Singapore
Greetings to all of my PSP followers from Singapore.
As I suggested in my blog earlier the race was cut short because of the light winds and the mid race positions were the final race results. So unfortunately we did not get any chance to improve on our 7th position for this race. The upside of this is that our main rivals at the moment (De Lage Landen, Visit Finland and Welcome to Yorkshire) did not fare any better and we retain our 4th position overall. So this last race has given us some time to recharge our batteries and prepare ourselves and the boat for what should be a tougher race up to Qingdao in China. The temperatures are set to dip significantly after we pass Taiwan, which will make the next race different from any other.
Our arrival into Marina at Keppel Bay in Singapore was quite spectacular and organised in minute detail with much banner waving and music. We’re here now until 4th February. What an amazing city! Modern and contemporary, clean and tidy, busy and bustling with trade from all over the world. There’s a container port here that is absolutely massive, a hotel with a full size ship on the roof and a museum that is shaped like a lotus flower. It is a shoppers paradise, with more malls than you can shake a stick at, and every designer brand name known to man. Not exactly my own cup of tea but impressive nonetheless.
They drive on the left hand-side of the road and everyone speaks English as either their first or second language. So it’s an easy place to get around and has a very modern, efficient and cheap to use underground system. There’s very little crime and spitting chewing gum is a criminal offence. Most professional people seem to employ house maids (from the Philippines) who live in with the family and get what can only be described as a storage cupboard for their accommodation. Seemingly all apartments here have these built in to them for that purpose. Money, affluence and success seem to be big on everyone’s agenda here. From the little I’ve seen of this place it seems to work.
Being in a tropical climate, the weather is hot and humid and set to get even hotter over the coming months. Afternoons are often punctuated with heavy rain storms that are welcome because they reduce the humidity for a short time.
Clipper has a busy schedule for the boats here but I had the opportunity to sit and chat over a cup of tea with Sir Robin Knox-Johnson the other day, which was pleasant and informative. We’ve taken one of our boat sponsors (Rockport) out for a day sail in the harbour and are set to do the same again with another today.
I’ve managed to get out in to the city and see some of the sites. Some of the architecture is amazing and bizarre. I’ve attached a picture of the hotel with the ship on the roof for you all to see and the lotus flower-shaped museum. The botanical gardens are beautifully laid out and well maintained and well worth a visit. China town is also well worth a visit with the roadside food stalls cooking wonderful dishes up on the spot and all the market stalls selling absolutely everything known to mankind.
One of those strange coincidences that sometimes happen in life has also occurred for me here. My wife’s colleague at work knows a couple who have just moved out here for work and they were keen to come down to the boat and meet us all. They invited me to stay with them and we did a bit of sight-seeing too. To cut a long story short, after several conversations it turns out that I have met them both before back home. Just goes to show how small the world is.
We leave for Qingdao early on Saturday morning and we’ve been busy over the past couple of days readying the boat and re-provisioning the food supplies for a 3-4 week passage. We’ve dropped some things from the menu like omelettes as they are too difficult to do for the numbers we have on board and added others like mashed potato, beans and sausage which are much easier to do and will be welcome when it starts to get colder.
We’ve lost two crew members to work commitments and injury but have regained one and another Yachtmaster-qualified person from another boat as this is a requirement for safety purposes. So we’re light numbered again for the next race but personally I prefer it to having too many.
Wish us all good luck for the next race. Keep watching our progress on the Clipper Race Viewer and if you have any connections with the wind gods please put in a good word for New York.
Bye for now,
Martin
