Well, as some
of you will be aware, we have finally departed Indonesia and arrived, not in
Malaysia as planned, but in Singapore.
The
reason for this ever so slight change in course was brought about by a series
of events that could have been far more serious in their consequences. We were
on the last leg of our 10 day journey from Bali to Malaysia, only some 35 miles
or so short of our destination, when we entered the infamous Singapore
Straight. Unfortunately after 10 days at sea, with unpredictable strong currents
against us from time to time, my timing on entering the straight coincided with
nightfall, and not dawn as planned.
Undaunted,
we bit the bullet and entered the fray to take on the multitude of commercial
shipping, which in fairness was not concerned with one little 12M yacht when
they had literally dozens of craft their own size to contend with. To give a
more accurate picture, we set our magic box, the AIS system, to a range of 6
Nautical miles and were informed that there were 152 commercial vessels in that
range all intent on missing each other.
Needless
to say, the current was once again against us, and with no wind to assist us we
were reduced to motoring, at times only able to make 2 Knots headway. At this
point I must explain that the channel is divided into two “lanes” one for east
and one for west bound traffic. Our requirement was for west bound, which meant
that we had to cross over the east lane to enable us to filter into the traffic
in the west lane.
To cut a
long story short, due to our lack of speed and resultant agility, we only made
it half way, and at that point realised that we were unable to safely enter our
correct lane, and in particular the far side of it where we should have been.
So we
decided to run down the centre no mans land, subtly sliding from one side to
the other dependant on oncoming or following traffic.
This
worked satisfactorily, until about 23-00hrs when disaster struck, due to the
moonless night conditions, and also in part to our concentration on avoiding
these 300 metre long ships trying to swamp us, we failed to notice large
swathes of refuse, garbage, junk, call what you will, floating on the surface
of the channel, the result was that suddenly the engine overheated, caused by
induction of vast amounts of this flotsam, some of which managed to get past
out filter systems and destroy the coolant water pump.
It is
difficult to describe the feeling of almost helplessness we endured sitting
there like ducks, amongst all these ships, with absolutely no means of propulsion.
This was exacerbated by the fact that none of the ships around us, or any of
the local authorities, (coastguard, harbour masters office etc.) answered any
of our almost continuous radio calls for assistance. This situation remained
until 08-00 hrs the following morning, (without doubt the longest 9 hours of my
life) with Shirley permanently monitoring the AIS machine to identify the
greater of the many evils trying to sink us at any given time, with me dividing
my time between going below to try and fix the engine, (all in vein) with
rushing back up on deck shining our million candle power searchlight on the
latest most dangerous vessel and blasting our ships horns in the fervent hope
that they would take the necessary avoiding actions.
On the
event of dawn arriving, with us having launched our dinghy, lashed it to the
side of the yacht and used it to give us some directional control with the
outboard motor working overtime, (this also regularly suffered from the prop’
being wrapped up in flotsam, but we could at least clear that relatively
easily) the Coast Guard eventually arrived, and we were towed to an area where
we could anchor, and use their phone (ours being Indonesian and not functioning
in Singapore waters) to arrange a salvage company to tow us to a marina in
Singapore; which duly happened 24 hours later.
So here
we are in Raffles Marina Singapore, the last few days having been spent fixing
the engine problem, plus the water-maker unit which suffered the same fate as
the main engine, and of course taking time out to watch the 4 quarter final
world cup Rugby matches at an Australian run sports bar in down town Singapore.
The only
remaining problem to be resolved is that the same refuse slick that caused our
engine problems, also managed to deposit bits of old rope and debris around our
prop. So as soon as it stops raining, and the resultant silt level on the
harbour water drops, we will dive the boat and rectify that problem as well.
Apologies
for the negative tone of this missive, but I solemnly promise to be more upbeat
in the next one.
Taff,
Shirley and Rubbish
