Category Archives: Sebana Cove Marina

Zam Zam Islamic Restaurant

October 22, 2009 Ruth

Hi Everyone,

Tomorrow, Friday, we head off to Puteri Harbour where we will stay until we join up with the West Malaysia Rally. www.sailmalaysia.net/rally-schedule.html. Puteri Harbour is about 50 miles from here so we’ll leave early in the morning to get there before dark. But the wind is supposed to be light and the seas mostly flat so we should have an easy time of it. We’ll leave the boat at Puteri and take the bus across the causeway to Singapore for about 4 days. We’re going there to see friends and buy supplies, boat and book. Our friend Marie-Louise is at One15 Marina in Singapore and we will visit with her. Also cruising friends Steve and Valerie Calpin will be there. Steve is a full time cruiser who we have linked up with at several of our stops. Valerie lives most of the year in their home in England but was in KK during our first visit there in July 2008. Valerie and I had adventures and it will be nice to see her again while she is here to visit Steven. Valerie joins him during the year and Steven goes home during the year. Valerie isn’t ready to give up her part-time teaching job and be a full time cruiser so this works for them. We also will be meeting up with an American pal, my University of Massachusetts sometimes roommate Eileen’s husband George who is in Singapore for business. While we’re not socializing, Randal will be looking for boat bits and I’ll be looking for book bargains! I’m going back to my favorite Brash Basah complex and the bargain book stores to load up. Randal and I will also go to the new bookstores because there are a few things I want to find: the new AS Byatt book and one about/by Florence Nightingale, and a drawing video. We do splurge on books, not clothes or souvenirs. This morning during our trip to Sungei Rengit I spent 20.70 ringits (about $6 US) on three sleeveless tops for me and 31 ringits (about $9 US) on two pairs of shorts for Randal. These aren’t even designer label knockoffs, at least not my tops. They are two pieces of print cloth sewn together and very simply finished at the hem, neck and armholes. But they are cotton and get soft and are the best thing for hot weather. Sadly, my absolutely favorite white cotton top that I have had at least 10 years finally fell to shreds. I just noticed the hole today so had at least one extra wearing of it yesterday. Sadly no patch can fix it: the material is just worn out. But it had a good life.

I have some final photos from Miri. We had eaten several times at the Zam Zam Islamic Restaurant and would always chat with the owner. If I knew his name, sadly I don’t remember. Maybe he will email and remind me! I have mentioned him before in my email but hadn’t taken any photos. The day we left, we stopped for lunch to say good-bye and he genuinely looked sad: like he was losing friends. It made us sad too. I hope he gets a chance to visit the US because he really does seem to like Americans.

Sometimes we ate roti canai and sometimes we ate the buffet. They had the best rice, yellow and flavored and the eggplant and other veggies were really good. Randal always ate rice and chicken and cucumber salad.

Our friend is Pakistani. He looks to me like a Rabbi. I think if you mixed all of the middle eastern people together with no label you wouldn’t know, by looking who came from where.

Randal is wearing one of the bargain shirts he bought in Kota Kinabalu…very bold.

Like most restaurants Zam Zam opened onto the street. We parked our bikes right in front. The woman in the pink top made the roti. I discovered that I like my hot roti with sugar sprinkled on it.

So that’s it. I probably won’t email again until we’re back from Singapore. I’m trying to write an email about our AIS system which helps us identify exactly when and how near we will pass large ships. We haven’t always had it and just relied on radar which works, but not as well. I’ll have Randal “correct” it before I send it so I’m not making things up.

And since my nephew lives in Philadelphia I’m rooting for them to win the Series. Our friend Carol lives in New York, but I just can’t see myself rooting for the Yankees. Sorry Carol but I do send 2,200 hugs!

