Crossing the Singapore Straits
Jackamy
Paul & Derry Harper
Sat 20 Nov 2010 08:50
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01:15.907N 103:48.755E
Saturday 20th November
Paul was up bright and early to check us out
whilst we prepared the boat to leave. Today was going to be Amy's day to shine.
She was setting the route, taking us out the berth and marina, across the
busy Strait and berthing us in Singapore, all for the first time. It didn't
start well as she couldn't turn the chart plotter on and wondered what on
earth she was doing wrong. When Paul returned expecting to leave that minute,
Amy broke the bad news - the brand new chart plotter is broken! He was furious
but decided to leave anyway and stick very close to the other yachts who
were leaving as well, we'd deal with the problem later. The reason for the
urgency was to get over to Singapore as early as possible so that Amanda could
see as much as she could before she flew home that evening.
Once out the marina we teamed up with Aspen
as we knew they could transmit and receive AIS, meaning they'd be able to see
all the big boats and where they were going and the big boats would be able to
see them. Something we deemed very important when crossing the world's busiest
waterway, the Singapore Straits! Soon after leaving the marina Aspen called up
one tanker who was heading straight for us, Steve asked that we pass
port-to-port, no answer, he called again, no answer, he called again, the
response was "Where are you? I can't see a ship". Just what you need! And that
was with AIS!
The sky became darker and darker as the
weather took a turn for the worse, a huge storm was on it's way. The only
positive about this was that we were lucky enough to see a waterspout only a
short distance away. Incredible! As we neared the shipping lanes though the
weather and visibility became an important issue. If we were going to have to
dodge in between these 600ft long ships we need to be able to see
them!
When we reached the waypoint scheduling the
spot at which we should cross the shipping lanes at a 90 degree angle we made
sure we were very close to Aspen so that any dangerous targets would show up on
their AIS. We waited for one tanker to pass in front, only 0.2 miles away and
then we made a run for it before the next one came bearing down, they're moving
quicker than they appear to be. Now we're in the middle of the channel and
suddenly realise that we're on a collision course with a cargo ship to
our port. Instead of trying to make it in front of him we turned and passed
starboard-to-starboard and nipped across to "safety" as soon as he'd passed. It
wasn't over yet though! As we rounded an island to make the 4-5 mile journey up
to Keppel Bay Marina about 45 tankers and cargo ships were at anchor. We managed
to stick close to the islands and make our way up through a channel, the same as
the very quick moving ferries who weren't afraid to come within a few metres of
us!
 Sticking close to
Aspen..............Busy shipping channels
 Passing 0.2 miles
ahead............That's what we like to see, moving away from us!
 Eventually after a very busy morning we made
it Keppel Bay Marina - first impressions - excellent! The brand
new marina is adjacent to some very swish looking sky-risers that are
in development and some new apartments, it's all very nice. The
staff continuously communicated on the radio and were waiting in the
torrential rain to catch our lines and guide us in to the quarantine berth.
Paul hopped ashore for a few minutes into their state of the art immigration
booth and we were off again to make our way to our berth, where we will be
the very first users on a brand new pontoon. Again the staff were waiting
to assist us with our lines. So far so good!
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