This one's for Claude!

...or: how we reached Malacca and Egil's new look

We've reached the ancient and super-historic trading city of Malacca. Awesome little place. Plenty of Malaysian, Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish, English, Arabian and Chinese history here.

Most other people sailing up the Malacca strait do it in dayhops and anchor at night because of all the traffic and fishing boats. However we didn't think it looked much worse than what we've already seen in Indonesia, so we pushed on through the night and thereby cut the passage by 24 hours or so. The only problem was a lack of wind most of the way, but hey: diesel is cheap as chips here and we have expanded our fuel-capacity by 80 liters, adding 2x40l jerrycans. Now we can motor for about ten days straight. We might need it up the red sea!

Marina Life aka.super-cheap Malaysia!

Left our illegal Singapore anchorage five days ago, and have ever since been enjoying the marina life, just across the bridge from Singapore. Only interrupted by one birthday party, our lives have circled around taking 4-5 showers a day, stocking up food and diesel (without having to paddle it out to the boat), washiwashi (everything) and doing the land-crab-dance.
This is our first time in a marina since New Zealand, and I honestly think we both deserved it, and needed it. All that comfort.








Tomorrow we head out. Back into the real life again. Melaka, Kuala Lumpur, Langkawi and eventually Thailand is up.

Back To Singapore!

We are heading back to celebrate Gro's (Volda classmate) 28th birthday.

Happy Birthday Gro!

Singapoh!

Holy moly guys! Since you're reading this we must have made it to Singapore! At the moment we're anchored some thirty miles outside now and plan to do the last leg tomorrow morning in daylight. We've had fairly good wind going here, mostly from behind, yet a little too little for speeding. ...apart from the two small storms we had, but they were brief, a couple of hours and they were over. We've anchored three places along the way, but didn't land anywere due to various reasons. Apart from that we've crossed equator, come unbelievably close to ramming a local fishing boat and harpooned a fish that were swimming under our boat when we were becalmed. It refused to take our bait, so we had to jump in and spear it, anyway it made it to the pot.
We're hoping to stay in Singapore jut a few days before heading off to Thailand by means of the Malacca strait and Malaysia. See the sights, see if we can find some parts for the boat and then head off. Sweet as!

Chicks!

Finally, the Pessblaut-guys are able to use their status as adventurous and travelling, young sailors to pick up some birds.

They were too small to eat, OK??

Kryssord

Etter fire-fem måneder med lesing av bøker som primæraktivitet, ved siden av litt seiling selvfølgelig, bestemmer jeg meg for å prøve meg på kryssord-vedlegget til Norsk Ukeblad nr. 49, 2008 (takk Mamma!). Det går imponerende dårlig. Etter tre minutter finner jeg allikevel mitt første ord.

“Dagdriver” på fire bokstaver: “Boms”.

EQUATOR!!!

The 8th of October we left the southern hemisphere with no imminent plans of returning. We are getting closer to home now 8.000 miles done, 10.000 to go. From now on we are on our home hemisphere. It does actually have a homy feel to it. We celebrated on the foredeck by donning our best shorts and breaking out the bottle of aquavit, which crossed the equator for the third time. We chatted with the stereo blasting and the boat coasting along at a leisurely three knots. We did attract a certain curiosity from some local fishermen apparantly unaccustomed to sailors dressed in their sunday best, waving around bottles of traditional Norwegian liquor.

Close Call

It's about 0530 and we're cruising along the South China Sea at a good 4,5 knots on our way to Singapore. It's early dawn and I've been on watch for an hour and a half, and so far I haven't seen any signs of other traffic whatsoever. A bit out of the ordinary as the maximum depth of the are is 30 metres and you can encounter fishing boats anywhere as well as larger commercial craft headed for Singapore.

I've just turned off the lantern, a bit early as it is still twilight, but there's noone around anyway. I'm listening to my Ipod and looking aft, slumped against the cockpit coaming. They say that you, worst case scenario, have 20 minutes from you spot a ship in the horizon until it runs you down - if it hits you in the vast ocean. Some of the solo-sailors sleep in 20-minute intervals so they can scan the horizon. Others sleep 2 hours, trusting in others peoples ability to steer clear, or just the plain improbability of crashing into another craft. I don't know when I checked forward the last time. Maybe 10 minutes ago, maybe 30.

My Ipod runs out of battery and I head inside to put it on charge. As I'm fidgeting with the charging-cable just inside the companionway I steal a glance out of our lookout globe. I blink once. I cannot believe it. There's a sampan, a traditional fishing boat about the same size as our own, about 50 metres, dead, straight ahead! I hesitate for a nano-second, I do not process the equation that says that at current speed we'll ram the sampan in 21,8 seconds, I do however register that he doesn't seem to be moving. Sometimes these guys will cross just in front of your bow to offload the bad spirits they have accumulated lately. Not the case this time, however we are about to offload heaps of kinetic energy into his flimsy wooden frame.

