Im curious how others have planned their long distance cruising routes and destinations.  Ive been following the logs of various voyagers and keeping a list of ports and anchorages they have recommended.  Is this an effective way to plan your way around the South Pacific, or do any experienced cruisers have other recommendations?  Finally, as I move west from the South Pacific islands to the Straights of Malacca Im wondering what ports people know are safe?  Where would you no longer take the risk of sailing close to land  (as you transit the straights)?  Thanks,

Scott Bulger, PUP List admin

Scott,

We are making our way around the world, admittedly very slowly and via a
very convoluted path.  Our goal is to see as much as we can and
experience other cultures, not just "see" them.  We've been through the
anxiety phase that you may now be encountering.  Trust us, once you get
a few months at sea under your belt the world takes on an entirely new
perspective.

Our general advice is to plan your trip and go, with the assumption that
most places are somehow accessible; deal with real danger when you get
much closer.  Most places and most people in this big world of ours are
not a threat.  If you do your planning purely on the basis of threat and
rumour of danger you'll never go anywhere.  It seems to us that we hear
so much about the dangers, no doubt in part due to media trying to sell
newspapers and air time, that we get a perverted idea of the level of
security needed.  Fact is, it is probably more dangerous to cross a busy
street than to visit most countries in the Pacific and Asia.

Our planning process starts with having a rough idea of general seasonal
weather patterns and then making them fit into the places we want to
see, or vice versa...it does not really matter which you start with.  A
good place to start is the pilot charts or Virtual Passage Planner.
Cornell's book on ocean passages is also good, but we trawlermen have to
interpret and extrapolate the information, as it is intended primarily
for sailing yachts.

We have a long term plan covering several years; it has very little
detail.  We tend to plan in depth only a year or so ahead, with the last
six to nine months or so being fairly detailed.  On the other hand, if
the weather is wrong we don't go...the plan is only a guide.

We assume that nearly everywhere is safe, and so far it has been.  Of
course, we don't take needless chances and we ask the locals what the
next place is like.  We also talk to other boaties in marinas and on
radio nets.  There are bad places out there, very few of them
fortunately.  Keeping track, as you are doing is an excellent idea.  You
might also try the Seven Seas Cruising Association, which publishes
monthly letters from world travellers.  Again, this is intended for
sailors, not trawlermen, but just hold you nose over the silly "us
versus them" attitude of a few of them and mine the bulletins for
information.  You can get past bulletins on a CD-ROM, which is a very
good value.

Concerning the straits of Malacca, we've been up and down them several
times.  There are safe ports everywhere in that area, as there are in
many places that have such a bad reputation.  Again, information is the
key...we find out where the baddies are and avoid those areas (in the
straits it's mostly on the Indonesian side).  If you have a read through
some of our early reports on our web site www.nunas.com you will find
all sorts of information about where we've anchored in the area from
Phuket, where the straits start (or end depending on which way you are
going), down around Malaysia and up through Borneo.

Have a good time researching and planning...and don't forget to actually
go!

Cheers,
Maurice & Louise-Ann
MV AKAMA

-----Original Message-----
From: scottebulger@comcast.net [mailto:scottebulger@comcast.net]
Sent: Tuesday, 28 February 2006 18:08
To: passagemaking-under-power@lists.samurai.com
Subject: [PUP] PUP: Route planning, S. Pacific and West

Im curious how others have planned their long distance cruising routes
and destinations.  Ive been following the logs of various voyagers and
keeping a list of ports and anchorages they have recommended.  Is this
an effective way to plan your way around the South Pacific, or do any
experienced cruisers have other recommendations?  Finally, as I move
west from the South Pacific islands to the Straights of Malacca Im
wondering what ports people know are safe?  Where would you no longer
take the risk of sailing close to land  (as you transit the straights)?
Thanks,

Scott Bulger, PUP List admin

Passagemaking-Under-Power Mailing List

<<Finally, as I move
west from the South Pacific islands to the Straights of Malacca Im
wondering what ports people know are safe?  Where would you no longer
take
the risk of sailing close to land  (as you transit the straights)? >>

As far as I know, piracy in the Straits itself is still concentrated on
commercial vessels - from bulk carriers down to fishing boats and tugs
(some nasty rocket attacks on tugs last year). I haven't been up the
Straits myself for a couple of years (Singapore to Phuket) - but it's
nicknamed 'tanker alley' for good reason: it's busy out there! Easy
navigation too "tankers on your left, land on your right"

The more pressing danger in those parts is fishing boats with no
lights, no lookout or, even worse, the wrong lights and no lookout.
Need a good argument for radar? Try approaching a green light in the
middle of nowhere and realising 15 seconds before impact that it's a
fast moving 70ft fishing trawler with a green flourescent tube hung out
over the PORT side!

Simon

in Singapore