Singapore is super commercialized and malls are everywhere. I mean everywhere. Every other building looks like this inside:



often up to 8 floors of stores like that, often with a clear center atrium. The elevators almost always were missing a 4th floor button:



because the word for 4 sounds like the word for death, phonetically. Some places also didn't have a 14th or 24th floor for similar reasons.

Speaking of elevators, this was the first place I'd ever seen an elevator queue with priority lanes:




This is a pretty good representation of the average store:



BUY NOW!!!!

I thought USA#1 was commercialized, but it has nothing on Singapore.

This was all lost on me because I'm not a shopper, but I do like checking out grocery stores and food places. My Pringles flavors collection added a new one:



salt & seaweed, mmm. OK, not mmm. Who are we trying to kid. Funky, though.

The nicer grocery stores had sweet stuff like wagyu beef:



and pick-your-own sushi boxes:



of which I availed myself more than once. Most of the pieces cost between $0.25-$0.50USD. Gorged myself on tuna at least twice.

I made sure to smash a made-to-order durian pancake here:



with a lime juice, of course.

I didn't buy any actual durians, but they were available all over the place:



although once you had one, you better have private transportation, because all the public transport bans them. Most hotels ban them as well. Poor durian.

As you might imagine, ATMs are everywhere given the rampant commercialism. Some of the ATMs in Singapore do a lot more than just dispense money. You can pay your bills at them, pay parking fines, buy movie tickets, and do all sorts of stuff. They also warn against scams:



Hi handsome! Buy me some online credits and I am yours!

A little more sushi goodness:



I think that was like $3USD.

lunch with a friend:



Singapore isn't just all commercialism and buildings. They do have a few parks, one of which has a nifty raised walkway through the trees:



and some sweet chillout areas:



that allow you to forget you're in a massive futuristic city for a few hours. There are wild monkeys in the trees, and lots of signs warning not to let them steal your stuff.

The hotel I stayed at toward the end had little escape areas available:



The palm trees were a nice touch. My room was on the 24th floor or something like that.

Pretty funny coming down to the lobby one day and having the elevator doors open to this:



Well, I guess it's funny if you're not the one stuck in the elevator.


My original plan had been to chill in Singapore for a bit, then start a circuit through SE Asia. This plan changed when I got an email from the Australians that I had crossed from Ecuador to French Polynesia with. They were in Fiji and the wife and daughters had decided they were done with sailing, but the boat still needed to make it back to Australia. They put out a call for assistance and hey, can't really say no to sailing from Fiji to Australia, right?

Off to the airport I went:



My other bag with electronics is another 8.5kg. That makes about 55lb of stuff I was lugging around. Sailing gear be heavy. Nowadays it's more like 20kg/44lb total.

Changi airport in Singapore is my favorite airport in the world. Everything is clean, sleek, modern, and new. There is free wifi throughout the airport, and there are electrical plugs everywhere for charging your stuff. They even have these little snooze lounge areas:



which as you can see from the snoozers, are the cat's meow.

So after a few weeks of enjoying Singapore, I got on the plane and headed to Fiji.

Which was.. on fire?! when I arrived:

How would you rate the prepackaged sushi?

Whenever I buy it in Vancouver, which I don't do very often, it is so subpar to freshly made sushi that I always regret that I didn't just go get take-out at one of the gazillion sushi restaurants here.

Isn't there a whack of make-it-on-the-spot sushi places in the hawker centre?

The sushi was anywhere from OK to pretty good. All the sushi posted was from Isetan, which is a Japanese supermarket that has locations in Singapore. They do a solid job, and the product turnover in the sushi section is rapid. You can stand there and wait for the guy to make new pieces and then take those pieces if you prefer, but the ones sitting on the shelf are probably no more than 2-3 hours old.

Didn't see any sushi places in any of the hawker centres I went to, sadly. I'd have parked my butt right in front of one and had to be rolled out if so.

Where did they put the 6?

Durian is THE WORST

6 also means something bad I guess.

Durian is the nuts.



Real time update:

Flew into Fiji from Hong Kong, found out the airport in Honiara was shut down, and chilled in Fiji for a day listening to stories from a missionary also headed to Honiara who specializes in helping people by removing demons from them. He was an old school, Old Testament type. Fully believes in actual demons, etc. Absolutely fascinating to listen to his delusional outlook.

