Romantic Escape, Chased by Warship

Last weekend was a four-day long break for most people in Singapore. On Friday, the young nation celebrated its 54th birthday and on Monday, there was a public holiday for the annual Muslim observation of Haji (the ritual pilgrimage to Mecca). Friends at Raffles Marina were planning a short week cruising around the south of …

Accidents Happen…

I know it's part of life and most parents will have to deal with it at some point, but it is soooooo upsetting. At a lovely Sunday BBQ with friends, here in Nongsa, the kids went to jump on the trampoline and an attempted front flip went wrong. Aeneas came running for help: "Come quickly, …

More Anambas, Please

Summer wasn't over after all. We had a few more weeks of glorious sunshine (and the odd rainy day, I admit). The Anambas Islands really rate as one of the top places we've been to in our four years of cruising. It's just the perfect combination of remote island life with deserted sandy beaches, numerous …

The End of Summer?

Well, of course there is no summer or winter here; we are in the tropics, very close to the equator in fact. There are, however, two very distinctive weather patterns: the NE monsoon and the SW monsoon. The first one runs roughly from November to May and the latter from June to October. Or thereabouts, …

Marina Life

We've spent the last few weeks in Nongsapoint marina in Batam, Indonesia. A great place to do some boat maintenance. Seathan fixed our water maker and fitted our engines with new fuel injectors and we are good to go again. We also got stuck into the new school year and caught up as we had …

A Well Kept Secret…

Maybe we shouldn’t tell anyone and keep it a secret. The Anambas are just too good to be true. One of the best cruising grounds we’ve come across; Indonesia has totally exceeded our expectations, yet again. It would be such a shame if these islands got inundated with tourists. Right now, they are difficult to …

Exit Indonesia

After six months the time has come to clear out of Indonesia... It wasn't nearly long enough to discover this vast archipelago of diverse islands. Maybe we will return one day... We're in Belitung, an island roughly halfway between Jakarta and Singapore, and we were able to complete exit clearance here. Indonesians love paperwork and …

And I could walk 500 miles…

Hard to believe it, but, yes, we could have walked here faster. Current, wind and tides have not been working much in our favour. We've arrived in Belitung, a small island roughly halfway between Jakarta and Singapore. Only 300 miles to go until Singapore. It's been a hard slog, getting here from Karimunjawa. We waited …

“Monsoon Madness”

I suppose after years of an ultramarine and turquoise lifestyle most of you will say we deserve a bit of personalised wintery weather.......well it's here in spades.                         Looking forward, the next four or five days will likely be the same as the last four or five days, coffee swilling,  deck pacing, weather downloading, meal cooking,  …

Caught in a trap.

I guess we've been lucky so far. We saw many huge logs (and entire trees) floating around in Indonesian waters. In daylight, you can see them and avoid them, at night, it's a different story. And so it happened. Sailing across the Java Sea at 4am, just before dawn, while I was on watch. I …