Tawau to the Kinabatagen River--again

Well what a difference a day makes!!! Cop Out is sold!! We had a comfortable passage from Sandakan to Tawau with Adam and Kaye who were our prospective buyers doing one overnight passage and then spending the next night anchored at Mabul Island, central to the Sipidan diving area with a weird fancy resort on pilings extending from the small beach. It appears that with more pilings being planted that it will become huge in the not too distant future. The following day we sailed into Tawau to find “Kind of Blue” –we have known them since French Polynesia—and Sea Topaz anchored at the marina club—these “clubs” are in fact fancy buildings with a swimming pool and restaurant and they welcome yachties who anchor off the building and assist in whatever needs we may have. Adam and Kaye had said they wanted to treat us to dinner and have a serious talk with us. After a nice meal they said they would like to buy Cop Out, would want it back in Langkawi but were in no hurry for us to get there—they have a monohull, Lucid Dreams there and they would start readying it for sale. We agreed to have it back in Langkawi with our belongings off it by Dec 1st. That will give us almost 3 months to enjoy the last of our cruising and enough time to do the onerous task of getting almost 7 years of our lives off the boat—horrors!! The price offered was generous with no conditions and we accepted, thankful that no customs agent or broker would have to be paid. Ken and I decided that we would continue to Morotai as planned and then would make our way south into Indonesia and then across to Singapore and up the West Coast of Malaysia. The following morning Kaye and Adam left and we got our CAIT for Indonesia and our tourist visas, stocked up with fuel and groceries and set off for the 3300 mile trip. We were both tired from the combination of having traveled quickly since Miri because of Ken’s shoulder and the stress of the boat sale. When we were a couple of hours out we suddenly took the time to look at our alternatives and exhaustion won out as we realized to retrace our route around the top of Borneo and cross to Singapore and up to Langkawi would only be 1700 miles. A lot of it will have adverse currents and winds but we will be able to do short day hops almost all of the way. We made the decision and turned back to Tawau. It was a long weekend and we now needed to check back into Malaysia so will have to wait till Monday. Not such a bad thing to have an enforced stop for a few days. We were able to have some lovely meals with the two boats anchored with us and make use of the pool. Once again when a great Chinese meal costs about $6 each we wonder how we will adapt on Salt Spring—lots of home cooked meals I guess. Our new route will allow us to meet up with some of the other rally boats as we return and already have plans to meet with Green Ghost for another “elephant hunt”. Splashdown and Atlantia will be somewhere ahead of us so can find them again also. Monday morning we went back into customs and immigration and were once again on the way this time north instead of south. We enjoyed beam winds the first day as we went back to Mabul Island. It is surrounded by buoys and ropes and we did manage to wrap one around the propeller which Ken was forced to cut with a knife. The current was too strong to allow him the luxury of just unwrapping it—woops—sorry Mabul resort. Next day was a short one but as we entered the bay in which we wanted to anchor the whole bay was full of various floating bottles which appear to be part of a fish catching scheme, we had to zig zag through to find a spot large enough to anchor. Next day as we were going along we realized that we were trailing a line which Ken once again freed from the prop—the two things we will not miss about this cruising ground will be the heat and the fishing nets—traps —for us!!! We finally made it to Dewhurst Bay which is the southern entrance into the Kinabatangan River which we will take and do the 35 miles to meet up with the branch we had taken previously and find Green Ghost. As we made our way up the river using way points from boats in previous years we saw as little as one foot under the keel but managed to manouvre our way up without touching bottom. We spotted 3 huge crocodiles on our first day and anchored once again where other boats had seen the elephants a few weeks before. Despite the heat the crocs deter you from jumping in for a quick dip!! We took the dingy up a tributary in the evening and found a lot of very cute short tailed macaque monkeys who paid us no attention as they continued their grooming and playing regime. The next morning we left and anchored at yet another “elephant spot”—still no elephants so made the phone call to Ahmed who had been recommended as a guide who lives In the next village—Sukai which is at the power lines which prevent most sail boats—including us—go up any further. He told us that they were a long way up the river now and if we wanted to see them it would take an hour or two each way on his boat and would