March 29
In the early hours of today we navigated through one of the busiest shipping areas in the world—the Singapore Straits. After exiting the traffic lane, we altered to starboard and headed toward our berth in the heart of Singapore. We arrived at 7:00 a.m., left the ship at 9:00 and were immediately confused once we got into the terminal. Nothing looked as it did in 2008. Instead of taking the MRT we started to walk toward town to the Marina Bay Skypark Hotel & Casino. It was very hot and humid, not the best walking weather. After walking about 3 miles we admitted we were lost, somehow we ended up in Chinatown. I was very surprised at how much litter there was along the sidewalks, Singapore is supposed to be so clean. We broke down and asked directions to the train station but once inside decided it was too complicated. Instead we hailed a cab to the hotel. Although the driver did not speak much English he understood where we wanted to go. As you can see from the picture below, the top of the hotel is built to resemble a boat. He said it was built that way in case of a tsunami, a little Chinese humor. We went to the casino first, good thing we had our passports as we need them to enter and to exit the casino. After a little play I lost all the money I allotted to gamble, Betty lost $4.00. We headed back to the hotel and decided to go to lunch at a place called “Ku De Ta”. It was located on the 57th floor(Top) of the hotel, in the ‘boat’. The view was unbelievable.
Below are pictures of the infinity pool that is on the 56th floor. How would you like to swim in this pool. Pretty scary!
We had an excellent lunch with an excellent view. Betty ordered Salt Grilled Amberjack and I had a Loin Berkshire Strip Steak, we split a side of Asparagus. I had a Singapore Beer called Tiger and Betty had a Ginger Beer. Our lunch cost $150.00 but we had a million dollar view. It was a great life experience with my best friend.
After lunch we headed back to the lobby and checked out the shops, then took a taxi back to the Harbor Front and walked around the mall to cool off. I went into a Levi store and a pair of 501’s cost $139.95. We headed back to the Cruise Terminal and I bought some beers that I never had before which I will be adding to the beer list. We actually bought a bag of Lay’s Potato chips, since they don’t have them on the ship and Betty was dying for them. (There is such a shortage of food on a cruise ship!) They will go good with the burgers some day.
Back on the ship, we took well needed showers then headed to the buffet to watch the sail-away. The harbor here is filled with 100’s of ships. We spotted this yacht on the way out. Very unusual, the crew called it the James Bond Boat.
We are now setting various courses out of the Singapore Harbor before we enter the Straits of Malacca on our way to Phuket, Thailand.
March 30
Woke at 3:45am this morning to a storm at sea. I opened the curtains and watched the sky light up. At 6:00 it turned into a thunderstorm with the sky heavily clouded and heavy rain. This is the first storm of this size we every sailed through, but much to Betty’s dismay, the seas stayed calm. Early this morning we passed “One Fathom Bank” and at 9:00 a.m. we cleared the Malacca traffic separation scheme and continue to sail towards Phuket on a north-westerly course.
This morning we had a Port Talk on Phuket. We have half day tour, riding elephants, but needed info on what we can do the balance of our time there if we are not exhausted.
This afternoon we had a Scholarship at Sea lecture “Astronomy and a Star to Steer Her By” with astronomer David Dodge. It was very interesting and informative.
Tonight’s show was a Tribute Act with Alan and Harry Whyte performing the music of the Beatles. It started out bad, as the singer sounded like he just sucked in some helium. He did have a unique voice and his brother offset it with his and they sounded very good. The next show will be 50’s music so we will try and see it.
During the night we are continuing on a north-westerly course then enter the channel and navigate the shallow waters of the harbour.
