Belitung & on to Singapore November 15 2008

Hi everyone.Well, I've put this off as long as I could, so it will probably be toolong!!Free at last. Free at last. Oh Lord, we are free at last. Thank you MartinLuther King, but I'm pretty sure I don't have the quote just right. As youmight have guessed, Joe and Olivia have moved off the boat. But firstthings first.We left you last time on our departure from Kumai to Belitung--almost amonth ago. The trip to Belitung about 230 miles west northwest of Kumai waspretty unremarkable. Several others had left the same day and we kept inradio touch and all arrived the next morning at Belitung not knowing quitewhat to expect. There was no wind, of course. As it turned out, Belitungwas sort of like Lovina light. There were tons of booths hawkingeverything from phones to fireworks, but the vendors were not nearly asaggressive as at a few of our other stops. No massages, though, much to mychagrin and the actual town on the island was a 1/2 hour cab right away. Asthe last stop they really went all out with non stop entertainment, freetransportation and a free dinner that was very good. It was somewhathumorous, however, that we could only find butter at a stand on the beachand not in the sizable town. Same in Kumai. The Indonesians fry prettymuch everything in oil and have no need for it. The locale for the rallywas a park like beach setting which apparently has a different form ofentertainment every weekend and we were it this time. Something like 20,000people were there on Sunday.At the official dinner on each island, the rally people chose onenationality to say a few words and thank the local officials for theirhospitality. It was the Americans turn and Mark off Windbird, who was ourrepresentative, suggested a fireworks show. We, along with Scot Free IIhad put on a great free show a few days before that, and he asked if we'dsource the works and do the show. Now we're talking major US city 4th ofJuly quality fireworks here. Giant mortars and Roman candles that send uphuge starbursts a couple of hundred feet in the air. So we collected a fewbucks from the other American boats and bought $200 worth which was about a40 minute show, at pretty much a grand finale pace.We were able to check out of Indonesia here with almost no hassle other thanmore payments. The trip to Singapore was about 2 days and 330 miles, and weelected to leave the morning after the official dinner. Rose and Tim wereanxious to get to civilization where you can buy butter and Joe and Oliviawanted to get going on job hunting as well. We had chosen to book into OneDegree Fifteen marina on Sentosa island just south of Singapore properinstead of Raffles marina over on the west side and an hour commute to thecity. More on that later.Once again several boats were on the move with us. We left at the crack ofdawn on October 15th or 16th, planning on 2 full days to get there. Otherboats followed in dribs and drabs after until there were about 6 of us enroute. We weren't too far out when there was a thunk on the port side (asusual we were motoring, but fortunately had only the starboard engineengaged). We hooked about a 40 foot 4 inch diameter waterlogged bamboo log.While trying to get it off we were weaving and cricling, etc. so the otherboats wanted to know if we'd changed our minds and were returning toKumai. Took awhile, but we got it off with no damage to the boat. The routerequired extreme vigilance as there was loads of traffic. For the firstpart, at least, we were in the major shipping lanes heading south fromSingapore and the Malacca straits. As we got closer, traffic petered outas we got in smaller channels between othe islands. Some boats elected tostop at a few places on the way, but we just carried on having had quiteenough of Indonesia. On crossing the equator, we had a suitable ceremonyfor Olivia, our only pollywog. Joey mixed up an evil concoction of food and stuff onboard and poured it over her exhorting her to pay homage to Neptune. Rose, thedesignated photographer, unfortunately, turned off the camera so there wentthe video. Joey wanted a reenactment with an empty slop bucket, but Oliviahad had enough.Per our plan, we arrived at the Singapore straits in the morning and thetraffic was simply unbelievable. Hundreds of ships heading both ways andwe had to cross the shipping lanes. Fortunately, most of the traffic waseastbound and we found a gap after a couple of freighters and before acouple of tugs and tows which were slow moving, and we made a race acrosswithout incident. Immigration actually is out there in boats to expediteall these ships and you call them on the radio and they drive over, boardand do your paperwork in about 10 minutes. Some boats didn't even have thatand just passed the stuff back and forth. Rose and Tim were given only 2weeks, but Joe and Olivia, since they were getting off, got 90 days. Thismakes no sense, but that's Singapore. We had to invest in a cab ride torenew our stamps--no charge so that can't be the reason. The marina handledthe rest of the check in and clearance for a fee of $30.The marina is really nice!! Hot as blazes so we're running the AC, but themarina has a big pool, really nice locker rooms with a sauna, etc. There'sa free bus across the bridge to Vivo City, Singapore's largest shoppingcenter and they'll even take you to your boat in a golf cart if you askwhen returning with parcels. Glad we changed from Raffles as Joey and Iwent out there to pick up mail and it took an hour with busses, trains,taxis and more busses involved in the trip. Phone service here is reallycheap with a SIM card with $10 credit costing $8 and a cost of only$.08/minute. This is a rather large city of about 4 million with all sortsof nationalities and architecture. Lots of shopping, including westernstuff like A1 Sauce right around embassy row. Big shopping centers all overthe place. There are t shirts all over that say Singapore is a "fine" city,$500 for chewing gum, $1,000 for smoking in public, $1,500 for jaywalking,etc. You get the picture, but it's true. It also makes for one of thecleanest big cities you've ever seen. A very modern transit system has notone speck of graffiti; everywhere is spotless.So our first order of business, after getting the phone the first night hereafter a dinner of ribs at Tony Roma's with Joey and Olivia's friends here,was to arrange for the usual repairs. Considering the miles we've travelledsince May--around 5,000--the boat was