Eventually made it to Honiara, joined the boat. Worse condition than expected. Probably leave early. Lots of stuff is broken due to poor maintenance. The owners are nice but clueless. Sailed from there to Gizo, Solomon Islands sans issues.

Just sailed into Rabaul, Papau New Guinea tonight from Gizo after a 3ish day sail. Did some meh diving in Gizo. Sailed in isn't exactly correct. We were towed in the last mile after sailing into the harbor because our engine died a day ago. GPS and radar also failed on the way over from the Solomon Islands but I got both of those working again.

Drank the last coconut this afternoon, creating a real emergency, so will need to restock for the sail over to the Hermit Islands and Ninigo Atoll. Considered getting off here due to boat issues, but after reading about the Hermits and Ninigo, I think it's worth putting up with the bad for another few weeks to experience H & N.

After H & N, we reach Biak, Indonesia in about 3 weeks. Likely get off there and fly to Bali to do some diving and chill there for a bit.

Haven't caught malaria yet so I have that going for me.

I'd post some sweet coconut photos but internet here is lol as it usually is on random islands.

Sounds pretty sketchy. Are there any other boats going your way/at the destination you're going to that you can report in with once a day or something?
No GPS? Ugh

Hope the life raft is mounted on deck.

How has the fishing been?

Yes, I always get a lil excited when I see that your TR is updated. Love reading it!

damn u pringles, you're everywhere

might be a really stupid question, but here it goes: do you ever get seasick? does bad/rough weather bother you when youre out there on the wide ocean?

Damn, catching up with the thread really made me miss SE asia. Ditto on Singapore being awesome. Love those $3 meals. Changi airport is amazing too, and I love taking a taxi out of the airport. It always stuns me how tidy and organized it's everywhere.

My favourite thing about SE asia might be all the random cold drinks you can buy at 7-11, I was reminded about that by this picture you posted:


Every time I'm down there I always go to 7-11 and buy every single can/bottle of cold stuff that doesn't look familiar. There's always some really epic stuff, like Durian Ice Tea, juice made of fruits you don't recognize, or flower-flavoured rice water (yes, that's a thing).

Also: Durians <3

Seasickness - they say everyone gets seasick, but what it takes to trigger it is different for each person. I have yet to be seasick and I've been in some fairly nasty stuff. I'm sure I'll be seasick eventually but it's not a big deal as long as you stay hydrated. It's mostly just feeling miserable.

5 south - no other boats headed this way that I know of. We are on a less traveled route for sure. We have a satellite phone and a satellite texting thing if we need to mayday in open ocean.

GPS failing stinks, but all smartphones have GPS these days so losing the ship GPS is not the end of the world. The problem is not having a GPS feed into the chart plotter, which is the electronic navigation map tool that we use to plot courses. We can eyeball it using phone GPS but it's nowhere near as safe or useful as a direct feed from the ship GPS.

Life raft is mounted and recently checked.

Fishing has been mixed. No fish landed, but we have been getting strikes and almost landed two. Reading de captain's fishing book has definitely helped my fishing game but I'm no de captain.

Glad you guys are still enjoying this and will update again hopefully with pics when we get to Biak in 3 weeks. Definitely no internet in the Hermit Islands or Ninigo Atoll.

Def miss that minute maid mango oj

Damn, why is sushi so cheap there? I thought Singapore was expensive.

Tried to leave Rabaul yesterday but the engine overheated on the way out so we turned right back around and spent all day repairing it. Well, the local diesel mechanic spent all day repairing it. I mostly just helped find tools and ferry him back and forth to land on the dinghy.

On the plus side, I was able to enjoy a shower at this beautiful marina facility:



Pretty sure I have the plague now.


At least the sunsets here are nice:




And nothing beats drinking coconuts:



which cost about $0.17usd each at the local market:





We try to leave again tomorrow morning. No money where we are headed so we stocked up on bars of soap, bags of rice, and small bottles of cooking oil to trade with. Fishing hooks also work but not sure I want to part with mine. The boat owner has an old handheld GPS unit that he is going to try to get at least 100 coconuts for.

I brought a bunch of animal stickers from Hong Kong which I will try to convert to infinite mangoes, coconuts, and papayas. My plan is to show the island kids the stickers and adjust trade values based on demand. A cat sticker may only get me one coconut but a rhinoceros sticker has got to be worth at least three.

It would be pretty sweet to be drinking a coconut whilst sitting atop a throne made of coconuts.

