Location Report - Singapore
Sea Mist > Sold to New Owners July 2016
John and Cheryl Ellsworth
Mon 22 Oct 2012 14:07
Well it has been a bit of a struggle for a few days....to sum it all up.
First of all, as we were leaving Borneo, our friends had miserable colds....and it seems that we managed to contract the same bug because enroute from Borneo to Belitung, John came down with a mess of a head/chest cold with chills and fever....and then when it was starting to wane for him, Cheryl to into a strong case of chest cough/cold.....and then John recontracted the mess and joined in the chest cough/cold. That has carried on til present day as we arrived in Singapore early afternoon today. Our punishment for being ill was to waste 5 days at the marina at Nongsa Point.....just buried below deck on-board vegetating in the air-conditioned environment....thank goodness for having 3 air-con units on Sea Mist....it has been impossibly HOT...and HUMID..all the time ...since we made that dramatic changeover from Dry season to Monsoon/Wet season....it rains every day...A LOT...and when not raining...it is HUMID....and HOT!!!
Not to complain but not quite our preferable cup of tea. Anyway, we were scheduled to move across from Indonesia (Nongsa Point) to Singapore (ONE15 Marina) today, Oct 22nd, so we made it happen and got across the busy Singapore Strait and into the TOTALLY FULL marina in the heart of Singapore. Now there were a few essential hurdles that had to be jumped:
- yesterday, Nongsa Marina handled our clearance OUT OF INDONESIA....made it invisible and easy for us...TOTALLY...could not have been better!!!
- today, we made a stop at the Western Immigration on-water anchorage locationa and a Singapore Immigration vessel came by and after a lot of paper moved between the 2 vessels .... a few official boat stamps...some additional signatures...we were cleared for entry
-we then advanced another couple of miles to enter the ONE15 Marina and all of that tie up/mooring went smoothly
- next was about 30-45 minutes of marina paperwork processing to officially handle our mooring at the Marina Club (really a "members club" with the rare odd opportunity for a transient vessel to take a berth that is vacant for a short term (this is where we were really LUCKY when we got the reservation here a couple of weeks ago...VERY LUCKY!!!....the marina did not have a single open berth except for the one we tied up at when we arrived today......260 Berths...FULL....and the facility is only 5 years old.....demand has far exceeded capacity. Great business for a Singaporean wealthy individual who just has this marina/resort complex as a "leisure hobby"....as described to me by one of his senior managers on site.
-Then....I had to go into Singapore central business area this afternoon to visit what is called the "One Stop Document Center" where I needed to take care of all aspects of Sea Mist entering the Republic Of Singapore (aside from the immigration clearance for Sea Mist's crew which had been handled "on-water"). Singapore is a BIG city (5.3 million residents)...with a most impressive public transit system(s)...and to accomplish my task, I had to use a marina shuttle bus, a taxi, another city bus, 2 or 3 subway lines, another bus .... and I was back "home" .... 5 hours later...but I should add: I got Cheryl's camera into the Nikon Service Center for an urgent critical repair to be done over coming days (there was an mishap with the camera back when we visited the Komodo Dragons and it has not been in working order since); got voice sim cards for our 2 phones for the next 10 days, I got a Broadband prepaid wifi sim card to handle internet beginning tomorrow....and I found an ATM
to get some local currency.....so not just the "One Stop Document Center" on this first excursion for me into this huge and complex city.
Great roast beef tenderloin dinner on-board Sea Mist when I got back: as poor as Cheryl was feeling, she outdid herself with a great salad starter and a main course to die for....so after a bottle of Shiraz, we are going to call it quits and see how we do on our 2nd day in SG.
Cheers, the Seamisters (connecting via Sat Phone for the moment>>>hopefully a decent internet connection tomorrow????)