Work & Play In Singapore

Crystal Blues arrived in Singapore on April 27. The voyage south was predictable - we motored all the way (no wind) and picked up net tangles TWICE in our propeller. We also had a large fish (1 metre +) land on deck and then travel half way down the boat before flipping himself over the side. Fortunately he missed the open forward hatch, or we'd have had one messy bedroom.

One Degree 15 Marina is our Singapore home, providing us with a great base to socialise, relax and tackle the never ending boat jobs. We were delighted to find our good friends Janet & Joe of SV Tegan here, as well as the Stonham family on SV Tui Tai and Robert & Elaine on SV Sunrise. That's Janet and Joe in the picture at right, doing it tough in the pool.

It hasn't been all fun. Our Lifeline AGM house batteries finally died after 7 years of sterling service. Unable to source suitable replacement batteries in Phuket or Langkawi, we ordered a new set of Trojan AGMs from the Singapore distributor. Two days after our arrival they were delivered to the dock at 2pm and were installed that afternoon. Final tweaking and fixing the locking bars was completed the following morning. Neil's body was bruised and scratched from manoeuvring the batteries into the box, which is not located for easy access, being under the cockpit floor and surrounded by other equipment.

Our wind instrument has been lying to us for about 6 months. At first it was intermittent and then it just refused to acknowledge reality. Ley went to the top of the mast to rotate the vane whilst Neil measured the voltage returns at the display head - no change in voltage confirmed that the transducer needed to be replaced. Fortunately OceanTalk had just received their first delivery of Raymarine stock into Singapore so a replacement unit was available.

Over sundowners one night we were invited to join local expats Rod, Angie and Mike at the
Singapore Gun Club. Mike (SV Greensleeves) is a pilot with Qatar airlines, and a member of the gun club here.

The choice of weapons for the morning's practice were pistols. Both of us had fired rifles and shotguns before, and Neil had fired a pistol on a target range years ago. The targets were set up, and detailed safety and handling instructions were noted. Clips were loaded and the fun began. For pistol novices we scored quite well, with Ley scoring the only bullseye.

We cleared with immigration and port authority this morning, and will depart Singapore this afternoon, bound for Kuching. We should arrive in the Santubong anchorage on Monday afternoon.