by Judy Handley | Nov 13, 2008 | Malaysia, Sailing Logs Year 4 |
Day 22, Year 4: Slight Change in Plans
Date: Thursday, November 13, 2008
Weather: Overcast with Periods of Sprinkles
Location: Admiral Marina, Port Dickson, Malaysia
In last night’s log I said that I hoped we would be exploring inland Malaysia by this time tonight, but that didn’t happen. But by this time tomorrow night, we definitely will have visited the Kuala Gandah Elephant Centre and be back here on Windbird poised for a trip to Melaka the next morning. The change in plans happened totally by accident. After a frustrating morning dealing with the battery charger, we got ready to head to Kuala Lumpur. We thought that going to the “big city” and renting a car there to go to the elephant sanctuary was the way to go. So we got ready to go, packed all our gear and headed out. But on our way out, we remembered that we were supposed to stop in the marina office to let them swipe our credit card. We couldn’t do this yesterday as the woman in the office had the day off. Well, Veronica is a wealth of information and we were very sorry that we had not remembered to come to the office first thing in the morning to have her verify our credit. She explained to us that renting a small car is a much easier way of traveling about the country than taking the bus and taxis, and in the end, is almost as cheap. So we reserved a car for tomorrow morning, went back to Windbird, and regained our day.
Now I’ll go back a bit and talk about the battery charger problem. We bought the new battery charger in Singapore and hooked it up yesterday. It was working great, but then Mark unplugged it so he could run the extension cord a different way. Uh oh, he forgot to turn the charger off before unplugging it. And when he plugged it back in, there was a power surge and it blew the fuse in the plug-in and destroyed the controller in the charger. But he didn’t know when he went to bed last night that it was just the controller that was blown. He thought he had blown the entire charger. It was a mostly sleepless night for him as he was so upset over the problem. But his trials this morning proved successful. The charger works fine and controls itself. We just can’t read the information without his newly Singapore purchased ampmeter and his digital volt meter. These meters are showing totally acceptable limits that our new “very expensive” Singapore purchased batteries can accept. So all is well, but we had quite a scare thinking that we might have damaged the batteries. So by noon today, we had sorted this out and were ready to leave. That’s when we met Veronica in the office and changed our plans. I spent the afternoon doing laundry and Mark spent the afternoon fixing the attachment on one of our solar panels that broke when he tried adjusting the angle of the panel. There’s always something to keep you busy on a boat.
So tomorrow morning we will drive to Port Dickson to check-out of this port. You must leave within 24 hours, but we are going to stretch that considerably. We won’t leave until Monday morning, but if we don’t check out in the morning, we wouldn’t be able to leave until Tuesday. So “shhhh”-don’t tell anyone that we are checking out a little early. We will then drive about three hours north and west to the Kuala Gandah Elephant Centre. This is a sanctuary for elephants that have had to be removed from their “homelands” that have been taken over by palm oil plantations. It is totally against the law to kill an elephant here, so when the plantation owners find that all of the new trees they have planted had been destroyed overnight by angry elephants, they call the Centre to have the elephants transplanted. The elephants are brought to the sanctuary, and once they are calmed down, they are then transplanted to the national forest. The sanctuary is a great place to get to feed, ride, and actually bathe the elephants in the river. We’ll get a little wet in the process, but it sounds like great fun. Asian elephants are found in northern Borneo, Malaysia, Thailand, and then on north through Cambodia and Viet Nam. We hope to see them again in northern Thailand, but just in case plans change, we thought we should have the experience here. We will probably drive back to Admiral Marina tomorrow night and then travel on south to Melaka the next morning. Since we are now not taking a
bus to Kuala Lumpur, we will not get to see that city. But it is just that, a great big city. It does have the tallest twin towers left standing in the world, but there are lots of pictures of those, so I think we can live without experiencing that city for ourselves.
