Due Course Now: Hello Malaysia!

Crossing the Singapore Strait in a small boat is not for the faint-hearted. It is one of the busiest commercial shipping channels in the world with super tankers and ships of all kinds passing through it every few minutes. It has a Traffic Separation Scheme which means that eastbound ships pass in the south lanes and westbound ships pass in the north lanes – at any given time ships are also moving into and out of the strait to various ports or big anchorages within the strait.

This is what our AIS screen looked like. The green and yellow triangles are ships, the red boat icon lower middle of the screen is us, and the blue line is our planned route.

So of course we did our research carefully, taking into account the currents and boat speeds and the large ship anchorage area in the middle that allowed us to cross one lane at a time. Still it looked hectic.

We set off from the Indonesian side early in the morning and waited at the edge of the south lanes for a gap in the shipping traffic and then we upped the engine speed and motored across as quickly as we could. So far so good. We moved through the middle anchorage area staying far away from the bigger boats. We waited longer at the edge of the north lanes as it was busier and more boats were moving into the strait from Malaysian ports.

We got a gap and motored hurriedly. About 90% of the way across, a Singapore police boat called us up on the radio and came alongside asking us to stop. They wanted details of our passports, etc. We hurriedly gave them the info and then they asked us to accompany them back towards the middle – eeek! – we really didn’t want to repeat this crossing exercise. While they laboriously captured our info, we kept looking around anxiously at approaching tankers.

The Singapore police waved us on saying we should follow a passing navy ship’s route (going much faster than us) and stay further away from the Singapore area. We complied for a short while and then dodged around a large anchored boat into a side anchorage off the channel.

We wound our way around the big ships anchored keeping an eye out for those still moving with tugs.

We passed through the anchorage and went up the Johor Strait – Singapore on one side and Malaysia on the other side. We soon passed a group of high rise buildings and we knew we were no longer in Indonesia – we hadn’t seen a building over two storeys in months.

We passed under the Tuas bridge which links Malaysia and Indonesia. It has a clearance of 25 metres at high tide – we knew we could pass under but the closer we got, the more it seemed that the mast would touch. Of course, it didn’t.

After a couple of hours we reached Puteri Harbour and berthed at 1’15 Marina and went to the Marina office to arrange clear in. Immigration was quick and easy, the official barely looked at our passports, stamped and we were waved back into the Marina shuttle bus and taken back to the marina about 500m away!

We spent about 2 weeks at 1’15 Marina – it was incredibly hot and humid with barely a breeze in the marina and the heavily polluted water is not for swimming. One day our neighbour on the next boat fell into the water as he was cleaning a mat. I rushed over to help and later he said “You didn’t jump in to save me” and I replied “You would have drowned before I jump in that water.” Robert set about attending to the various boat jobs saved up for the time spent in the marina, and one of them was getting the aircon to work. We had never used it since we bought the boat in 2017 but I was feeling faint in the intense heat. Luckily he got it right and I was so happy! Pure bliss inside the boat, the deck was too hot to walk on and the tent structure too hot to touch. We spent a lot of time sitting in front of the aircon.

One of Robert’s jobs was taking the faulty radar down:

After sunset when the air cooled down, we occasionally met up with the other rally people for drinks or dinner at the nearby bars and restaurants.

The highlight was being in a pub watching the Springboks win the Rugby World Cup, made even more enjoyable by a few Brits nearby who were crowing loudly about their team but became much quieter as the game progressed while we got louder.

Puteri Harbour is a strange place – it has many high rise residential blocks but hardly anyone living in them. Wide 3 lane roads but few cars on them. All new and landscaped with wide pavements and newly planted big trees. It’s like a brand new ghost town waiting for people to happen. The locals said the buildings are built for the richer Chinese who work in Singapore and cross over the congested Tuas bridge everyday.

All of these buildings have few occupants

Wide landscaped pavements waiting for pedestrians

After the sparse shops in Indonesia, we were delighted to find a huge western style supermarket with goods from all over the world (at a price) and a non-Moslem section selling a large range of beers, bacon, etc. It had fantastic air-con.

No visit would be complete without a trip to the street night market, away from the modern buildings where tasty (and some not so tasty) strange traditional foods add to the experience.

One day we took a bus (cheap and empty) to the city of Johor Bahru. It is an interesting mix of old and new, small old buildings and modern skyscrapers side by side.

We visited the oldest Chinese temple and wandered about the heritage street in Chinatown and the Indian shops and the modern high rise City Square shopping mall.

The Sail Malaysia Rally organisors had arranged a sumptuous dinner hosted by the Johor Tourism Dept and the next morning we set off back along the Johor Strait, crossing another shipping lane and headed westward to Pulau Pisang (Banana Island). 30 seconds after dropping anchor a torrential downpour of rain started and built up to a thunderstorm that lasted for hours. So glad we anchored in time.

Our next sail to Pulau Besar was mostly motor sailing as the wind was light. We had the current with us for the last 5 hours so we skipped out 2 possible anchorages and kept going. Ten and a half hours later, we had done 69 nautical miles. It was tedious as there were lots of fishing nets strung out from many small boats and we had to change course constantly. It’s difficult to distinguish between fishing net floats and floating plastic rubbish so we both kept our eyes peeled all the time – very draining. We were too tired to appreciate Pulau Besar’s nice looking beaches and fell asleep early.

The next morning was a short sail to Malacca (Melaka) dodging more nets along the way and we anchored in a shallow wide bay with nearby dredging operations underway. A couple of rally boats were there already and more arrived later to total 13 boats. We parked our dinghy at a nearby marina that is no longer used for sailing boats since it was damaged by a storm a few years ago. We set off to explore Malacca in the afternoon and was surprised to find that it’s a colourful vibrant city steeped in history. Restored architecture, attractive river canal with shops and restaurants, different cultures side by side, a mix of old and new that works so well there.

Gaudily decorated rickshaws waiting to attract customers

Colonial influence in architecture - British...

...and Dutch

This visitor's co-ordinated outfit was co-incidental

We walked up a hill to the ruins of St Paul’s Church, built in 1521 it is the oldest church structure in Southeast Asia.

The interior walls are lined with headstones from Dutch colonialists and set in the middle of the floor is a slab that marks the grave of Maria van Riebeeck, wife of Jan van Riebeeck who spent many years in Malacca. Evidence of Dutch and Portuguese and British occupation of Malacca is everywhere and many buildings remind me of Cape Town’s old sites.

The following day Sail Malaysia had organised a tour and lunch hosted by Malacca Tourism. We visited the Malacca Museum and an hour and a half is not enough – interesting history from the founding of Malacca through the Portuguese, Dutch and British occupations, as well as Japanese – no wonder the sense of cultures and heritage is so prevalent in Malacca.