Straits of Melacca to Port Klang

Goodbye Singapore with its clean streets, efficiency and English language. Hello Malaysia with huge gaping holes in the pavement and lots of rubbish again. Mind you we are in a dock area, so the local scruffiness may not apply to the whole country, we will see. Not much English spoken here either except by officials.

The passage here was up the Straits of Melacca which must be one of the world's busiest shipping channels. A continuous stream of ships travelling in both directions, about 15 always showed up on our computer screen on a length of 25 miles. We sailed along just outside the marked channels, and although there were quite a lot of fishing boats during the night, and tugs towing barges of sand (for the reclamation going on around Singapore island) during the day, they didn't cause us any trouble - just kept us awake and alert! What was more of a handicap was a 20 knot wind on the nose and current against us for the whole of the first morning. Even with the engine on we were barely making 2 knots much of the time. It got better in the afternoon as the tide changed and the wind swung but then there wasn't much wind so we were still only averaging 3 knots.

A slow journey altogether. Still, we had a full moon so good visibility all night.

Now we are in Port Klang, the port for Kuala Lumpur. There is a huge new container port near the mouth of the river, probably a mile of docks and cranes, 3 cranes to each ship and all busy loading and unloading. Quite a sight with ships from all over the world. We sailed very close to them as we got a counter current at the side of the river, so had a really good view.

The Royal Selancor Yacht Club is where we are moored, tied up to a pontoon midstream. The club must have been started in colonial times, and now has a very smart new building which, a bit like Raffles, makes its money from 'functions' and its waterside restaurant. The view is interesting rather than scenic, with boat repair yards working on decrepit looking, mainly Indonesian, fishing and supply ships. Plenty of coming and going so plenty to watch from our deck. It is very hot and humid but we have the sun cover up and have spent a pleasant afternoon with a cushion and a book on deck under the cover. A club launch takes us to and from the club when required - just as well, as the tidal flow is very fast and our slipping outboard prop wouldn't cope.

We went to check in with immigration this morning, and the area around the building was swarming with people and their baggage. They were only being let into the building a few at a time. Our hearts sank, but hey, we're British, and we were ushered straight in to the lovely cool air conditioned building, past the queues inside, and into an office where an official put aside the pile of passports he was dealing with and attended to us! Evidently the crowds were Indonesians checking out ready to get the ship home. Very little paperwork, no costs, and a stamp in our passports. A very big difference from Indonesia.

Tomorrow we set off for another overnighter to Pangkor where we will be hauling out.