2025 Mersing Islands

19th - 27th July 2025. 

This was a special trip, one that I have wanted C to experience for a long time, and the one that she finally agreed to. I had to do a lot of convincing for her to join this trip as it is not something that most people would imagine themselves doing. Of course, we also have to thank CPT Zheng for allowing this pair of fresh legs on his boat. Being out on the open seas unsupported can be daunting, having to depend on yourselves and your ability to handle the different weather conditions with your available equipment. But I knew it would be worth it. 

Day 1 - Singapore to Jason's Bay (78.5nm).

We had done customs clearance at Marina South Pier at midnight, so we could set off bright and early for our destination of Jason Bay. We departed Marina Keppel Bay under the night sky at about 4am. The seas were calm, compared to our prior trips both to Tioman and to Port Dickson where we had several storms out of SG. It was a relaxing motorsail through the SIngapore Straits. Dodging the shipping vessels, we made our way to Tanjung Pengelih where we would clear customs into Malaysia. We had paid for an agent to help sort out immigration documents both with customs here, and at Mersing where we would be stopping by several islands. It was not cheap, but gave us some peace of mind in navigating the administrative side of things so we could focus on navigating the seas. Our agent would be holding onto our passports for the duration of our trip, which was slightly disconcerting, but we were told this is standard practice. 

We took the chance to have breakfast at Salsabila Cafe while our agent settled the paperwork. It was a small stall on wooden stilts by the side of the sea just a few mins walk down the road. We had roti canai and some kopi. Good atmosphere, shared with the local flies. Saw several large white bellied sea eagles loitering around, as we walked past the Tanjung Pengelih War Remnants.

We took a straight path hugging the coast round Pulau Lima onto Jason Bay. It was smooth sailing with clear weather. We saw a spectacular sunset just as we entered Jason Bay. It is amazing how the scenery is so different, just around the corner of SG. The water was shallow and muddy. Thankfully we had a little bit of day light remaining to find a suitable anchorage. 

Dinner tonight was pre-marinated Unagi with rice and pre-made tamagoyaki. The salty savouriness of the unagi paired with the sweetness from the tamagoyaki mixes well with the short grain white rice. 

I took a sea shower before calling it a night.

Day 2 - Jason Bay to Pulau Aur (43.7nm).

We were fairly tired from the long day yesterday. Today would have us shoot straight from Jason Bay to Pulau Aur. The winds were favorable and carried us through on a straight line course. We set off around 930 am. It was very smooth sailing with a constant 10-15 knot wind on our starboard stern blowing us through on a broad reach. We turned close to Pulau Lang on our final approach. We had set off a long trawling line with a lure. During our previous trip with an avid fisherman, we managed to catch big Tingirri (Spanish Flag Mackrel). This time all we got were bite marks on the lure. 

We were quick to cool off by jumping into the water, before getting our tender ready and heading to shore for a quick snorkel. The water had more sediment than our previous trip here in 2023, probably due to strong winds and rough conditions in the days prior. It was still very enjoyable, with cool and relatively clear waters. The current was strong in the channel so we couldn't afford to swim too far off shore. The setting sun provided for a nice golden hue to the landscape surrounding. 

Mooring at Pulau Aur has its perks, as we had easy access to the provisions the island offers. It is a small inhabited island of about 100 people within the Johor Marine Park. We had come here previously and eaten on one of the small stalls. We were glad to find it open for business. Dinner was some Mie and Maggie Goreng at Gerai Makan Kak Ngah, followed by a delicious Ramly Burger from the adjacent shed. It was a very satisfying meal, with dishes appropriate for the region. The simplest food offers the greatest comfort. There were plenty of drinks and snacks available for sale, and even fishing gear should we need some. 

The sea shower here was in much nicer water compared to Jason Bay. Slept comfortably in the aft cabin.

Day 3 - Pulau Aur.

