Kinabatangan RIver to Kuching

Somehow retracing steps in a voyage seem more difficult to write about—the experiences seem “old hat” and lack the spontaneity of the first time—hence the time between blogs. We left Jen and Nick as they went up the Kinabatangan river hoping to find the elephants—which they subsequently were not able to, we were soooo lucky!! We made our way back to Santabong to restock with the fuel we had used motoring up the river. We anchored once again at the “yacht club”. Ken was reluctant to go back as although we had not fouled our anchor last time we had learned that 4-5 boats from the rally had. They needed divers to untangle the mess at the bottom of the ocean made by sunken boat parts littering the area. The anchorage is also noisy with ferries, fishing boats and even seadoos using the yachts for a slalom course—something that we hardly ever have to deal with in Malaysia. They go by you very closely waving happily oblivious to the rock and roll they are causing. We anchored to the left of the yacht club as we had been told was the safest place and arranged the fuel which involved phoning David who brought his pick- up truck and drove Ken and the jerry cans to the gas station. This is the way we have to buy fuel in most of Malaysia with almost no fuel docks. The government only allows one jerry can to be filled at a time to curb so called terrorism and smuggling. Fuel in nearby Indonesia and Philippines is more expensive. This means you need a local who knows the owner of the gas station who will allow him to fill more—we usually have 8-10 jerry cans at a time. It also means you are at the mercy of the driver who sometimes will add 30 cents a litre onto the 60 cents a litre pump price. David, as in a few other places only charges the pump price and his $6 taxi fare so we all get as much as we can under these circumstances. You then have to lug the jerry cans down the rickety dock and lower them to the dingy which at low tide is a long way down. You then take them back to the boat and pass them up to the deck. All of this in 35C temperatures makes for an arduous fill. I restocked fresh fruit and vegs at the most immaculate market in the whole of Malaysia—no flies and the chicken and meat are covered until you buy it. We are used to watching the flies being swatted from the meat and usually buy from the supermarket where we allude ourselves it is handled more hygienically?? It was nice to be able get a lovely fresh “clean” chicken—with attached feet but at least the head was gone—they often are still attached and when I ask for them to cut it off I am still offered it to take with me—oh my Western sensitivities go deep!!! Dinner was had at the yacht club and we played the coupon game with the drinks once again. The staff is not trusted to handle cash so you need to buy coupons. The problem becomes that a beer is 14RM and the coupons are 20RM. Somehow however many you buy and how hard you calculate you will always have coupons left over—we had given our left over ones to a local when we were here last—where is he now??? Next day Ken was sick but rather than spend another day in this hot rocky anchorage we set off to motor to Langkayan where I hoped to spend the next day snorkeling in the clear water there. The day was still and we motored the whole way. When we awoke the following morning however, the wind was up and the snorkeling did not appeal. The wind would be behind us so we decided to take advantage of the favourable conditions to go to Bangi at the top corner of the east coast of Borneo. By about lunch time the wind had changed and was now 30 knots in our face. This made for an extremely choppy horrible trip. We were forced to motor which both engines on full now burning up the fuel we had hoped would last us for a while. We arrived at dark and anchored off the town. Although the seas were calm the wind howled through the anchorage. We were just settling in for the night when we heard our wind generator free wheel, which it does past 35 knots of wind when all of a sudden it started making a horrible noise and was spinning out of control with the whole support shaking so badly that Ken feared it would pull the cables holding it from the deck and do some serious damage. The wind abated for a moment and Ken was able to tie it to prevent it spinning when we saw that the pin holding the tail had sheared off and the tail was sitting on our bottom step. Our life ring and light were also there—they had been mounted happily on the life lines for 6 years so we feel that we were in a small whirlwind which had whipped everything around. Several of the blades from the wind generator were damaged and two were missing. This meant that it was now severely unbalanced and would need to be held tightly to prevent it shaking the boat apart. One of my most upsetting things was that my “sitting hammock” which has been my seat of choice while reading in the cockpit was shredded!!!!!!! I am now trying to figure out how to get a new one from Koh Lanta, Thailand which I had lusted over when we were there but could not justify buying one as I had a great one already—I should have obeyed my instincts then. In the morning we had intended continuing around the “top of Borneo” to make our way to Kota Kinabalu but when we pulled anchor and set off the wind was rising and it was obvious that we would be wise to wait for better weather. This area has “cape” conditions which we have learned to be very wary of. We made the decision to return and sailed into the “hurricane hole” anchorage where Peter and Margie on Peregrina were waiting for the weather to abate to leave for to the Philippines. It was fun to catch up and visit with them; they had a better wind angle than us so they left the next morning. We decided to wait one more day and were joined by Just Magic and Sharita allowing for yet one more happy hour. The following morning we set off in radio contact with Splashdown who were leaving from Kudat and would be a couple of hours ahead of us. As they rounded the corner hoping it would get better they found it was worse. Rather than turn back we elected to anchor in the lee of the mainland before the cape and had a peaceful night. They had unwisely pushed on and had a horrendous passage and nasty night at anchor in 40 knots of wind at an open anchorage. There are very few sheltered anchorages in this part of the world and you often arrive at what you have been told was an anchorage to look around and feel as though you are in the middle of the ocean—the depths are shallow all through the area and it is easy to be in less than 40 feet. Next morning we started early and rounded the point in 25 knots of wind. As it appeared to be rising we were trying to look to see if we could find a