cost 200RM—about $65 which is a lot of money in this part of the world. Reasoning that just to be there we had spent thousands it seemed a cheap option. Suliaman his young cousin who had lived with and studied the elephants for 12 years would take us up. We now learned the real facts – Cruiser info being as rumour driven as always missed the point—The River is the largest in Sabah and is many miles long. We now know that the elephants move about 10km each day as they feed up and down the river. Therefore sitting at anchor at previous way points is a lost cause. Also sitting at grassy areas where they had previously trodden down to come through is of no use--they may be years old and they just come into the river wherever is convenient at the time, not necessarily at the same place ever again. The river is the largest in Sabah and is many miles long. They apparently keep going up the river for a month eating as they go and then come back down having given the grasses and new shoots on the trees time to grow so they have food as they return and do it all over again. He took us about 20 miles up the river spotting as we went. There are 3 groups up this river and he knew approximately where they would be. He scanned into the trees to spot them, not just in the "elephant grass" where we had assumed they should be. He actually spotted some freshly trodden grass and got out of the boat to look--hmm 3 days old which meant they were now 3 days more up the river. He finally heard them in the trees--heard their flapping ears!!--we could only hear the outboard!! There were a number of other tourist boats--most from the resorts way up the river--and they were all heading here also. There were apparently 30 elephants in the trees but they showed no inclination to come and swim. Suliaman crept up the bank and then came back to get us and we crept up behind him--this is not allowed by the parks people but he had spent 12 years with them so felt he could do it safely--I think as there was only the two of us he figured he could get away with it. We came across a mother and baby eating happily away at the tree shoots--not grass as we had supposed. We were able to get some good photos except the trees and branches did get in the way. We then went and joined the other boats on the water and could hear the rest of the herd trumpeting and spot them from time to time in the trees. Although our prime objective was the elephants the young man was an excellent spotter and we saw a boar and a pile of other birds and animals which he found. He did take us to see a huge python they had found earlier in the day but it had left. As our Amazon and Mulu Cave trip had taught us a good local guide will find so much more than our untrained eye could ever see. Most cruisers tend to be of the “do it myself” variety and are used to experiencing first hand discoveries but there are times to pay if you can find a good guide. We now realised how fortunate the few boats which had come up previously and just “happened” upon them even going as far as to go in the water and trumpet and spray right beside them—we had all been lulled into supposing this should be the norm. We now set off to meet up with Green Ghost who had successfully crossed the bar and was 10 miles downstream from us. We agreed to meet at a junction to a tributary which we had been told led to a lake and there was a lot of wildlife nearby. We put down anchor and in the afternoon went together in our dingy up the main river where we came across some red monkeys which apparently are rare. We then went up the tributary which led to a pretty lake and had a great view of the hornbill with the orange beak which we had seen once before. We also witnessed the crazy antics of the proboscis—they leap enormous distances from tree to tree—they actually bounce on the branch before taking off and grab whatever they can on the other side. You often hear a crashing sound as the branch they grab gives way and we are not sure if they are then able to grab something else or if there is a pile of broken monkeys on the ground!!! We shared a lovely evening on Cop Out with Green Ghost for dinner. The next morning we took another trip with the dingy up the tributary with Jen—Nik was feeling a little worse for wear after our evening together. We once again watched the proboscis circus and then agreed to both stay one more night together before we headed back to Sandakan and they went up river. We had another exploratory trip up the river late afternoon and found some more macaques. The best place for the proboscis was actually right by our boat and we were enjoying these when suddenly there was a huge crack of lightening and the skies opened up. We got back to the boat immediately and when the skies cleared Nik and Jen ventured over for a last enjoyable dinner and evening together. Early next morning we pulled anchor and sadly left the river. It had been a special place and we had loved waking each morning to the sounds of the forest. It was lovely to find Green Ghost again--a fitting part of our goodbye to our cruising life.