Johor, Malaysia, Sebana Cove Marina

Arrived in Sebana Cove

October 19, 2009 Ruth

Hi Everyone,

Randal and I left Miri Marina at midnight on Wednesday. We arrived here at Sebana Cove about 5:30 pm today, Monday. It was a long tiring trip but though the first few days and nights were rough with “the wind on the nose” we have encountered worse weather in the past. I’ll email more tomorrow. Tonight I’m having to get my land legs back.

Johor, Malaysia, Sebana Cove Marina

Doramac Update

May 25, 2009 Ruth

Hi Everyone,

Randal and I are back on DoraMac in Sebana Cove. Our cruising friends Cliff and Ruth from Icicle had been keeping an eye on her. They even had the fridge going when we got back about 9 pm Friday night Sebana time. We had spent about 20 hours flying and 22 hours of layover time by the time we got off the Singapore to Sebana ferry. Way too long! But all of the flights were smooth and the luggage arrived when we did so no complaints. Except for one. We flew Lufthansa/United and had a 12 hour layover in Munich. Nowhere in the whole second floor of terminal H area was there a water fountain. And, of course, I couldn’t bring the water I’d had from the previous flight. So it was $5 US !!! for a cup of tea. A bottle of water was $1.90 Euro which was about $3 US. How can you not provide drinking water for free to airline passengers?

Saturday, Cliff and Ruth had borrowed cruiser John’s car and we joined them for a trip to Kota Tinggi for groceries. Everyone was having a good time until the car’s electrical system stopped on the way home in the rain. Miraculously John’s mechanic was traveling the road to Kota Tinggi and had been alerted to our predicament. He stopped and using his battery started our car. Luckily the rain had stopped so we didn’t need the wipers or lights or AC so the battery charge lasted until Cliff dropped us off at Sebana’s main gate and drove himself on to Sungai Ringget to the repair shop. We returned to DoraMac mid-afternoon and I slept until about 6 pm. Sunday we were up early. Lang and Douglas invited us to go with them to Sungai Renggit for lunch. We made a quick stop at the grocery store on our way home. I lasted about 1 hour before it was nap time again. I woke about 6 and Randal and I joined the C dock happy hour for a bit. Then it was back to the boat to cook chicken for dinner that neither of us was awake enough to eat. We were in bed and asleep by 9:30 pm. This morning we were up at 3:30 am and I figured it was the best time to work on storing all of the groceries and stuff we’d left strewn about the boat since we got back. Also, the Internet is working somewhat oddly so you have to use it when it works.

Our Plans……

Some time this week we will be joining up with www.sailmalaysia.net. Many of our cruising friends, including Ruth and Cliff will take part. We will cover about 2300 miles and see many parts of Malaysia we have not seen. The rally ends in Kota Kinabalu where we had spent time but quite like it.

Passage To The East – Rally Schedule

IN SUMMARY, THE SCHEDULE IS AS FOLLOWS. DETAILS BELOW:

3 May – Penang

5 May – Lumut

10-12 May – Danga Bay, Johor Bahru

13-15 May – Puteri Harbour, Nusajaya

19-21 May – Sebana Cove, Johor

28-29 May – Tioman Island, Pahang

30 May-2 June – Kuantan, Pahang

9 June – Kapas Island, Terengganu

10-13 June – Kuala Terengganu

2-3 July – Kuching-Santubong, Sarawak

21-23 July – Miri, Sarawak

24-27 July – Brunei

1-2 August – Kota Kinabalu, Sabah

I did take hundreds of photos while we were in the US and will try to post a few. We spent time with my sister’s family, Randal’s family and lots of friends. We made new friends too! We thank them for taking great care of us during our visit. Except with our friend Julia in Hyannis, we tried not to stay longer than 3 days! Time flew!

I will try to share some photos if I have time before we leave. When we join the rally we will be anchored out a great deal of the time so communications might be sparse. Sorry. And any Internet connections might be very slow, so please save any emails with photos for when we are back at a marina. It is just very hard to download anything other than text.

