We had a lovely week in the Republic of Singapore Yacht Club living the life of Reilly. Very upmarket marina - beautiful pool, gym, computer room, TV room, bars restaurants, etc - even golf buggies to waft you out to the boat on the pontoon!

We eventually left with 6 other boats on 31st October, in a torrential downpour.The Straits of Singapore are extremely busy - they make the English channel look like a quiet country road - and we picked our way with difficulty towards Malaysia. Once we went round the south west tip the weather improved, and we had a good trip to Pulau Pisau, only 20 miles up the coast. Our basic plan is to get to Thailand and come home as soon as possible, but for safety we want to travel in company, and also for safety reasons it's very tricky sailing at night. There are endless long fishing nets, and curious rather rickety, but extensive, wooden fish traps built out in the water. Some are as far as 15 kilometres from the coast, and as much as 1/2 km in length. And then there's the debris in the water - the worst we've seen. Paper, plastic, sticks, dead dogs (two one day) and logs - some large, and certainly big enough to pierce the hull if hit end on at speed. And we understand that further north a ship has shed a complete cargo of large logs, and we should hit the debris soon. Or rather miss it. So we're travelling by day.

The second day we had a 65 mile leg to Pulau Besar: this is in the Water Islands in the narrow part of the Malacca Straits and probably the most worrying area as far as pirates are concerned, so there was a certain degree of tension in the air. But all was well, and we then had an uneventful leg to Port Dickson, where we were in Admiral Marina - even more luxurious than RSYC if that's possible. For practical reasons due to clearing in and immigration problems we had to spend 4 days there, and we took the opportunity of taking a day trip by taxi to Melaka (the approved spelling of what was Malacca) a very interesing old city with a history tied up with the Dutch, the Brits, the Portuguese, the Chinese and the Malays.

This morning we moved up past Port Kelang, the port for Kuala Lumpur, to this island we're currently anchored off - a rather deep anchorage at 18 metres, but the anchor seems well dug in. The weather is calm here, but there is unbelievable lightning over the mainland - a good subsitute for November 5th back home.

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