in pretty good shape. We needed theexhaust hose replaced, a new thermostat for the fridge, an alternatorreplaced, the image stabilizer binocs worked on, the outboard serviced andthe dinghy's irritating unfindable pinhole leak found and repaired. Alsoneeded to get the water maker pump swapped out which had been prearranged.Getting the fridge worked on proved to be easy as did finding a guy to lookat the dinghy, but both Yanmar and Mercury basically told us to piss off.Fortunately, whining to the dinghy guy worked out as he said they can workon both. Fujinon once again said they couldn't find anything wrong with thebinoculars, but I know there's a short somewhere and asked if they couldn'tfind anything to fix, if they would swap them out for new. Unbelievably,they came back with a deal for about 25% of retail and half of what I paidfor them new. Now that's customer service. The news wasn't so good on thedinghy. The guy found a leak between the seams attaching the tubes to thealuminum hull. They say irreparable. Then the outboard needed likeanother $1,000 in parts plus labor, this after over $2,000 work in Oz.Doesn't matter though; they can't get the parts before we leave. Likewisecan't get the alternator rebuilt (which isn't that big a problem as wecarry a spare). So now what do I do. Dinghy and engine can't be fixed.The dinghy guys could sell me a new engine for about S$3,700. Emailed theAquapro factory which wanted pictures and a copy of my purchase receipt toevaluate the situation. I knew what the answer would be. Same as with theold Apex dinghy--screw you!!! Okay, shortening this up significantly, wesaw a flyer for a 3 year old dinghy with a 25 horse 4 stroke Yamaha for salefor US$5,500. Took a look and it was really nice--nicer than the old one,and pricing is like in Indonesia. To make a long story short we got it forUS$2,750 and the broker arranged to get our old one to Mercury to sell onconsignment.Well I've procrastinated some more, so this will be really long as we are now in Malaysia with still lots to tell about Singapore, but I'll try to be brief. Sometimes I feel like I'm showing home movies or slides after a dinner party putting everyone to sleep.One night we did the Night Safari at the Singapore zoo. It's a pretty cool deal where you can ride a tram around or use the walking trails to see nocturnal animals in their habitat. You don't want to buy dinner or the $12 beers there, but the free shows are nice. One was a bit tacky--a fire dance thing--which was pretty lame after the stuff we'd seen in the SouthPacific. The other was a "Creatures of the Night" thing with everything from some weird anteaters to birds to hyenas, fairly up close. Our other touristy things were a trip to Little India for Deepavali which is a Hindu festival of lights and a really big deal. They had it in Fiji when we were there too. One evening a bunch of us went off to Raffles Hotel for the infamous Singapore sling. The drinks are good. (In fact, that was what I'd treat myself to 40 years ago on spring vacation in Nassau, but that's another story) BUT--there's always a but--the bloody things were $26 each setting a new all time record for drink price paid by the captain. I had two. Followed that with a rickshaw ride to Clarke Quay which is the restaurant district and blew another boat load of money on martinis and tapas. Since we don't eat out that much, it was worth it, even if it was a bit extravagant.Singapore is also known for it's cheap electronics and they have huge buildings with nothing but computers, etc. My backup computer was in the process of dying and I had planned to get another laptop, using the existing computer at the helm for navigation--instead of running below every so often to check the charts. Caught up in the excitement of the newest technology, we bought a desk top computer, but the box is the size of a Webster's college dictionary. For US$650, it comes with 6 USB ports, 360 gig hard drive, 2 gig of memory, wireless keyboard and mouse, 20 inch screen and built in TV. Damn!!! How could anyone resist that deal. The bad news it had Vista, but it seems mainly to be just something to get used to with all the updates ironing out the bugs. Although it was a bit of a problem in some ways, eventually, we've gotten all out software to run. They have a tax rebate thing so we thought the thing would be 10% cheaper yet, but it turns out, outrageously & ridiculously, the rebate does not apply to departures by land or sea, only air. Got Joey a sweet laptop too, for about the same price.So we were there a month and spent the rest of the time chilling. Rose did acupuncture, Tim massages. Regularly went into town for lunch and shopping. Did the immigration visa extension, Rose toured the Bird Park. Who knows what else? That was last week. We did eat at the Marina the last night having avoided it because we thought it was expensive. Turns out it was very reasonable and excellent food. We'll know next time as we will return on our way to Western Malaysia next summer.After a bit of a confrontation with the prodigal, things did settle down. Getting off the boat was stressful for both of us, but at the end , we did a few movies together, met the friends they're staying with who had drinks on the boat followed by dinner at their place, and I had a final farewell dinner alone with the lad which was nice indeed. Joey, with Olivia's help, got the boat in pretty good shape as that side could have been characterized as the Black Hole of Calcutta. With a new paint job (thanks Olivia) and significant cleaning and moving of stuff off, we have tons of room for any of you who would like to visit. Towards the end, we're waiting with baited breath on news of Olivia's job interview with Chubb which looks good. Joe has a few prospects as well, but a major one just fell through which would have vaulted him to 1st mate on a 120 foot yacht. Captain wanted him, but the "manager" had, unbeknownst to the captain, already hired someone with a lot less experience. That would have jump started the lad's marine career.Okay, I've got to end this saga. We left Singapore at about 8 on Thursday the 13th. Joey was there as he has been doing day work on the boat next door. He actually got a little teary so I had to get out of there or I would have too. We've had our moments, but I'll miss him.CheersIt's only Tim & RoseP.S. I've probably left a bunch of stuff out and Rose is on a tour, so you might get more Singapore next leter.