Day 20 Cairns-Singapore via Batam Island, Indo

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Saturday 27th Dec '25 and my BIRTHDAY!!!!!


It's not everyday you celebrate your birthday at sea, well, for most people anyway.  This happens to be the 2nd year in a row for me but this time it's the BIG one - 65!  Whoop whoop.

It has been a quite, chilled out day with not a lot of traffic to worry about and not a lot happening. 

In the late afternoon the guys put a nice dinner on.  We had really nice steaks along with a rack of spare rib, also very nice, all washed down with a couple of beers.


 Super chef know as Alex cause I can't pronounce his Estonian name!  


Where the magic happens 


So the birthday came and went as it always does but it was a pretty good one considering I am at sea.  

To cap off the special day we also crossed over the equator meaning we are now officially in the winter half of the world even though it is sunny and 35c! 


 Lat/long showing us just crossed into the northern hemisphere 


At our current speed we would be arriving at the marina in Batam around midnight, unfortunately we are not allowed to enter in the dark as there are reefs on both sides of the entrance channel.  To add to the challenge of getting into the marina some poor soul had the misfortune to wreck their yacht in this narrow channel (maybe due to the reef?) making it even more awkward.  We are not allowed to enter until 09:00 tomorrow, Monday.

The original plan was to go slow but we would still arrive to early and end up going round in circles for hours but I thought we could try and find a little island along the way and waste the 8hrs anchored off while chilling out.  We will have 2 or 3hrs of day light by the time we get to the 1st island to try and find somewhere suitable to anchor.  If we can, great.  It will mean we would have to up anchor at midnight to get to the marina at around 09:00  If we can't find a suitable spot then plan A is back on the table and we continue slowly to the marina entrance area and go round in circles for hours in the dark.  

Either way we will be in the Nongsa Point Marina tomorrow morning. 














        

       






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