Trip #3
Weather: Sunny but hazy (air in 'unhealthy' range, no thanks to Indonesia)
Waters: Calm, mostly
On board: C, J2, R and A
New gear on board: Go Pro with a clip-on mount, a paddleboard, a dry bag
We thought we'd take Little Wanderer out and try to get to the Southern islands, for a gauge of how long it'd take to get there from Raffles Marina. When we say "Southern islands", we mean the two Sisters Islands, St John's and Lazarus, on whose beaches we had spent many a happy afternoon and even an overnight stay more than a decade ago.
Then again, we thought we should be less ambitious. Raffles Marina is, after all, wayyy out in western Singapore. When we last had a boat, we were dry-berthed at Keppel Marina in south-central Singapore. Coming out of the marina's no-wake zone, you'd run smack into the western end of Sentosa already, and the Southern islands were just about 20 minutes away from there.
So, coming from Raffles Marina in Tuas, we had miles to go today.
We clipped on C's Go Pro to its new goose-neck mount and shot a video, which we had to edit heavily because we forgot to turn the thing off! The 10-second clip (edited by C) is a nice one though. Thing to note: The clip shows us going faster than we felt we were going! [The video clip doesn't show up on mobile devices. I haven't figured out why.]
The waters were a lot flatter than when we last went out (see the Sept 12 post); that was before the craziness of the general election sucked us into a vortex of prolonged work hours. But GE2015 is done with now...
Today, it took us about 25 minutes, I think, to get to "Lands End", our name for that western corner of Singapore, at which - if you are coming from Raffles Marina - you have to turn to port to head for Pulau Bukom, Pulau Hantu and beyond that, the Southern islands. (On that last choppy ride, with Piang at the wheel, it took us 40 minutes to get to Land's End.)
 |
| "Land's End": That western-most tip of Singapore. After turning to port, the water is rougher. Lots more ships too. |
The waters got rougher after we made the turn, and we were reminded that these were Singapore's busy sea lanes. Huge tankers, PSA harbour pilots, some speed boats, a couple of tug boats hauling vessels loaded with sand or other stuff, the Coast Guard, and yes, a Republic of Singapore Navy vessel, bristling with radar thingamajigs.
The haze got the better of us, and we realised that our Garmin GPS was the only thing guiding us. A couple of what looked like islands skulked in the hazy distance, and we couldn't be sure if it was Pulau Hantu. The GPS map wasn't too helpful to us. It had so much information, crammed with triangles representing boats, sea-depth indicators and 2,000 other markings. A crowded map indeed, which we were still trying to figure out. (We really should RTFM.)
I remember how much less complicated it was a decade and a half ago. We pored over hard-copy maps the size of a broadsheet newspaper!
 |
| TMI! |
What was clear was that even Pulau Hantu seemed pretty far off from Raffles Marina, never mind the Southern islands beyond it. We headed back, again guided by GPS. The waters on the home stretch were really calm today, and J2 (under supervision of Captain C), gunned it.
 |
| J2 at the wheel. Speed Freak went full throttle. |
Before long, we saw the gentle span of the Tuas Second Link ahead of us in the haze, and we made straight for the marina. A good ride out today, though we never really got anywhere.
 |
| C takes us back to home base. Just outside the no-wake zone, we put out the fenders. With our still trying to regain our sea legs, berthing causes a fair amount of stress. |
 |
| Little Wanderer is "recovered" by the marina crew. We had already hosed down the interiors. The boat was moved to the washing bay, where C flushed the outboard motor to get rid of the salt water. This is going to be a post-trip routine... |
 |
| A bunch of mussels on a rope in the waters within the marina. Raffles Marina very nature. Much awesome. (With acknowledgments to Doge @DogeTheDog.) |
Eric left our paddleboard on board. It was a freebie that we got with the boat. C has yet to go for the class I signed him up for. It will be a while before we use it.
No comments:
Post a Comment