So that’s it for this quick update. Time to get back to packing up the boat.

GO SOX!!!!!

MY DoraMac

Johor, Malaysia, Sebana Cove Marina

Randal makes biscuits

May 25, 2009 Ruth

Hi Everyone,

Randal and I were up at 3:30 am this morning! Of course we spent most of yesterday afternoon sleeping and then were in bed by 9:30pm. Hopefully we’ll be on a Malaysia time schedule soon. And hopefully I’ll get used to the heat again. In the States we were COLD! Everyone else was enjoying spring; but we were used to summer all year round so rainy 60 degrees made us bundle up. Does blood really thin? I took photos or all of our family and friends; photos that are important to Randal and me. Some photos have additional stories so I’ll share those…like Randal’s sister Linda teaching him to make biscuits “like mama used to make.” Randal had tried making biscuits here in Sebana, but had little luck. They didn’t rise, they burned, and they were tough. Not good. He definitely needed help with his biscuits.

Randal and Linda in her kitchen. Looks just like the set of a Food Network cooking show. Linda is opening a bag of self-rising flour. Not sure what Randal is doing.

Mixing and measuring. Biscuits do best with Crisco and a very light hand while mixing the dough.

Biscuits in process

Perfect southern biscuits.

Ken, Linda and Randal

Just before we left Roanoke we had breakfast with Randal’s brother Eddie and his wife Judy and our friend Joe Deshiell. Judy made a huge southern breakfast with biscuits, sausage gravy, bacon, eggs, tomato, strawberries and lots of juice and coffee. Everything starts with a stick of butter! That’s how Randal’s mom had cooked and she lived to be 96!!

We had many wonderful meals with family and friends all along the way. Randal had requested a “lobstah dinnah” in New Bedford and our friend Harriet obliged. I ate wonderful fried clams at the Oxford Creamery in Marion, MA owned by Har’s niece. You could taste their time in the ocean….Yummm. I shouldn’t even start writing about the great meals because we had so many along the way and my fear is I’ll leave one out! Home cooked meals with family and friends were the highlights of our time at home.

Ruth Johnson

DoraMac

Malaysia, Sebana Cove Marina

Singapore Misc 2

March 24, 2009 Ruth

Hi Everyone,

One day I walked form the Dhoby Ghaut MRT to Chinatown. It was mostly a nice walk except for the parts where I can’t read a map really well and had to ask too many people who also don’t know North Bridge Road from South Bridge Road. And then it got really hot. And then I was almost 2 hours early for the “gallery event” I was going to and there was no library nearby to sit in and wait. And it was hot. So I took a detour to another neighborhood to explore and then got all turned around and sort of lost. A nice German tourist who had been in Singapore for about a day got out her map and luckily was going where I needed to go. And I was hot. I’d left the boat at 11 am and returned to the boat by about 8 pm. But I saw things I hadn’t seen and had a great popiah for dinner at the Maxwell Food Court. The “gallery event” was a small show at the art studio where I was taking my art classes so I really wanted to be supportive and take part.

The Dhoby Ghaut station is not far from Bugis and is on the direct line from HarbourFront where we catch the MRT. From the MRT station on Orchard Road I walked over to Bras Basha looking for lunch. I ate a great curry chicken wrap at the art museum cafe and then started walking, down Bras Basha Road and right onto North Bridge Road.

My first stop was at St. Andrew’s Cathedral. During our evening walk with Lang and Douglas we’d stopped at the church but weren’t able to look inside. We have a large St. Andrew’s Catholic Church in Roanoke and I’ve never been inside that one either though it’s a Roanoke landmark. Maybe when I’m home I’ll go see it. I had first labeled the photo as St. Andrew’s Catholic Church, but luckily checked and found that it is Anglican. Since Singapore had been a British colony it’s logical that it would be Anglican and not Catholic. The description of the Padang below is even more telling of Singapore’s colonial past.