I frantically jump out of the companionway, scattering Ipod and various accessories in the process. Out in the cockpit i tear off the chain that connects the windvane to the tiller and yank the tiller to starboard, after a hyper-brief internal conference in which the conclusion is that I should pass in front of the fishing boat as they often have nets or lines trailing off the back. The sampan drifts into sight as our bow turns to port and I register there's a person in the back and that the boat is anchored. I barely clear his anchor-rode as we pass four metres in front of him.
I connect the windvane again, not really believing what just happened. I have to turn around and look back at the boat to make sure it was really there. Down below Egil is still asleep.

Somehow my watchkeeping vigilance has picked up considerably the last few days....

Checking in, Checking out

Checking in to country (example used: Indonesia) when arriving by airplane.


-Bring passport
-Walk out of plane, approach customs booth at airport
-Pay appropriate fee, get stamp in passport, go retrieve luggage




Checking in and out of country when arriving by boat:


- Bring passport, cruising permit, cash in US$ for bribes, 11 copies of crewlist, visas procured in advance, a handful of passport-size pictures of crew, clearance-out report from previous country, boat-papers (altered in photoshop if necessary) and ANY paper regarding boat, crew and travel for the last 5 months.

-Locate customs, harbour master, immigration, quarantine and any other necessary officials, in this case navy.

-Get transportation, in this case; hire a scooter (make sure fuel tank is full)

-Start off; go to Immigration. Find the office closed, yet the employees present. Fend of attempts of bribery (“No, we're allright with the stamps already in our passports as we're not ever planning on leaving the boat.” (For Your Convenience; forget to mention your having lived in a hotel-room downtown for two weeks)) Make arrangements to come back next day when office is supposedly open.


-Go down to Customs. Find out that despite your observations regarding Immigration-office being closed, it is in fact open. What's more; find that in order to clear in you need a form which you get at Harbour Master's office. However this is closed.


-Walk over to Harbour Master's office. Find it open. Get form. Observe that in order of form to be valid it needs stamps from Immigration, Harbor Master, Navy, Quarantine and, finally; customs. Explain that you're clearing in today, but tomorrow you will clear out.


-Take form to Quarantine. Explain that you're clearing in, but will be back shortly to clear out.


-Pay fee of 20 000 Rupiah. Not too bad.

-Go to Navy office. Find it closed.


-Decide you cannot do anything more at present, go back to hotel room. Run out of petrol on the way back. Push scooter a couple of kilometres to petrol station.

-Return refreshed next day, go straight to Navy office. Find that navy-officer takes one of your precious two copies of form.


-Go to Immigration. Get notified that you don't have all the necessary forms, and by far not enough copies. Get handed the right form that you supposedly only can get at Harbor Masters.

-Run down to supermarket down the road. Make five copies of each form. Turn out a couple of dozen extra crew-lists just in case.


-Go back to Immigration. Watch Immigration Officer stamp each paper four times and sign once. Do maths. Forty stamps, ten signatures.

-Go back to Navy office for stamp on new form. Find Navy officer gone. Linger until bored.


-Moped over to Harbour Master, explain that, yes, you cleared in with his office yesterday and yes, today you're clearing out. Leave with necessary stamps and Harbour Master slightly puzzled.

-Head over to Quarantine. Explain that, yes, you cleared in yesterday, and, yes, today you're clearing out. Quarantine-guy wants 25 000 Rupiah. Calmly explain that the last three times you visited a Quarantine-office in his country, including his own office, yesterday, you only paid
20 000. Pay 20 000 Rupiah.


-Walk back to Navy office. Wait for Navy officer. Watch as puzzled Navy-guy clears you out two hours after he cleared you in.

-March to Customs office with both forms. Clear in and out with two-minute intervals.


-Go back to Harbour Master's office. Watch officials scrutinize your papers, and, Lo and Behold, find them in order. Wait for twenty minutes while they turn out a paper saying you are allowed to, and will leave their country tomorrow at noon.

-Go back to hotel room by way of the whole town after losing direction. Rest for six days until you can summon the energy to actually leave the country.




Clearing out of country when leaving by plane:

-Bring passport.
-Go to airport, approach customs-booth.
-Get stamp, wave goodbye, board plane.

Anchoring, Bali style

Yeah, Yeah, we know: Check the tide-tables....

We are okay!

No, the tsunami didn't get us. In fact we didn't hear about it until just now. We are safe and in Singapore.

Our thoughts go out to those who got hit.

You have just received a message I sent using my SPOT Satellite GPS Messenger

Øyvind på Tur
Latitude:0.0283
Longitude:105.00713
GPS location Date/Time:10/08/2009 08:50:28 GMT

Click the link below to see where I am located.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=0.0283,105.00713&ll=0.0283,105.00713&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1
Message:Fra de seilende:
Egil og Øyvind seiler avgårde og har det bra!
Egil and Øyvind are sailing happily along and are OK

Raising the safety factor for millions who step into the outdoors each year, SPOT notifies friends and family or an international emergency rescue coordination center with status messages based on situation and need. Ask for Help (or SPOT Assist), Alert S.O.S., Check-In/OK and Track Progress-all with the simple push of a button.
http://www.findmespot.com

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