1:26.90N  103:41.91E

Friday 16th October

Across Singapore Strait to Danga Bay Marina, Malaysia

Ollie’s Blog:

It was quite a shock entering the Singapore straits, as we were suddenly confronted by civilisation and it was moving across our bow at 25kts and left us, mouths open in its wake. The contrast from the simple Indonesian village and the straits was immense, only five miles separated a completely first world society from the simple life of the Indonesians just across the water.

We took it slow going across  just to be on the safe side, you could say we were trying to avoid being a piece of china in a bull shop. Initially the crossing was very tense as there were huge cargo ships and bulk carriers coming from each side of us and weren’t worried about moving for our small vessel. With David doing a great job steering us through and Valerie and I keeping look out, we managed to cross the lanes and start going with the flow.

This is the crossing point on our chart.  All the red lines are cables, so invisible to us, its the green boxes which indicate the ships we were negotiating our path around.  We are the blue line with the red boat shape on the end.

We motored along at an incredible 8kts and sometimes hitting the 9kt mark as more by luck than judgement, we had the tide with us! Several enormous ships passsed us and really made us feel like the little fish in the big pond. Finally as we passed hundreds of boats laid up, that literally filled the entire horizon, we started to see the Singapore skyline. Unfortunately because it was so hazy we could not make out exactly what we were looking at, but we know that the buildings looked big!

Huge container ship that crossed our bows

A moments breather going down the inside lane, all those ships are at anchor behind us

All those green labels are Too many ships, we are the red thing at the end of the blue line on the AIS chart, trying to follow the red line, but constantly having to divert for traffic coming across our bows!

As we came round the island of Sentosa (the small island just off Singapore) and the straits started to open up,  we got a huge boost of wind and were able to sail all round the east side of the island, sometimes hitting 10kts, David says we probably averaged about 9kts which is amazing seeing as we normally average about 6.5kts. Again we were innundated with laid up ships waiting for work, there was almost every kind of carrier and cargo ship and almost all of them had a different nationality, really showing Singapore to be a truly multi national centre point in the world

This one called EMPOWER (Emperor?)

The ship behind is a huge tanker being fuelled up by one almost a quarter its size.

The size of these tankers is just immense

This one with the Heli Pad up front, to clean the oceans out of TUNA Fish! He also came across our bows!

The middle of the bridge says 25Metres, but the chart says there’s an obstruction just in front?  We were OK going under the middle span anyway

We just fit under the middle of the bridge, close to Raffles Marina

We sailed along brilliantly, soaking up all the new sites and smells of the civilized world, this being a complete relief after so long out of it. We could finally relax a bit now after getting out of the shipping lanes, until we reached the bridge that is. There was a 25metre clearance under the bridge to get to the marina and Kanaola’s mast reaches to about 24metres, so it was going to be a bit tongue and cheek whether we would pass under. David approached slowly as Valerie and I tried to give some guidance to which way he should turn. Lucky we just squeezed through with about a foot to spare! We all breathed a sigh of relief and our hearts came out of mouths and back in their proper place.

The Danga Bay yacht club might look swish, but other than the two A/C restaurants downstairs and the dinghy little Office in a hut upstairs, it is very run down.  The docks are still being built, no power or water on most of them, so it was offered as free berthing for us!  Reason being it is the only privately owned marina in Malaysia, owned by a Chinaman, and he has to fight for every single thing he wants done from the Malaysian Government, as he is considered to be a second class citizen.

Arriving at Danga Bay Marina, we anchored just outside so that we could speak to the man in charge (Ron) and see if we could get a berth for a few nights. But he had beaten us to it and had come out in his Rib to tell us that we can’t have a berth because he’s fully booked for the Malaysian rally. After a quick discussion he finally conceded and let us have a berth for 3 nights, but the best thing, it was free! After docking up we gave the boat a cleanup and had a good look around and managed to get on the internet. I was then able to book my flights back home, which have turned out to be absolutely dirt cheap. We enjoyed a meal out at the restaurant nearby and planned for our trip to Singapore the next day.