Sunday, November 09, 2008

Johor & Singapore

I have my port clearance from Johor Bahru (JB) for Langkawi. The water and fuel tanks are full. I've installed four new fans, and had two wind-scoops and a deck shade fabricated in an attempt to end the below deck sauna.The stove once again has two burners which will reliably ignite and stay alight. The "play" in the steering linkage has been removed. The only thing I'm missing is crew. I had two potential crew lined up but for various reasons they couldn't make it. The second crew dropped out just prior to my departure and even though I'm sure there are others who would join me, I decided I'd hung around long enough and wanted to get going. So it's time to say goodbye to the 1st world creature comforts of Singapore and the fantastic variety of cheap, delicious food on offer in JB.

My plan is that my efforts fixing and improving Kika now, will allow me to relax and have a maintenance free Christmas & New Year with friends, on which note, I have a new deadline; 10th December in Phuket to meet Ian's flight, it's 600 miles so shouldn't be a problem. No need to panic.... yetAs for today's trip - the day began with my enthusiasm for an early start tempered by a thunderstorm induced downpour. By the time the rain stopped and I'd hauled the dinghy, discovered it covered in small barnacles and cleaned them off, it was nearly 11am. Quite how anything grows in the waters around Singapore is mystery; the anchor chain was covered in an oily residue and the anchor emerged tangled with four plastic bags. However the storm left a beautiful clear day, making it easy for me to reverse my trip around Singapore until just before dusk I found a beautiful anchorage between a couple of islands, clear of shipping off the south coast of Singapore.
Anchorage off southern coast of Singapore (9/11): N01deg 11.79' E103deg 44.27'

2 comments:

bryan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
bryan said...

Hello,

We're taking a jacht from Singapore to Koh Samui in two weeks; our estimated travel time is 5 days.

All's set, we're good to go, there's just one wild card: the infamous Sumatra squalls.

Spare us a tip or two how best to deal with them?

Cheers.

Bryan Norman
Malaysia Sea Sports