sheltered spot to sit it out when the wind abated and we even had enough of an angle to sail at 7 knots to get to a safe anchorage 20 miles from Kota Kinabalu. After a calm night we set off once again and apart from the torrential rain which hit us making the visibility zero were able to make it into Sutera Harbour and join Splashdown who had made it in the day before. We stayed to enjoy the city—population 1million with lots of modern amenities and the wonderful marina with its Olympic swimming pool and great gym. A lot of boats have chosen to use this marina as a base and will pay the US$12,000 lifetime membership fee for the marina and club. They will sell the membership when they are ready to move on. This gives them cheaper berthage, restaurant and facility discounts. Splashdown is considering putting Alex into an International school there and would do the same. Ken the ultimate “massage spotter” found a new massage salon which had newly opened near a new office complex offering an “opening special” of an hour massage for US$15. We both took advantage of this regularly as I do not think it will be in our Canadian future!! I found the two fancy ex pat supermarkets with a lot of Australian products so although we are trying to eat the stores from the boat could not resist some of the treats. Once again the marina had a lively social atmosphere and we shared happy hours and dinners with other yachties. After ten days it was time to move on so we bade Colin on Splashdown a sad farewell—Bev and Alex had flown back to Australia for a month. Although we are loving meeting up with friends as we make our way west we are aware this time that it is really goodbye and we most probably not see these people who have become such close friends again. This lifestyle requires the interdependent bonding which is not necessary in our increasingly independent western lifestyles. We will miss this and the wonderful generous people we have met on our journey. Our first day was to Pulau Tiga—Survivor Island—where once again I had hoped to snorkel but the pending squalls once again made this not feasible. The next day took us to the duty free port of Labuan where we bought a small amount of beer and a lot of tonic. We are also trying to drink our “ship’s supplies” which seems to be lots of hard liquor which we will be unable to ship to Canada---at $10 a bottle of gin it will be difficult to continue with our “G&T’s” there!!! Ken has enjoyed paying no more than $40 for a 12 year old Scotch!! We have been checking out our options of being “returning residents” to Canada and are able to ship all that we own except are only allowed the 1 litre each but only as we fly in---we can actually take in a car if we want but not our liquor!!!!!—what is with the Canadian government!!!!! Once again in Labuan we had the best seafood value in Malaysia in the upper floor of the “wet market” where the restaurant serves all of the seafood you can imagine. Our dinner was ½ kilo each of slipper lobster, scallops and crab cooked in a variety of ways, a generous serving of garlic snow peas and beers all for $30!!!! Hmmm—yet one more thing we are enjoying before Canadian prices catches up to us. The following day was to Jeffri’s folly—this is the huge breakwater which makes an amazing harbor which the now disgraced brother of the Sultan who, when he was finance minister financed it for his two yachts—named Tits and Ass—really!!!!!!!!!! He apparently is not waiting for the 40 virgins when he dies a noble death!! It is an enormous harbor 22 feet deep throughout and even an island with a beach in the middle. I had a lovely swim and walk on that. Other than a few fishing boats anchored here it is deserted. Maybe when the oil runs out they will find a commercial use for it? The following day we went up the river in Brunei near the Malay border to anchor by the yacht club. As we were not planning on checking into Brunei we did not go ashore but apparently other boats have with no issues. We arrived into Miri marina the following day waving to Ron, Ken’s chiropractor as we came in –his practice is by the entrance. Keri and Bruce from Haven were there to tie us up as was Sally who had been crewing with Ramprasad and had joined us for our Bali tour last year. She is now on another British boat. We enjoyed happy hour on Cop Out with them—and also greeted the many yachties who are still there from our previous visit. Miri is a cheaper alternative to Kota Kinabalu and attracts yachties who cannot afford to be there. Miri is a small friendly city and there is a close community at the marina. It is also a cheap place to leave your boat when you fly home for several months and many of our friend’s boats who were in the rally were there. We have met many yachties over the years who have sold everything to buy their boat and set off for their voyage but as the years go by and their boat depreciates and the cost of home ownership “at home” appreciates they cannot afford to return. They need to find somewhere cheap to live out their lives. Miri is one of the places offering an affordable option. Simon is the yachtie’s taxi driver and we used him to pick up more fuel and mail off another big parcel to NZ. This has some of our camping gear we are hoping to use when we are there. Another day we had him drop us off at Lambur Hills National Park to go for a hike. It was nice to be in the rainforest again but it was very humid and hot and the difficult hike between waterfalls was tough---that is one thing we will not miss—the heat and humidity!!! After several more cheap dinners with old friends and the regular Friday night happy hour on the dock it was time to move on again towards Kuching. The weather as we move further from the eastern tip of Borneo is much more benign and it looked good for the next while. We decided to do two overnight passages and get to Baco Island and spend a day. It was an easy passage with the second night one of those great nights when everything comes together in perfect harmony. The winds were only 9 knots but on our beam and with flat seas and no adverse current we were able to cruise at an easy 5 knots. I went and lay on the trampoline for a while enjoying the balmy tropical night with the sky with a million stars and the water glistening with phosphorescence as we glided through—despite the hundreds of nights we have sailed there are always the memorable few which are magical. Baco anchorage was calm and lovely and after a morning hike set off for our last 15 miles to go into the Santubong River where we will base ourselves while spending a few days in Kuching. It is the anchorage where we saw the croc on the banks so will hopefully have one last look at the wilds of Borneo before we leave for a more urban Singapore.