Tag: marina

Cruising the Malacca Strait

The Malacca Strait is the body of water between the west coast of Malaysia and Indonesian Sumatra, and it connects the Pacific and Indian Oceans. A very busy waterway 560 miles long, it is one of Asia’s primary sea routes, with almost 100,000 vessels passing through each year. Read on for our experience cruising the Malacca Strait. Malacca is pronounced Muh-LAK-uh.

Post Puteri Harbour Anchorages

A few days after returning from Kuala Lumpur, we untied our lines and left the Puteri Harbour dock. We day sailed for the first two days, stopping at the small islands of Pesang and then Besar. I don’t remember much about either, so they must have been peaceful and boring, which is good.

Sunset on the Malacca Strait, Malaysia
Sunset at anchor at Palau Pisang, Malaysia
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Puteri Harbour, Malaysia

Malaysia is its own unique country, and what we’ve seen so far we like. Our first stop after Indonesia was Puteri Harbour, Malaysia. A bay carved out of the mangrove jungle just across the narrow channel from Singapore, Puteri Harbour offers a marina, restaurants, and some good provisioning nearby.

Checking In to Malaysia

Checking in was so easy because of the proximity to the ferry terminal, which brings visitors from Batam, Indonesia daily. Once we docked, we sat on our boat until the Pine Tree marina team retrieved us in their golf cart for the short drive to the ferry terminal. At the terminal we had a very brief meeting with a government agent representing customs and immigration. We gave him our paperwork and he briskly stamped us into the country. Welcome to Malaysia in a few minutes. One of the easiest check-ins to a country ever!

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Highlights of Western Indonesia

After beloved Banyuwangi, from the east coast of Java we continued our travels through Western Indonesia. Of course Kalimantan is one of our highlights of Western Indonesia, and there are others! We stopped in cool anchorages and met some amazing people.

Go was in Indonesia for over 5 months, and between our fun visa runs we spent almost 4 months travelling the country. Despite the heat and heavy rains, lack of wind, and pollution, we liked Indonesia. Every person we encountered was friendly and kind, from east to west. In fact, one of our favorite places was also the friendliest.

Highlights of Western Indonesia: Bawean

An isolated island between Java and Kalimantan, Bawean was an oasis of calm and fun. Bawean is 150km north of Surabaya, Java. There is a ferry that sometimes goes between the two and takes about 4 hours. Bawean is a natural stopping off point for sailors heading from Java to Kalimantan, so we followed our nature and anchored there for a couple of nights.

Bawean waterfall, Western Indonesia
The small waterfall near the crater lake in Bawean
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