St. Andrew’s Cathedral
“Rebuilt between 1856 and 1861 by convict labour, after the original was twice struck by lightning, St. Andrew’s Cathedral is Singapore’s oldest Anglican house of worship. It’s also a truly magnificent example of Early English Gothic architecture, with spires that rise 63m to the heavens.” Streetdirectory.com

The grey sky made me wonder if I was going to get drenched at some point, but the rain held off.

Very light and white perhaps because of the tropical weather though they do have AC which felt good.

“Padang
If you’re wondering what the green field in front of City Hall is; it’s the Padang, the ceremonial green of the city. The first National Day Parade was held at the Padang on 9 August 1965, with Cabinet members proudly watching from the stairs of City Hall. Here you will also be able to see 2 distinct clubs:

Singapore Recreation Club
Look at the left end. First opened in 1905, the club was a sporting and social venue for Eurasian men. In 1955, membership was open to all male Singaporeans, with female members admitted the year after that.
Singapore Cricket Club
Across from it, is the Singapore Cricket Club, founded in 1852 as an exclusive bastion for British and European elite. The end of World War II also marked the end of this policy; membership is now open to all. Go past in the evening, and you may see a few games in progress at the Padang; football, cricket or rugby.

Singapore Cricket Field.”
Singapore River Walking Tour Guide, Route 3 Streetdirectory.com

You can also see the huge ferris wheel I’ll never ride off in the distance. The ferris wheel was visible from almost anywhere in Singapore. We saw it when we first cruised to One Fifteen from Sebana. We saw it on our walk around Sentosa Cove.

I got myself turned around leaving St. Andrews from the wrong direction. If I’d asked for directions to Chinatown I might have had no problems. But I kept asking for South Bridge Road and no one on North Bridge Road seemed to know which direction was north or south. For some reason I felt asking for “Chinatown” wasn’t so politically correct. I don’t know why; it’s labeled that way on the Singapore map as is Little India. Anyway, it should have been simple with my map. I had gotten myself around Singapore pretty easily; just every now and then I get stuck. Finally I did start asking for Chinatown and the problem stopped though many people told me that it was too far to walk which it wasn’t.

Wedding photo ops seem to be everywhere in Southeast Asia. Not sure if this is the old Post Office or City Hall.

Next stop Tanjong Pagar, Chinatown.

Malaysia, Sebana Cove Marina

Singapore Misc 1

March 23, 2009 Ruth

3/23/2009

Hi Everyone,

I have hundreds of photos from Singapore that I would love to share, but I’ll try to show some restraint and not send all of them. The Internet comes and goes…so we’ll see if this will work.

Bugis area

Singapore Art Museum with a “temporary” blue sculpture. It wasn’t there the last time I walked past surprising me.

My favorite bookstore. For 2 Singapore dollars I you can buy some really good books. I buy mostly fiction; lots of “Oprah” books. It was also 3 for S$ 5 but I could always only find 2 until my last visit when I made myself find 3. They had a copy of Beryl Markham’s West With the Night. That’s one of Randal’s favorites and he likes to have several copies so he can give them away and still keep his hardbound copy that Bill Kimley sent to him. And I found two that I wanted. There are two tables just to the left of where the cart of boxes of books is in the photo. Luckily it’s not so crowded when I go because only one or maybe 2 people can browse at the same time.

I went through our growing pile of books and collected some we no longer needed. They were mostly the fiction that I had bought, but some others too. I took them with me to the Bras Basha Complex that has lots of used book stores and started with my favorite so they could have first choice. “Two-fifty” the owner said. “Two dollars and fifty cents?!” I asked? “Yes.” I felt that was insultingly little so told her I’d rather donate them to the library! (The library is just across the street. ) I knew I wasn’t lugging the pile of books back to the boat; but I wasn’t going to sell the lot of them for S$2.50! I went upstairs to another book shop and he offered me S$3.00. I told him I’d rather give them away. Now in all fairness to the first shop, they do sell the fiction paperbacks for S$2 so they can’t pay much. But the hardbacks go for S$20 and up. The second shop sells paperbacks for about S$12 and prices go up from there. I donated them to the library which made me feel better even though they wouldn’t let me have a library card since we were only in Singapore for a short time. I still have some on the boat to use for boater book swaps and to leave in the Sebana Cove small library.