We had a full day of relaxing with no sailing to be done. Woke up to a western breakfast prepared by Chef Jake. As we ate, we saw military boats speeding onto the island. They were all fully geared up and looked ready for business. We were told at Kak Nah that one of the sultans was visiting the island during the same period as us. Guess this is the safest place to be if we were ever afraid of pirates. At the same time we were slightly worried about our lack of passports, but at the same time reassured that we had an agent on-call. The military guys showed little interest to us. We definitely looked like we did not pose any threat to anyone.

After our meal and observing the military guys secure the island, we moved on the tender to explore the coast of Pulau Aur, east of Kak Nah. The water was again cool and relatively clear. Still had sedimentation but it was acceptable. 

We landed at 2°28'07.9"N 104°30'32.8"E, where there were some small houses or perhaps a small local resort. There was a big eating area but we were not allowed in, probably due to our lack of appropriate attire. We were allowed to walk around the beach which we did. Took a stroll looking at the vegetation and crabs on the rocks. 

Headed back to the boat for lunch. Kok Han prepped food while Yexun and I did the watermaker. It was a heavy piece of equipment but the 2 middle aged men with back problems made it work. The rainman watermaker was a life changing piece of equipment that allowed us to get freshwater, limited by our ability to access / generate electricity. Using a water tester for salinity, we were confident that it worked. Lunch was baked fish and imitation snow crab legs, with salad and burrata. The other 2 guys were foodies in the UK and I am glad to be on the same boat as them. I brought a cheap fishing kit from decathlon, only to have it fall apart as we tried to assemble it. You get what you pay for I guess.

After resting up, we changed mooring to one further east, and got on the tender to check out The Rock Resorts. We had noticed it during our previous trip but never made a landing here. This time we were especially keen to check it out as it had a diving facility. We found the guy that ran the dive outlet Kevin, but he said he did not recommend diving this period as the visibility was poor. The resort folk tried to entice us into booking a dorm room with them. They had huge triple deck dorms in a very high ceiling room with 2 toilets. The bed structure actually looked quite dangerous to me. We were tempted by the thought of access to AC and ice cream, but eventually decided to stick with the more boutique option of sleeping on the boat. 

We had BBQ tonight under the starry skies. We over-prepared food and unfortunately had to discard some to the delight of passing fish.

Day 4 - Pulau Aur - Lang.

Breakfast was ham and cheese toastie today. I can really get used to this type of food. We were enjoying the toastie when I got a whatsapp on my phone. it was from Kevin. They had a boat going out to Pulau Lang today and invited us on to join. We were excited and hurriedly got our gear together before jumping onto the tender and on to Kevin's boat. Pulau Lang lies at the western end of the channel between Pulau Aur and Dayang. The currents are very strong there and there are no good landing sites for the sailing vessel. Going by tender is also out of the question as the currents would over-power us. Thus this was a great opportunity to explore that little island.

The pontoon style boat carried guests of the resort who had booked a dive with Kevin. As we neared the tiny bay and prepared to moor, several more navy RIBs showed up. Apparently they were here to do some dive training. We snorkeled around the waters, which were slightly clearer than on Aur. The divers went deeper and did a full circle around Pulau Lang. Didn't manage to catch any of the navy guys, but it is surely a nice training spot. 

We did a small hike behind The Rock Resort that is used for stargazing at night. It was a short 10min walk up to an exposed rocky surface, where I flew the drone for a short while. No good shots or group shots as the afternoon sun led us all to scurry back down. We were hungry and got back to the boat for a quick lunch before moving on to Pulau Dayang. There used to be a dive shop and accompanying accommodation here, run by a Singaporean. Never saw any business coming out of this facility, and it was also empty except for a caretaker on our previous trip. The rocky hills behind hide a hiking trail, apparently requiring a guide to go up. It looked steep and fairly dangerous with loose rocks, so we were keen to give it a miss. There was another hike at Pulau Aur, simpler but also not really on our agenda. 

