Day 20, Year 4: Overnight from Singapore to Port Dickson, Malaysia
Date: Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Weather: Overcast; No Wind in the AM; Wind SE 10 Late Afternoon
Latitude: 01 degree 25.840 minutes N
Longitude: 103 degrees 15.125 minutes E
Location: Strait of Malacca
Miles to Go: 108
About a half an hour “Jed Goldstone” “Jo” “Justin Handley” “Patsy & Joe” “Heather Goldstone” ago, Mark and I looked at each and said, “Let’s just keep going.” We left One15 Marina this morning with the intention of stopping at Pisang Island tonight. It should have been an easy day trip being only 40 miles. But we have had all morning and early afternoon we had absolutely no wind and a current
against us part of the time. We are also going sloooower than usual because the prop and bottom need to be cleaned, again. But then at 3:30 pm, the wind started to blow just a little going in our direction and all of a sudden we had 2 knots of current with us, so that was the impetus for the decision to keep going. The reason not to do this is the amount of flotsam in the water, including logs, and the number of fishing boats with nets out. Hitting a log or a net in the middle of the night, or
at any other time of day, would be no fun at all. But we’re going to go for it and hope things work out for us.
Things were busy in the Singapore Straits this morning, but we didn’t have to cross the traffic lanes as we did coming in from Indonesia. We worked our way through the miles long anchorage area and just had to watch closely to see which boats were at anchor and which ones were on the move. The amount of plastic trash and diesel in the water was not a pretty sight. And add to that boards, coconuts, seaweed, and tree parts. Once we exited the Singapore Straits and entered the Strait of Malacca,
the traffic and the trash both became a bit more manageable. The Strait of Malacca is the narrow waterway between the Malaysian peninsula and Sumatra. It is about 25 miles wide, sometimes more, sometimes less, and the big ship traffic lanes run down the middle. All of the commercial traffic from the Med and the Middle East come this way to get to Asia, so it is a busy little piece of property. We are motorsailing close to the Malaysian coast, well out of the traffic lanes. A rogue barge or two
have come our way, but big ship traffic is not the fear. Just a few years ago, pirates from Sumatra were dreaded here, but recently the pirates have left the little guys alone and go only for the big ships. But just in case, when you travel here, you don’t go close to Sumatra. So we just need to avoid pirates, logs, fishing nets, and big ships. We will be watching carefully tonight!
