Camomile is now cruising the East Malaysian coast.  I haven’t written an update for a while but hopefully this will bring us up to date.

Kokomo V

We left Pangkor Tuesday 16^th June at 05.30.  There was now a small group of us Gary and Jackie on Inspiration Lady, Frank and Karen on Kokomo V, Terry and Alison on Pamir and Tricky and Jane and little Millie on Ananda but didn’t get a photo of their boat.  Bill and Caroline on Juffa had gone the day before.

Local fishing boat

There were lots of brightly painted fishing boats out on the water. You wonder if there are enough fish for them all to catch.

There was very little wind and Bill wanted to get his new main sail out but sadly the engine was off for just 10 minutes before it was back on again as we were going so slowly.

It was a 29 hour sail to Admiral marina.  Ananda got in first then us then Inspiration Lady.  Juffa arrived the following day with Kokomo V having stopped overnight along the way.  We only stayed for 2 nights giving us enough time to get some fuel and shopping and have a swim in the marina pool before leaving again on Friday 19^th at 06.00 Admiral is a bit expensive for us.

Inspiration Lady in the sunset

The wind was on the nose as usual so we decided to tack up wind.  Everything was going well with just 20 kts of wind but sadly just as we were getting into it the genoa ripped.  Bill winched it away as quick as he could but it tore right up to the UV strip.  Luckily he managed to get it away That was the end of our fun for the day.  That evening Inspiration Lady and Camomile anchored north of Pulau Besar in the water islands at 02˚07.5N 102˚19.2E there was a beautiful sunset.

No 2 jib with the tattered remains of the genny rolled away

Saturday 20^th was a long day.  Starting at 05.00 we left Pular Besar in the dark following a previous track.  Bill had rigged our No 2 jib on the inner forestay as a temporary measure until we could take the genoa down.  Again the wind was on the nose so we had to motor sail tacking up the rhumb line.  The No 2 worked ok but we were very underpowered.

Indian ocean

The sea was a bit boisterous.

Bill was happy

Ships moving into and out of the Singapore Straits

We arrived off the Johor Straits at lunch time 21st June, Fathers day.  The AIS (automatic identification system) sprang into life as soon as we got near Singapore.  There are so many ships anchored and moving around the Singapore Straits that the chartplotter looked like a game of space invaders!  The little black boat is us and the green line is our course heading towards the red cross, bit off course, oops!

Inspiration Lady dancing with the big boats

There were lots of ships anchored inside the straits.  Inspiration Lady and Camomile had to weave in between them.

Singapore docks

Police patrol

The Singapore navy are neurotic about people getting into Singapore illegally.  It’s probably because singapore is ‘full’ so they post patrol boats all along the border and watch us as we pass.  Woe betide you if you stray over the invisible line between Singapore and Malaysia.  It’s on the chart and they can see where we are from our AIS signal.  We did it once and they were straight over and followed us all the way.

I’ll say it ‘That’s torn it!’

We tied up in Puteri marina at 3pm and stayed there for 2 weeks.  The first job was take down the torn genny.  When Bill unrolled it we could see the extent of the damage.

Something has gone wrong with my soft ware so I’ll close this blog and start a new one.