Pulau Dayang is a very nice spot. The beach is untouched as there is no functioning business on this island. The sand was white and fine, lined with palm trees with rocky formations on the eastern side. I can imagine myself camping here. We lazed around the beach and on the hammocks tied to the palm trees, playing with the local kuching, before jumping into the water to snorkel and cool off. 

We decided to head back to The Rock Resort, to give Kevin a small tip - he did not charge us anything to snorkel this morning. As we hung around the resort, we started seeing some ominous clouds roll in together with the smell and gusts of the impending storm. We hurriedly sped back on our tender to the mothership, stowing all our stuff away and preparing for the storm.

Thankfully the storm passed and we got on with preparing for dinner. It was hotpot night. Such an appropriate meal given the threat of rain. As the night wore on, we saw another storm system in the horizon. This was an amazing sight as we had clear skies directly above us, while there was a huge storm in the distance. This gave us both the view of a starry sky with a background of lightning amongst the clouds. Usually its an either / or kind of situation, and I think this is the first time I have seen both together. I put the IBIS of the OM1 to the test, pairing it with the Panasonic Leica 9mm f1.7 lens. Handheld with a shutter speed of 2s, it produced a fairly decent image that was able to capture several lightning bolts with some star trails. I need to work on getting familiar with using features like live composite on the OM1. We all enjoyed the lightning show and watched on in awe.

Day 5 - Pulau Aur - Dayang.

We woke up to find our hull oiled up. There were some traces of oil the previous night already but it got worse overnight. Not sure why anyone would dump dirty engine oil into such pristine waters but it's not our place to govern. Cleaning the hull will be on the list of things to do today. 

Breakfast was a decadent pancake and nutella. We ate as we observed a bunch of swallows playfully flying around the mast. After breakfast we moved on to a small bay on the north eastern side of Pulau Aur. We anchored at the cleaner waters of this bay and got down to work. Swimming around the boat, we saw and smelt the full extent of the oil stains. We used cloths and some cleaning agent to wipe the hull down as best as we could, keeping ourselves afloat with the bright orange life jackets. The oil stains were very sticky and stuck to our clothes and skin. It was fairly unpleasant to have this situation, but we all had a good time cleaning the boat. We observed a strict no toilet policy during this period. Toilet waste is flushed straight back into the sea after passing through a macerator, and would cause distress to whoever is in the water at that fortunate time. 

The snorkelling here was better as the bay was protected from the currents. There were many rocky channels we could swim through, and we had alot of fun expanding our energy here. Yexun and Jiamin all of a sudden frantically shouted for us to come over. I had heard the screams and imagined the worst. Quickly swimming over, we realised that they had spotted a huge lobster and wanted us to share the experience. We took turns diving down to about 10-12m deep. This was about as far as my breath holding and equalisation allows for. I saw long feelers peering out of a crevice. We were later shown footage from Yexun's DJI of a huge lobster. It was a fun experience.

Exhausted, we headed back to the boat to rehydrate, and refuel with some Indo-mie goreng special. I love being out at sea and eating Mie goreng with fried eggs. I first had a taste of this in 2018 when I was doing a crossing from Lombok to Komodo aboard a wooden boat with my guide Tomi. 

We jumped back in for more snorkeling before playing around with the drone. We realised the lack of current here meant that the boat would be a little more rocky, so opted to sail back to the same mooring in Pulau Aur for a more secure mooring. Dinner was a mix of some noodles and seafood.

We were in the midst of preparing to rest when a fishing boat returned and pulled up next to us. Speaking in Malay, he shouted something at us. Fortunately we had our local translator and Madame of the boat Jiamin to interpret for us. Apparently we were told that this mooring was taken, and we had to move off. 

We of course followed the local's advice and moved to a mooring at Pulau Dayang. It wasn't ideal doing a move at night, but it had to be done.

