Playing catch-up

I have a passport!  What a relief that is, I can assure you.  What they didn't do, however, was send me my old one back again which meant that I didn't have the necessary entry stamp showing our arrival into Malaysia.  To solve that little problem, we took a quick trip over the causeway into Singapore where, fortunately, the Malaysian exit authorities quite happily accepted a photocopy of my old passport (for once I planned ahead) and gave me an exit stamp in my new one.  Once that was done, we entered Singapore, walked across to the exit side, exited Singapore and recrossed the causeway to re-enter Malaysia.  DONE!  All in just over an hour. My new passport now has a history as well as one and a half pages used up already.

On high tide the following morning, we left Danga Bay travelling down the Straits between Malaysia and Singapore to stop at a little island for Paul to scrape the prop and check for any major barnacle growth.  He spent about three hours cleaning Calypso's bottom in order to coax more speed out of her so that we could run the gauntlet of shipping traffic around the Singaporean coastline the next day.  We were joined by Jackster who had also been delayed for exactly the same reason and received his passport at the same time so now we just wanted to try to catch up with the rest of the group.  

This particular trip is not a relaxing one as we had to work our way along the shipping lanes and be on constant lookout for huge vessels and tugs moving across our path going in and out of the shipping yards and, believe me, there are hundreds of them.  So much for the idea that motor must give way to sail, ha!  They're much much bigger than us so who are we to argue?  

We made it around to the East Malaysian side without too much drama and dropped anchor in a nice quiet protected spot near the naval base only to set off again before sunrise to cover the next leg.  

One more stop along the way and we finally dropped anchor at Tioman Island just after six p.m. on the evening of my birthday where I thought we'd be spending an uneventful night.  Nope, our dear friends aboard Soal Eile had planned a dinner party!  A quick shower and change and we were whisked off to the Island for a fabulous meal.  Myra had even brought a chilled bottle of champagne (what a treat), a good bottle of red wine and, to top it all off, even a birthday cake!  I was truly spoiled.  As for the drinks, one has to appreciate that we're in a Muslim country where no alcohol is allowed in most establishments, but this particular restaurant owner didn't mind, thank goodness.  It was certainly a birthday to remember.  I think my last birthday cake was way back in Brazil nine years ago.

OK, so we've now caught up and are thrilled to see crystal clear waters after the positively disgusting stuff of Danga Bay.  We couldn't wait to get out for a snorkel which proved to be better than expected.  Lovely colourful fish, healthy coral and even a turtle or two all very visible in such gorgeous clear, warm seas.  Things are definitely looking up.

Myra pouring the champers to enjoy with a great spread of local fare along with  great company.

My birthday cake.  Myra had such a laugh watching them with the writing.  She knew they would run out of space long before they even started the word "birthday" so, no problem, just leave out the "h" and  it'll fit in (sort of).