Down one of the side streets off North Bridge Road. I love the multi-colored winding stairways.

A modern day rickshaw with a semi-ancient driver.

Malaysia, Sebana Cove Marina

Back in Sebana

March 19, 2009 Ruth

Hi Everyone,

We made the half-day trip back to Sebana Cove today and it’s SO QUIET HERE!!!! It’s amazing how much construction noise we always heard and other boats and radio music and even sharp bird calls and screaming peacocks in the small rotary garden outside the marina.

We have lots of friends who are still here: Marie Louise, Cliff and Ruth, Aletea and Steve and others. Tomorrow we’ll take the van to town for some last minute shopping to hold us till Wednesday when we’ll leave for home. Well, shopping for me and a roti for Randal.

The Internet at Sebana developed issues while we were away and only works intermittently. Not sure if this will go.

That’s it for now.

ps since the internet is so slow, short notes back are great, but I won’t be able to get photos or anything long to download

Sebana Cove Marina

Newton Circus

March 2, 2009 Ruth

Hi Everyone,
I almost forgot that February only had 28 days. Too bad, time seems to be flying.
We met our friends Lang and Douglas last Friday night for a night out on the town. First it was dinner at the Newton Circus food stalls. “Ok. This time, let me do all the ordering… It’s tout city at newton.. the sharks just like fresh foreign faces.. see ya. Lang” In case you’ve never heard the word tout used this way, it means someone who prays on tourists or takes advantage of someone’s lack of knowledge. Lang was concerned that the Newton Circus hawkers would “trick” us into buying several of the most expensive dishes as we made our bewildered way around the food stalls.

So many choices it would make your head spin as it seems to be doing to the blue man mid-photo.

Food stalls surround numbered tables. When you order, you tell your table number and your food is brought to you and then you pay.

I think we were table 292. You can see the remains of our meal. Doug, Lang and Randal

This one photo illustrates why Lang wanted to do the ordering.

First, see all of the prices listed under Oyster Omelette. $6 $8 $10 and then $5 $6 $8 $10. Sometimes food is sold by weight and it’s not in ounces and pounds but grams or whatever. And see the opposite side of the window that says Carrot Cake. Carrot cake is eggs and radishes and some carrots but definitely no sugar, butter, walnut and anything that resembles a cake. I found this recipe for Carrot Cake on the Uniquely Singapore website. Ingredients: 4 radish flour cakes, 4 tbs vegetable oil or lard, 1 tbs chopped garlic, 1 tbs red chilli paste, 1 tbs chopped chye poh (salted radish), 2 eggs, 1 tbs fish sauce, 1 stalk fresh spring onion, chopped 5 tbs oil. It was quite good; just not what I envisioned any carrot cake to be. The oyster omelette I didn’t love, but then, I was so incredibly full when I tried it. I had prawn noodles, popiah which is like a spring roll made with a very thin bread and not fried, barbecued chicken wings, and some of the omelette and carrot cake. Luckily we planned to do a lot of walking around Clarke Quay later in the evening.

http://www.the-inncrowd.com/newtoncircus.htm is written by a local describing Newton Circus and its food. I had read it before we went and that’s why I had wanted to try the popiah.

Newton Circus. (rotary)

The cat woman of Newton Circus. Lang said she comes to feed the stray cats. Dogs are rounded up by the Singapore government, but stray cats are left alone.

Then it was off to the MRT and our next stop, City Hall

Ruth Johnson

DoraMac