Day 6 - Pulau Aur - Pulau Tinggi (26nm).

The sunrise was nice today, as it rose from the eastern edge of the channel. The skies were clear and the water extremely calm. It was a beautiful morning. Flew the drone a while before making my standard breakfast of microwaved oats in milk with spoon of nutella and some nuts.  

We had some options to consider today. We could anchor off Pulau Sibu or Pulau Tinggi, or opt to stay in one of the few resorts on the islands. Using our Starlink WiFi, we realised tha tthe resorts probably did not offer anything extra other than a flat ground to stand on, as they were all non air-conditioned. Being on our boat would also have us right over whatever potential snorkeling spots there is. Between Sibu and Tinggi, we chose to stay at Tinggi as that would mean we could have some room to play in terms of what course we sailed back. Sibu was nearer the coast so staying there would mean we would have to hug the coastline back, which may be unfavourable given the South Westerly prevailing winds - close haul / tacking all the way back would be tedious.

It was a short 26 nm reach straight to Pulau Tinggi. It was quite amazing hearing the white bellied sea eagles calling as we sailed past Pulau Tinggi. Our attempt at trawling for fish is again unsuccessful, but seeing the number of eagles here, there definitely is plenty of fish around. We sailed past quite a big bay along the north side of Tinggi, but it was too shallow far out, and not suitable to anchor. There was a smaller bay just next to it, where we decided to anchor for the night 2°18'54.3"N 104°05'54.6"E. 

We had a bit of fun swimming around the bay, taking out the stand up paddle (SUP) and in general mucking around. We had a bright idea of using the SUP as a double kayak at one point, with the intention to kayak around to the larger bay. It was a terrible idea as there was just too much weight and drag on that inflatable craft. We decided that we can explore the area by drone instead.

Dinner tonight was Yexun's favourite lasagna. We used a healthy multi-grain dough thing for the base, to his delight. He is really passionate about his food and cooking. Pairing the lasagna was a Tesuner Big Jim Shiraz 2021. The little roster on the bottle of wine was quite entertaining. More entertaining after a few drinks. 

There were some storm clouds and lightning in the horizon. May be a potential rainy night. Think I slept on the deck regardless. 

We chose to see how the weather goes in the morning, before deciding our moving off time. It would regardless be early. Something like 2-6am so that we can reach Tanjung Pengelih in time for customs (they worked regular hours).

Day 7 - Pulau Tinggi - Sebana Cove Resort (95.5nm).

The weather was abit iffy, and we decided to set off at 0530hrs. We went round Pulau TInggi via the eastern side and headed straight for the corner of peninsular Malaysia. We were not too far from the coast and it was relatively smooth sailing. We saw several fishing boats and seabirds all out for their daily catch, but there was nothing much else. 

Chatted with KH about his food and meal preps for work. Quite inspiring to be consistent with meal prepping and exercise. Breakfast today was no surprise, microwaved oats and milk with nutella and nuts. It is a very quick and simple combination that is healthy save for the 56% sugar nutella. 

The weather cleared up and we had again very comfortable straight line sailing down. This trip was proving to be one of the smoothest sailing, with no storms while sailing and no significant amount of tacking needed. That being said, we were on track to miss the cut off for the customs. We would need to spend a night somewhere. There was a small anchorage between Jeti Penumpang Tanjung Pengelih and the adjacent naval base, but that was in muddy waters and I don't think we feel comfortable being so near a foreign military base, nor would the military guys be comfortable with a random boat anchoring so near by. We thought about it for a while and realised we could head further inland up Sungei Santi and on to Sebana Cove Resort.

We called in to confirm that the resort would allow our boat to stay the night, before heading in. It was quite exciting navigating a sailing vessel through brackish waters lined by mangroves. It is not common to see a sailing vessel going up a river. There were many working boats plying the river. There were boat repair facilities by the side, several small manned kelong like structures, some small recreational fishermen on sampans. It had a nice atmosphere. We saw kingfishers flying across the river, a monkey on one side following us along. There was one moment where I held my breath for a little, as we approached some powerlines, but then realised it was way to high for us to come close.

