Enjoying Belitong and on to Singapore

   The four days we spent in Belitung flew by.  We enjoying a couple of free tours of the island put on by the local government.  Part of one tour was to the local schools where we talked to the students and they could ask us questions in minimal English. 
On Belitung we had our biggest welcome anywhere in Indonesia.  We joined up with the rally for this island and the locals went all out. They put on lots of performances for us and greeted us everywhere we went with big smiles and 'hello mister'.  We had our pictures taken with dozens of young people who would walk up  and ask to have their picture taken with us.  They had vans available to drive us into the nearby town for shopping.  They supplied a driver and guide and the vehicle for $10. great deal.  We just told the guide what we wanted and they found the correct store for us, even a store with a rat trap. That story coming up.
We had  a Canadian thanksgiving party on the Canadian yacht Cop-out with all the Canadian yachts in anchorage. 

We left Belitong late in the morning to do a 125 mile overnight passage to the NE corner of Bangka Island.  After motoring for the first two hours we had a nice sail for all but the last 40 miles. We crossed two busy shipping lanes in the day and a big fleet of fish boats at night.
We dropped anchor late in morning in 19ft at  01 30.627S   105 52.478E.  It was a pretty spot with a nice beach that we took a walk on. Not sure how legal that was as we were officially checked out of Indonesia and suppose to leave directly.  No Internet here, but tons of room for many boats.
The next morning we left at 7:30 am for Kentar 115 miles away.  Had mostly good sailing and got to Kentar near dawn and decided to keep going another 26 miles to Mesanak island which is anchorage #85 in book.  We arrived mid afternoon at waypoint recommended in book and found it very bouncy and windy with the E wind we had so decided to go on to the Asundra group about six miles away.  This turned out to be a great anchorage, well sheltered.  We dropped the hook in 25 ft at 00 28.466N   104 26.382E  There is a village on stilts nearby and we even got some Internet here.

We left at first light  to go between Bintan and Batam Islands, up Selau Riau Channel.  After motoring for an hour we sailed for a few hours and then back to motoring as we got up the channel.  A large T storm and heavy rain squall grazed us and we had rain for 2 hours but avoided the worst of the lighting.  These storms are now becoming daily as we get into the storm season.  We found a good anchorage on the East coast of Batam about 10 miles South of Nongsa point marina.  Anchored at 01 03.571N   104 09.516E in 40ft. was a quiet anchorage but not very pretty with the ugly shipping port on other side of channel.  We could have anchored a half mile south in the bay but a big tug and barge were messing around there so we moved up a bit to the waypoints I gave above.

Left at 2:30am for the Singapore area, a big day today. We had hoped to spend a few days at Raffles marina in Singapore but it was full.  Instead our destination now is Puteri Harbour marina just across the channel from Singapore, in Malaysia and 5 miles further up the channel than Raffles.
We had to motor pretty well all the way.  As we headed along the North coast of Indonesia we had a 2 knot push with the current .  We stayed on this side (South side of channel) until near Buffalo rock and crossed here to the Singapore side.
Our Ais on the chart planner was going mad. This is the busiest shipping area in the world.  The chartplotter would lockup every hour or so as it got overloaded with all the hundreds of targets. I heard several other Raymarine plotters had same problem on other boats.  There was not too much traffic on the Indonesian side but now as we lined up to do a 90 degree crossing of the shipping channels we could see a steady line of ships.  Supposedly they average about 1 every 12 minutes.  We motored to edge of channel and then waited 15 minutes for two big ships to go buy and then saw a larger gap and gunned the engine and crossed the east bound channel and then stopped again for a few minutes and shot across the next channel to arrive safely on the Singapore side. We could see the high rises of the big city near by.
We then motored along the shore  out of the shipping lanes, dodging the occasional ferry or work boat. The shore here was lined with hundreds of fuel storage tanks and ship loading cranes and also piles of dirt as they filled in more of the ocean to reclaim more land.
After we turned the corner to head North up the channel we left all the ships behind and and had a easy trip up the channel.  We called Puteri Marina as we neared the  bridge  over the channel.  No answer from them, we tried 4 or 5 times over the next hour and finally got them and they said they were ready for us.  There was a two knot current against us up this channel. 
We soon arrived at the entrance waypoint  to the marina I got off google earth. 1 24.929N   103 39.750E and it was bang on.
We were greeted at the dock by a couple of line handlers and were soon tied up.  Welcome to Malaysia they said and to come up to the office when ready for customs clearance.  At the office they did the preliminary clearance and then drove us down to the customs office in town and while we sat in a chair they took care of everything.  The customs and immigration people did not say a thing to us. All was down in 10 minutes, easy, no hassle, what a difference from Indonesia.