Singapore to KK

Digiboat's "Product Testing"
Simon Blundell
Tue 20 Sep 2011 07:50
01°47.9838N  105°51.0613E
 
Tue 20/9 1430
 
Busy week stop over at Raffles Marina in Singapore to change the battery bank and embark the new Burmese crew. Evan rejoins after 9 months at home in his village, and Han Thaung the shipyard's gun varnisher who has quite some work to do onboard. Also joining are two Myanmar Sea Cadets, Win and Vickie, for their first onboard practical experience and training.
And Klara, the Czech dive instructor that sailed up with us from Indonesia has decided to sail to Borneo rather than fly!
 
A good couple of knots of friendly current helped us out and clear of Singapore into the China Sea last night. A light favourable breeze developed in the early hours so we did some sailing briefly, then motor-sailed till sunrise when the wind filled in some more. Been under full sail, including our "Monkey" which is somewhere between a mizzen staysail and mizzen spinnaker, in a variable 10-15kn just aft abeam but cruising nicely at around 7.5kn.
 
GRIB forecast is for similar wind conditions for next few days, by then we should be off the Sarawak coast and hoping for some land breeze to push us up to Sabah.
 
The three new Myanmar are a little off colour this morning and also been hit by, what I call, the Burmese Sleeping Sickness - if they stop for too long in one place they fall asleep. Anyway they are certainly not violently sick so suspect they are just adjusting and getting their sea-legs. But if they go more than two or three meals without rice I'll probably start to worry!
 
Evan, our 1st Mate, introduced Win to helming this morning. After a 30 minute stint on the wheel Evan realised he hadn't turned off the autopilot. Not sure if Win knows, but anyway a good way to build confidence I guess!
 
Towing a few fake rubber pink squids and hoping the fish are stupid enough to mistake these for food. Caught some big Spanish Mackerels on this leg last year so expecting some degree of success.
 
SJB