As we turned into Sebana Cove, we saw a sign post that said beware of crocodiles. These waters definitely look like it would be a good host for them. We checked in and took a while to figure out the adapters for the marine electrical cables. We eventually had to buy a set from the local guys. With water and power, we were all set. We went to the reception to check out the room options. It was affordable and we got ourselves some rooms. 

We washed up and changed into our Sunday best before calling a taxi service to bring us to dinner at Super Lobster Restaurant. The taxi was called in by the hotel. Grab was not available in this rural area. The food was decent, typical of any Chinese restauran in MY. The local lobster was more expensive than the Australian lobster. We chose the local one as we felt like we missed out on catching the one at Pulau Aur. Tried to order some Zus kopi via grab food but the order got cancelled, probably as they were closing soon. Oh well.

We had a good night's sleep on dry land, with AC the whole night.

Day 8 - Sebana Cove Resort - Marina Keppel Bay (43nm).

It was actually 44nm but that is not an auspicious number. 

There was a breakfast buffet provided by the resort. It was simple, but very satisfying. There was noodle soup, nasi lemak, an egg station etc. The eating area was elevated, well ventilated and had 360 degree views of the marina. Our agent picked us up and ferried us to Tanjung Pengelih for customs clearance exiting Malaysia via some farm roads.. There were several houses adjacent to Sebana Cove, all of which looked dilapidated but still lived in, with motorbikes and laundry hanging around. Perhaps these accommodations were used by the staff at Sebana Cove. At the customs, there was a ferry from Singapore that just arrived. We are unsure if this is a chartered ferry or if it is a regular service. It carried a bunch of SG cyclists. It would be nice to come early by ferry here, cycle up Desaru, then take a ferry from there back to SG.

We then went to Sungei rengit. We got some Zus kopi for ourselves and the agent, before exploring the town by foot. It was very enjoyable walking around this small town. Very relaxed atmosphere. We had some food at Everyday Come Kopitiam. One of the lady stallholders is a Singaporean that married someone from Johor. Got some keropok and ma ti su from Kedai Kek Lim Choo Seng 聚成中西饼店. It was a fruitful morning.

We checked out of our rooms and out of the marina. Took a chance by flying the DJI Mini 4 Pro while on the move, and got some memorable photos from the river. It started to drizzle and I promptly brought the drone back in. 

It continued to drizzle as we entered Singapore waters. A PCG boat followed us closely, perhaps escorting us past the Changi Naval Base before parting ways. 

We dodged the shipping vessels once more along the Singapore Straits and headed straight for Marina Keppel Bay. There, we were picked up by water taxi to Marina South Pier for customs check in. From there, we had dinner at Raffles City - Milkfish, before calling a Ryde back to Keppel. 

It has been a great trip with the best weather of all trips thus far. There was always apparent wind, no major storms, plenty of rest at night with no full night sails. I am glad that C got to experience this. 

Trip video.

Stitched together with Kdenlive.

Gus Terja was the natural song of choice given how frequently we played it and almost put everyone to sleep while sailing.

Logistics.

39L diesel from SG to Jason bay to Pulau Aur and Pulau Tinggi
from Tinggi to SG - unknown + 20L spare below

Water - 200L front and 130L rear, 2x30L cans at the front
Water maker used 2x, each use drained battery ~50%

Petrol 30L for generator - had about ?half to spare 

Brought 3L water per day (9 x 12 x 1.5L) drinking water

For tech, we had a Rainman portable watermaker, Starlink internet amongst others. 

Camera gear.

• OM1 

• 12-100mm f4

• 75-300mm ii

• 9mm f1.7

• TG-7

• DJI Osmo Action 3

• DJI Mini 4 Pro