Singapore

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My first impression of Singapore began at 4am, as my watch on the bridge began. We had already left the South China Sea and entered the Singapore Strait, the entrance to one of the busiest ports in the world. The anchorage surrounding Singapore stretches for nearly 70 miles, and it is absolutely crammed with boats of every variety, but the most noticeable are the large tankers and cargo ships everywhere.

I had never seen so many targets on the radar before. There were even oil rigs anchored there, waiting to be taken out to sea. Singapore is the gateway from Asia to Europe, and also refines something like nearly a quarter of the world's oil, so you can imagine how busy it is. I think the only busier port is Rotterdam.

We picked up a pilot once we were closer to the port, and eventually had Singapore Customs and Immigration come onboard to clear us in. Because we had to wait for customs for a bit, we had to anchor out in the harbor for a little while and wait for them before heading in to our berth.

Seeing the city from the harbor was pretty impressive, and I was excited to actually get in there as I had never been been there before and was looking forward to a little bit more 'civilization' than we had found in Malaysia.

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Photos

Radar Overload
Most of the little dots you see on the screen are the various ships, some moving, some not, on the way into Singapore.

Singapore Sunrise
We anchored off of this little island, waiting for another pilot to come back to the boat to take us into the harbor. The island looked really fake, complete with white sand and palm trees, surrounded by oil tankers and freighters.

Keppel Bay Marina
No, that's not an optical illusion. The buildings are really curved like that. It's part of the new development at the marina we docked at. This was taken from the gangway of the boat.

At anchor
Sitting at anchor with other ships, before heading in.

South China Sea
The seas were quite calm on the way to Singapore. It was pretty crazy how when we left Borneo, for about a day we passed an offshore oil rig every 5-10 miles. They were these gigantic massive gothic/industrial structures that were full of activity, but also very alone out in the vast ocean.

Comments

[Pauline]

Radar
Pretty interesting to see what you see as part of your daily grind. Amazing amount of blips!