Trying again to leave Rabaul after all day work on the autopilot yesterday.

Fishing lines are out, coconuts are restocked, and we are dodging floating tree trunks that fell off the lumber boat last night as we sail around the volcano toward open water.





Probably lose cell signal soon, will see about catching a fish.

wow. are you visiting one of those naked tribes? i thought thwy were the only ones still doing barter instead of money.

Clothes are one of the items they trade for. Other top items are rice, sugar, fish hooks, and any kind of tools.

Passing just north of Lorengau on Manos island, PNG right now. It's 00:47 and when I took over watch at 00:00 the person I relieved was asleep. You don't sleep on watch. Especially when less than 5nm from land. It's like the owners want to die.

Caught a sweet little barracuda yesterday but let it go to avoid getting ciguetera poisoning. Was likely fine, but no need to risk it, cig is nasty.

Some locals from a random island rowed out to meet us earlier today with coconuts but we didn't stop, despite our existing coconut supply starting to get moldy. Still good on the inside. Here are two in their tiny outrigger canoe:



Pretty surprised to catch this 3g signal. Doubt we'll see it again before Biak

had to google ciguatera. how high do u think is the risk? or do you just avoid it because youre so far from civilization? don't eat any herbivorous fish?

Chopstick, I've read this entire thread over the years, and it has been an inspiration in my life.

Thank you very much. I hope you'll keep us updated forever.

Skill - cig is a very real risk, but you manage it just like any other risk. I never eat parrotfish because it's just not worth the risk. I rarely eat barracuda for the same reason - they eat tons of the reef fish and thus become high risk. Usually local knowledge is the best guide, but my view is that while I love fish, cig is nasty enough that I am fine avoiding it when there is any kind of risk.

Chaos - thanks, glad to hear it. Will keep updating as long as I have something interesting to post and people are still enjoying this.


In current news, I left the boat yesterday after 36 days on board. Wanted to do the full 4 months all the way to Singapore but decided to get off here in Biak, Indonesia.

There are a lot of reasons for the decision but they mostly distill to safety. The owners are nice folks, but they are inexperienced and not interested in learning from my experience. This has resulted in a few very dangerous situations. We have had to be towed into the last three ports. We lost the engine four different times. Had to repair the mainsail twice. Genoa is torn up a fair bit and needs a lot of sewing. Generator no longer works. Tons of minor stuff is broken or barely functional.

We crashed into and became stuck on a reef, which I had to kedge us off of. Almost crashed into a lee shore twice. Almost hit some cliffs. Almost ran aground on a bunch of rocks. Got pooped a few times, including the interior. And so on.

All of the above was avoidable or preventable. All of it was due to bad decisions from the owners. Almost all of it could have been avoided if they had just listened to me.

So after over a month of that kind of frustration, I decided to leave the boat. Informed them right after we cleared immigration in Indonesia, while we were still in the immigration office. Stayed in a hotel last night. Have a flight to Sorong on Saturday. Will spend a week or so diving in the Raja Ampat islands, then go to an as of yet undetermined place. Thinking Palau would be pretty sweet. Also may head back to Thailand for a bit. Philippines are also high on the possibility list.

It wasn't all bad. We sailed from the Solomons into Papua New Guinea, then up to the Hermit Islands where I traded a small bag of Skittles for some coconuts and papayas. Some fishermen gave us some skipjack tuna when they saw we were sailing at about 1kt/hr (doldrums) out of the Hermits toward Biak. Got some diving in at Gizo and again in Biak.

Went diving here in Biak a few days ago, swam with and right under a school of hundreds of barracuda:



Most of my underwater photos are garbage but I like that one. Such an incredible feeling to swim near a massive school of barracuda like that.

Here I am goofing off upside down:



Getting towed out of the Hermits by an outrigger dugout canoe (we attached our spare outboard to it):



These girls paddled up in their canoe at Luf Island to trade bananas, cassava, coconuts, papayas, etc:



We caught a pretty sweet mahi between Rabaul and the Hermits:




Next up is diving in the Raja Ampat islands, then who knows after that. Suddenly I have a few months of open time, how lucky!

Looks like I messed up the barracuda photo, here it is again:

See how it just becomes a massive cloud of barracuda off to the left? It kept going and going, that photo shows less than 20% of them. So sick. I've never seen that many barracuda in one place ever.