by Judy Handley | Nov 12, 2008 | Malaysia, Sailing Logs Year 4 |
Day 21, Year 4: Arrival in Port Dickson, Malaysia
Date: Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Weather: Partly Overcast Morning; Clear Afternoon; Winds 5 NE
Latitude: 02 degrees 28.563 minutes N
Longitude: 101 degrees 50.754 minutes E
Location: Admiral Marina, Port Dickson, Malaysia
We made it here safely with no encounters with pirates, floating logs, fishing nets, or big ships. And this is a good thing. We arrived in Admiral Marina before noon and by day’s end we had made the trip to Port Dickson to check in and be legal here in Malaysia. The marina is at least five miles from town, so we walked out to the four-lane highway and hailed a cab. Port Dickson is small town compared to Singapore, but there are four lane highways and lots of traffic on the road. Port Dickson
reminded us of Kupang; not quite as frenetically busy, but the aging buildings and type of stores were very similar. After our first day here, we would say that Malaysia has one foot in the modern world and one foot dragging behind in the third world. As we travel further north, it is our impression that the modern world takes over totally, but we shall see. Malaysia is a Muslim country, but there are also evidences of Hindus, Christians, and Buddhists as you walk through town. The marina here
is lovely but it was a bit of a let down after One15 in Singapore. At One15 we had transport to town for free every 30 minutes and never had to use our own towels. Here we have a pool and changing nice changing rooms, but it is a hike to the highway to get transportation that is not free and we have to supply our own towels. But the marina is lovely in the colonial tradition and we’ll just have to lower our standards just a bit from One15.
We are planning two trips from here, one to the coastal city of Melaka and the other to an inland elephant center. We had hoped to leave early in the morning for Melaka, but we are having difficulties with the new battery charger. Mark is working with that tonight and will continue in the morning, so we think we will finish checking this problem out in the morning and head for Kuala Lumpur in the afternoon and have our elephant experience the next day. Who knows what will really happen, but hopefully we will be exploring Malaysia by this time tomorrow night.
by Judy Handley | Nov 11, 2008 | Malaysia, Sailing Logs Year 4 |
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!
by Judy Handley | Nov 10, 2008 | Sailing Logs Year 4, Singapore |
Day 19, Year 4: Last Day in Singapore
Date: Monday, November 10, 2008
Weather: Rain All Day
Location: One 15 Marina, Sentosa Island, Singapore
It rained ALL day today and as I walked around with my new umbrella, a “gift” from the grocery store on Orchard Road for spending so much money there using our Mastercard, I knew for sure that it was time to leave here. When your umbrella is advertising Mastercard, you know you have spent more money than you should have. So tomorrow morning we will be moving on unless the weather is just too terrible. It would have been no fun at all to head into the Singapore Straits today with pouring rain and low visibility. If it is that way in the morning, we will possibly stay put, but since that means going through the check-our procedure a second time, it will have to be pretty bad to keep us here.
Mark spent his morning going to the “One Stop Shop” to get us checked out of Singapore. I have no idea why they call it that because you still have to go out to the anchorage area and get your final clearance there. After braving the pouring rains to get that done, Mark then headed to the Sim Lin “technology” Tower to buy a battery charger. Between the Sim Lin Tower and Sim Lin Square you can buy almost anything electronic that you can think of, and he was successful in getting the battery charger for us. Since we have not been able to get a converter to work with our inverter, we have no real way to keep our freezer and other electronics going without running our engine. That will be impossible when we get to Langkawi and have the boat out of the water to paint the bottom. So yesterday when Mark visited another boat that uses a battery charger without going through the inverter, he decided that this is what we should do. The case was made even stronger when we found out that the battery charger will be more expensive in Malaysia, so now we are the proud owners of three-stage battery charger. While Mark was doing all of this, I was here cleaning the outside of the boat in the pouring rain. Rain in Singapore comes down bringing all the pollution of a big city with it, and everything white on the boat has turned an ugly shade of gray. While I was at it, I took down all of the sun screens and scrubbed those. Once Mark returned, we headed back into the Vivo Center to do that last bit of grocery shopping and then came back in time to check-out with the marina. We paid $525 Singapore for twenty nights here, including electricity and water, which is less than $18 US per day. Not bad for the type of accommodations and free transportation in and out of the city. You can’t stay in a backpacker here for much less than that, and One Fifteen is hardly a backpacker. We actually sprung for dinner here at the club tonight. Tina and Robert of Shirena joined us. The food and the company were both great.
