London:  ‘Mind the step’, but then a funny little jingle :  ‘Enjoy your trip’, and every so often, it says:’ If you find that someone looks suspicious, please ring the alarm bell’, and there’s a poster saying the same thing, only the suspicious character is wearing a bowler hat!

Air conditioned underground, what luxury!

Well it was time for sundowners when we got into the beautiful colonial Raffles building so felt we had to have the famous Singapore Sling to quench our thirst after delighting in a tour of the building, including the ballroom all decked out for a wedding reception.

Courtyard behind Raffles bar

The barman did a great job of offering me his own concoction with a bit of Rum from Martinique, which was just delicious, or maybe it was his smile?

but we didn’t dare have more than one drink each, at 21Sing $ a time!  We walked everywhere else to make up for it!

The modern Singapore skyline beckoned, and we walked to the Marina Quay area, where the big Ferris wheel and some most unusual buildings were, to watch the sun go down and the lights come on, reflecting into the harbour

I sat on the steps with Mani and watched, whilst eagles soared above, to catch their last fish.  Ollie took a walk over to the most amazing helix bridge leading to the Art and Science museum is built within a stainless steel lotus flower, close to three buildings joined at the top with a long boat, which is in fact a huge Marina sands sky park, which is longer than the Eifel tower lying on it’s side with copious amounts of bars and restaurants and pools, surrounded by gardens giving a bird’s eye view of Singapore.  We’ll have to do that another time.

Pedestrian  helix bridge to the Science Museum

Skyline Hotel with the long boat containing a park and restaurant on top

And  Lotus flower Science Museum

A show of lights included these Helium inflated jellyfish

Origami tigers lit up to show the modern and old can come together in harmony

The ‘Merlion’ guarding Singapore waters

Siamese dance show in front of the Lotus Flower Science Museum

A walk over the bridge to see the Merlion and back and watching the Thai dancing show at the podium on the waters edge, gave us just enough time to enjoy a little snack at the ‘Hawkers’ Food stalls nearby, before heading back so as not to miss the last bus back to the marina at 11p.m.!

Watching people in the food court eating so many kinds of food, and the whaft of all those oriental spices and sauces makes one just feel so hungry!

Thanks to our friend Mani,  we were able to find the metro to the right stop to catch a bus back to the border terminal again, and thence the bus back to the marina by 11p.m., safe and sound. 

Meanwhile, poor David was already in bed. He’d had a very disappointing day, not being able to get the generator to function any better with the new batteries he had just bought.  He spent all day working on the boat in all that heat with no A/C whilst Ollie and I had enjoyed a great day out.

Next day, however, another yachtie neighbour told us about a very good engineer on our dock, who was about to leave, but had to stay one more day.  What a bit of luck that was!  His name was George, and he came on board immediately, David had not even had time to have a wash and shave!  They spent all day analysing the problems that David had had, and worked out a solution to get our engine alternator to charge our batteries again,  Hurrah!

That had not been working since beforwe we’d left our boat in Sydney 4 years ago, and three other engineers had not been able to solve the problem, but George did! 

So now we can continue our trip back to Phuket with an easier mind, knowing that we have a Generator that starts properly (George fixed that too) and an alternator that’s working!  We should be arriving in Langkawi, which is on the border with Thailand in about 7 days time. 

Captain’s log:

Saturday 16th October 2010

No water or electricity on the dock which we had hoped for to run the air conditioning, marina in a very unfinished state, but IT'S FREE!! Spent day changing Fuel filters, watermaker filters, bought and fitted new starter batteries for the engine & Generator. Gave everything a check over.  Discovered we could not but fuel here! Valerie & Ollie went to Singapore for the day. Made contact with Puteri Harbour Marina about 5 miles south from here where we could buy fuel. Discovered that we had had a rat onboard two locker doors have been chewed. First time in all the years we have been cruising.

Sunday 17th October 2010

0700 woke up to find that we had another visit from Mr. Rat!!  Generator would not start after buying the new batteries - feeling a bit low.  Meet George a Canadian engineer, we ended up working all day on the boat and managed to get the engine alternator to work for the first time since Townsville!!!! It was a combination of about 4 problems.  Also the bad starting on the generator - poor connection on the ground side - I must have cleaned the connections on the positive side about 4 times, just did not think to look at the ground side - how dumb can you get?  Also looked at the A/C driven fridge, George confirmed my fears that the compressor has failed so will need to install a new one, still we have the engine driven refrigeration so not too much of a problem.  Hopefully with the engine charging now we will only have to run the generator every 2 or 3 days to make water instead of 2 or 3 times a day. Feeling a lot better about the boat.

Monday 18th October 2010

Waved goodbye to George who left early this morning. Ran engine to pull down the fridges and charge the batteries and guess what the alternator has stopped charging - what a bugger so we're back to running the generator again.  Went to customs, immigration etc to check into Malaysia all very painless.