On Monday, Eric went to the Indian consulate to collect our visas, checked out with customs and the One 15 marina, then headed off to the Raffles marina boat store to pick up some ropes we ordered. He covered a lot of miles.
Christi, meanwhile, Continue reading
It turns out the boat store located in the Raffles marina complex was the right store for us. Raffles Marina has won awards as being one of the best marinas in Asia. It is a popular marina with cruisers. We decided not to go there because it is pretty far out of town and we wanted to check out the highly touted brand new marina One degree 15. Pretty far out of town is right. It was a 30 minute train ride west from Vivo City to the Boon Lay train stop the end of the line. From the train we took a 15 minute cab to the marina. Out here there is something we have seen virtually none of in Singapore to date: vacant land. What is weird is there are high rise complexes that look kind of like low income housing in and amongst the empty fields.
Raffles Marina is absolutely beautiful. Like One degree 15, it is a private club. It is just as nice, if not nicer, than One 15. One 15 is very sleek and modern, Raffles is more colonial opulence, kind of like Raffles hotel.
There is a website we look at sometimes written by a cruising couple from Seattle that are about our age, Warren and Steph on Micro Verde (see Useful Resources). We knew they were staying in the marina, so we found their boat and knocked on their door. Warren was home and Continue reading
Today we set out in search of a boat store. We had found the store listed in the directory from the marina, and had absolutely no clue where it was. We gave the taxi driver the address and he took us to the southeast part of the island, an area much farther out than we have already been. As we got further from downtown, the skyscrapers thinned out. This area has a lot of turn of the century row homes, but most of the buildings are newer townhouse style residential buildings or low rise condos. There were even a few Continue reading
Even though we have been staying on Sentosa Island, we hadn’t explored it as of yet. Sentosa was uninhabited before the British arrived. The British used Sentosa as a fort island to protect Singapore Island and until a few years ago, it contained nothing but the old forts. Then the island was designated a recreational area and master planned. There is tons of building going on all over Sentosa. The section of the island called Sentosa Cove, where we are staying, has tons of homes being built. We have been told some are selling as high as Continue reading
Despite yesterday being a complete day of rest, we were still tired. We dragged ourselves out of bed and headed to the Indian High Commission (basically the Indian consulate) to apply for our Indian visas. We should have Continue reading