During dinner we talked about our future plans. Shirena will be spending another year here in Southeast Asia before moving on to the Mediterranean. Robert was giving us a sales pitch for going through the Med rather than going around South Africa. Being from Poland, he has traveled extensively throughout Europe. As has Tina and most other cruisers we have met from around the world. In our experience, it is only the US cruisers who have very little travel experience out of the country. Most Australians and Europeans have backpacked through part of Europe at some point just after college while Americans are more concerned with just getting a job. This led to a discussion of why that is the case. Is it finances that keeps young Americans from doing this, or is it just attitude.
by Judy Handley | Nov 9, 2008 | Sailing Logs Year 4, Singapore |
Day 18, Year 4: Definitely Time to Move On
Date: Sunday, November 9, 2008
Weather: Rain Early Morning and Early Afternoon; Otherwise Sunny
Location: One 15 Marina, Sentosa Island, Singapore
When you say you have finished shopping and then go out and come back with more than you ever have previously, you know it is time to move on. We talked to our daughter and son-in-law via Skype last night and got some great ideas for things we could buy for Sam to play with when he visits Windbird in Thailand. It is so easy here to find UV protective swimwear and hats for children and not so easy in Massachusetts at this time of year. So we had the ‘grandchild impetus’ to set us off on a shopping spree as well as the obscure food items, Christmas decorations, memory foam pillows we just had to have, and on and on. It is amazing the things that are available here. I even found Earth Balance, a butter substitute for those who can’t have dairy (my daughter and Sam). Singapore has it all if you have the energy to travel around the city to find things. We did most of our shopping on upscale Orchard Road, but we also made a side trip to Little India for a last minute purchase of a battery charger. Unfortunately the place that has the chargers was not open today, so we will make yet one more trip to Little India before leaving Singapore.
This evening we went to Rendezvous Cay for dinner with friends from Scot Free II and Freebird. When we were in Little India this afternoon, I bought a wreath of orchids. I just had to buy it because it was so beautiful and only cost $10 Singapore. This garland had at least a hundred orchids, maybe more. I took that to Rose tonight to thank her (and Tim) for having us over for dinner. When we had been in Little India with Tim and Rose a couple of weeks ago, I noticed how she admired the flowers. She was delighted with the wreath of orchids and we all got to enjoy the beauty.
by Judy Handley | Nov 8, 2008 | Sailing Logs Year 4, Singapore |
Day 17, Year 4: Saturday Shopping in Singapore
Date: Saturday, November 8, 2008
Weather: Rain Early Morning; Partly Sunny Day
Location: One 15 Marina, Sentosa Island, Singapore
We made another trip to Orchard Road today. That street is amazing. There are more huge malls and hotels in one small area than I have ever seen in my life. We went there to go to our favorite Singapore supermarket just one more time. It is called the Tanglin Market Place and shopping there is just like shopping in the US. All the familiar brands can be found there. We probably won’t see that again until we get home, so this was the last chance to stock up on favorite things.
We also made a stop at Toys ‘R Us just a couple of blocks from the supermarket. This took us into the Forum Shopping Mall and we couldn’t believe what we saw. On one end of the mall, all three stories are dedicated to kid’s stores. And being a weekend, it seemed like all parents in Singapore were there with their kids. There were puppet shows for kids, body painting, magic demonstrations, you name it-all kinds of entertainment for the wee ones. Mark and I don’t remember ever seeing so many families
out shopping in the United States. I think it is the national weekend pastime here. We stopped in Border’s Bookstore and found the same thing. The children’s book section was so jam-packed with kids and parents on the floor reading that you could hardly make your way through.
Our time here is dwindling. If tomorrow (our Sunday) is sunny, we might stay here at the marina and enjoy the pool and internet access for most of the day, and then make our way to Little India for one last dinner in our favorite part of this town. The street markets there also have the best looking veggies in the city, so I will do my departing fresh food shopping at the same time. Monday is check-out day and a chance to pick up anything we have forgotten, and then early Tuesday we will head
for Malaysia.
