Sunday 5 September 2010

The Singapore Straits

Yesterday - Saturday September 4 2010 - we decided to go for a little trip over to a couple of the southern islands of Singapore, namely Kusu Island and St John's Island.

To get there one needs to take the local ferry. But it is not just a straight run across the Strait (excuse the pun!) we have to weave in and out the other ships in the Singapore Straits.

In the following image - live yesterday evening at 8.45pm - shows the busy Singapore Straits and the vessels moving around or at anchor :


The Singapore Strait is a 105-kilometer long, 16-kilometer wide strait between the Strait of Malacca in the west and the South China Sea in the east. Singapore is on the north of the channel and the Riau Islands are on the south. The Indonesia-Singapore border lies along the length of the straits.

It includes Keppel Harbour and many small islands. The strait provides the deepwater passage to the Port of Singapore, which makes it very busy.

The depth of the Singapore Strait defines the maximum draft of vessels going through the Straits of Malacca, and the Malaccamax ship class.

I heard early last year there were over 700 vessels in the straits and now we are down to around the 500!  The following collage is a very small sample of some that we saw yesterday:


next blog posting is on the ferry ride .... and then will blog about the islands themselves.

Stay tuned!!


No comments: