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| On our way to Malaysia - raising anchor at Ko Tarutao |
After
leaving Thailand mid-February we headed to Malaysia to do our last provisioning
and to obtain our Indonesian Visas. Once these were completed we raised anchor
and pointed the bow towards Indonesia.
In
order to arrive at daylight in Sabang, which is at the North end of Sumatra,
Indonesia, we only sailed the first day as far as the Butang Islands which are
out islands of Thailand. We had a great sail there and, with 30 knots of wind
blowing on our arrival, we had to sail close in to shore before CanKata was
willing to stop for the night.
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| CanKata at the Butangs |
We planned to arrive at Sabang by late afternoon allowing us to rest before clearing into Indonesia.
AIS and
Shipping Channel
When we
arrived in Malaysia, about 4 years ago, I had the opportunity to take part of a
bulk purchase of Automated Identification System (AIS) for shipping receivers.
Because it was part of a bulk order the price for the equipment was quite
affordable and I thought why not it will make life easier the next time we are
sailing in busy shipping areas. Loretta was not all that keen on spending money
on the AIS because we had so far managed quite nicely with radar. However, we
did buy it and installed it and then never used it – at least until today.
With
the AIS receiver we are able to transpose all the ships that are within a 20
mile range of us onto our navigation computer screen. This allows us to easily
see where the ships are in relation to CanKata and to determine how far away
they are and in what direction and at what speed they are traveling. It also
tells us the ships name and what type of vessel they are and what they are
carrying etc.
On our
second day out from the Butangs, we arrived at the edge of the shipping channel
which all the ships take that are traveling between Singapore
and the North Indian Ocean and the Red Sea .
The channel, which is not really a channel but an area covered by the
transiting ships, extends for about 100 miles along the route we were taking.
During
the daylight hours we had the odd ship but not anything to worry about. However
as it got dark, we really got into the thick of things. For about 6 hours we
had about 15 ships within our AIS range. The ships were heading in a variety of
directions and at different speeds so we were busy at the helm avoiding them.
This can all be done visually with binoculars and radar by determining from
their light patterns roughly in what direction they are heading. But with this
many ships surrounding CanKata it would have kept the two of us quite busy.
With the help of our AIS we were able to keep clear of the ships even when we
were caught in the middle of two converging ships.
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| CanKata is the red boat. Size not to scale! |
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| We made it safe and sound to Rubiah Island. |
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| Friendly officials greeted us in Sabang |
My
Favourite Pastime While Making a Passage
During this
passage I was reminded what I really liked about cruising. On the day that I
wrote this entry, for instance, we had a group of dolphins stop by to say hello
and put on a show up at our bow wave. But that is not my favourite activity.
Watching
the sun set and the moon rise simultaneously during a full moon is a beautiful
sight, but not my favourite activity.
Watching
the star splashed domed ceiling extending from the heavens down to the horizon
for a full 360 degrees is a wonderful experience, but still not my favourite
pastime.
Perhaps
I should have named this entry One of My Favourite Pastimes While Making a
Passage.
Because
we are on watch 24 hours a day while underway, this means that I have a lot of
time to myself and I need something to do to keep me awake. During this time is
when I read. We both have Kindles now and a large collection of books to choose
from. The Kindle, as with most E-readers, has a built-in dictionary so when I
come across a word that I am not sure of the meaning I simply put my finger on
the word and up comes the definition.
The
book that I am currently reading has a number of unfamiliar words, e.g. ,
castellated (ouch), métier, and jongleur. Last night I came across the word
“unshriven” (for those of you, like me, who have never studied Catholicism or
have gone to confession (but perhaps should have). I thought I would try to increase
my intellect and look up unshriven in the dictionary. So I placed my finger on
the word and up popped the definition:
unshriven – not shriven
This
did not seem to help me out much so I persisted and put my finger on “shriven”
and up popped the definition:
shriven – past participle of SHRIVE
Well I
still don’t feel any more intelligent so I once more followed up by placing my
index digit, i.e. finger on “shrive” and waited in awe for the definition to
pop up. I must confess that I still don’t feel any more intelligent but I still
enjoy reading to pass the time while on watch.
