Singapore. Escape by sea!

Ladies and Gentlemen,

You know what happened to me in 2008 in Singapore. I had criticized Lee's judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean and got held up in Singapore for 6 months as the earliest date they would give me for trial was in September while my arrest was in May.

Naturally I was desperate, to get out, to take care of business in California, but with my passport held, I was helpless in the island.

You know by now that I know how to sail a boat, sailing being one of my hobbies. On a couple of occasions while I was at Changi beach, overlooking the Straits of Johore, I must say I had some rather dangerous ideas.

If I could get hold of a dinghy, I thought, sailing across to the Malaysian side did not seem a problem. Many years ago when I had a Laser dinghy,at Changi Sailing Club, I sailed it past Tenkong Kechil, Tekong Besar and nearly up to Pengarrang Johore which has a immigration and customs post.

I realise there were police boats patrolling the area but I doubt they would stop a completely normal pleasure sailing craft and mistake it for an immigrant smuggler. In a few hours, I would have been on the Malaysian side, and with a few dollars and belongings, beach the boat in an isolated stretch, find my way to the American Embassy in Kuala Lumpur and hope to get a passage to California.

Although I thought of this, I never planned to do it. Once I had written a blog post in this blog asking if anyone could lend me a boat while I was there merely to do a bit of sailing for fun, escape was never in my mind when I asked for a boat. But ASP Zakaria, the Lee Kuan Yew bootlicker, who was prosecuting me for for criticizing Judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean became all exited about the blog post thinking that I was trying to escape by sea! I saw him with the printout out of it, going to court and for a moment I thought he was going to accuse me of attempting to escape.

But I wonder whether I would have made it had I really tried. Imagine Singapore newspapers headlines the next day "Gopalan Nair's daring escape by sea"! Or I may not have been so lucky, arrested by Malaysian police and handed over to Singapore for a long time in a Singapore jail. On the other hand, I could have been another "Papillon" who escapes from Devil's Island, French Guiana.

I tell you, there is nothing like true adventure.

Gopalan Nair
39737 Paseo Padre Parkway, Suite A1
Fremont, CA 94538, USA
Tel: 510 657 6107
Fax: 510 657 6914
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Blog: http://singaporedissident.blogspot.com/

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