10 July 2009
In
"the Pond", Kudat
Yup, we made it and are now in Kudat, in the Malaysian state of Sabah on the island of Borneo (N06'53.5, E116'51.5 for all you Google Earth freaks). It is very exotic for us here - we can sit in our cockpit and watch the natives in special costumes engage in mock battles with sticks made out of wood and metal which they drag around behind them in special carts, and use to hit spherical blobs of tree sap and oil product around. Yup, we are tied stern-to to the golf course at the resort here. It is an odd wee place, known as "the pond" and is an unfinished marina for the attached Kudat Golf and Marina Resort, consisting of a manmade wall enclosing a circular area of plastic-infested water - you enter through a passage in the wall, drop your anchor in the middle and reverse back and tie up to shrubs on the golf course. And repeat several times until you manage to drop your anchor in a place with no plastic bags and it holds. The Army keep several of their anti-smuggling speedboats here so security is good, and we use their dock to get ashore, which I suspect may be part of their Army SAS training plan, as the dock is made of something closely resembling jerry cans tied together and tilts alarmingly when you try to get on it or indeed, even move. After you have crossed that, you come to the "ladder", which is an interesting contraption of bits of (usually) rotten planks nailed together, missing several rungs and is mainly vertical. After scaling this, you tightrope walk along the top of the marina wall to the resort. And then you win a million dollars! Oh no, wait, that is Survivor, I just get to do the 30 minute walk to the supermarket.. This (and the price of alcohol in Malaysia) is a perfect way of ensuring there is no over-indulgence at dinner.
Yachtie
pool invasion, Kudat Golf & Marina Resort
The resort itself seems to have been a product of the boom in
the 90s when everyone went tourism-mad. There is a huge resort with a swimming
pool, restaurant and a golf course that takes up half the town area (plus "the
pond") and it has an occupancy rate of about 1%. My thought on the unfinished
marina was that there was an initial rush of blood to the head, they got half
way through it then went "Shit! We're in Kudat! What are we thinking???!!!!".
Kudat is a pleasant small town, but I can't imagine why you would want to come
here as a tourist (OK, I know, we're here, but we have a reason - the mooring is
FREE!). It trades off being the End of Malaysia, and really, they aren't wrong.
Oh sorry, that should be "The Tip of Borneo" - more on that later! Mind you as I
mentioned, it is exotic - they have 4 lane highways, but with no cars, and
certainly not the 2000 tricycles that would have descended upon you with shouts
of "Hey Joe! Tricycle! Tricycle!" the second you set foot outside the gate in
the Philippines, although as it is a 30 minute walk to town in 30+ degrees C
heat (and the same back laden with groceries), I sort of miss the tricycles.
Entire villages could live in the bus shelters here and it is certainly more
first world than anywhere we have been since Australia (I will bite my tongue
and not insert any Australian jokes here).
The trip down here was great, and we actually got to sail most of the way, which
was excellent once we got over the initial shock of the sensation of heeling
over - we have been flat for so long! Our trip to the old Spanish lighthouse was
not a success - it looked in wonderful condition, we could see it as we
approached along the coast and in the bay, but any attempts to reach it
(including a 2 hour bush-bash with machete by Bruce) ended up in a swamp.
Friends of ours we have just met up with had the same experience, and after
comparing foliage wounds, we are after the blood of the authors of the cruising
guide who describe it as a pleasant stroll from the anchorage.
We
had a great sail across Balabac Strait, and of course, just as we were coming to
the entrance to the channel between two small islands north of Malaysia, a
squall came through with rain etc. We hove to and waited half an hour for it to
pass and visibility to improve, then went to get the engine going - no cooling
water. Looks as if the anti siphon valve jams and it drains when the engine is
off, leaving an airlock, so Bruce bled it and off we went, only to encounter our
first serious pirate scare. We were headed toward the channel when this rough
boat came racing at us from across the top of Banggi Island. We thought it might
have been the Coastguard, so I tried radioing them, with no luck. We then went
into full defcon 1 mode and I was dragging out all our flares, loading the
flaregun etc in case they tried to board. They came close & Bruce waved, and
many, many arms waved back, so at least they were friendly pirates. They shot
past us into the channel, which was good since we could follow them. When we
were through they stopped and went back out to sea: they had just been showing
us the way! I felt very guilty for planning to pump them full of flaming
phosphorus or molten magnesium or whatever shit they put in those things!
Night market, Kudat
Spent yesterday traipsing around all the usual departments clearing in: Health
(VERY antsy about swine flu - BTW, have you ever wondered how many hot-flushing
menopausal women the temperature detectors at airports catch?), Immigrations,
Customs as well as some new ones - Marine Dept & Port Control. At least they
were free so there wasn't the ongoing haggling about "fees" that went on with
Philippines officials AKA "crocodiles". I got pissed off with bureaucracy about
halfway thru and stopped at the markets, where I managed to purchase a durian so
I could stink up offices and get processed quicker. They are aromatic wee
suckers (durians, not bureaucrats, although...), the boat reeked of it all
night. I think it will meet its end (one way or another) today.
On the subject of food, I'm never going to cook again. You can eat out here for
less than you can cook yourself and it is good! Four of us had dinner at the
golf club and it came to less than NZ$20 for us all.
Now, the "Tip of Borneo" problem: we have ascertained that the tip of Borneo is indeed The Pond. Streams drain into here from the industrial area, a shanty town, past the golf course and into the harbour is home to several fishing boats, so rubbish - particularly plastic, gets chucked into the steam and floats into the basin here and surrounds us all day. After a week of being depressed by it, Bruce decided he could either moan about it or do something, so each day we go out and collect the plastic waste (90% water bottles) and take a dinghyload to the resort bins, where they dispose of it for us (we haven't dare ask where it goes from there - the local idea of recycling is probably to chuck it back into the stream from whence it came). Each dinghyload is 5 large garbage bags full of squashed bottles, and after a week we are noticing a difference.
Plastic waste in The Pond, Kudat
Ecowarrior with the first load of trash we collected
13 August 2009
This
one is for all those of you who keep telling us how jealous you are of us (OK,
that's the two people who write to us; we're just giving the rest of you the
benefit of the doubt and presuming you're dead of swine flu) - read it and smirk
with schadenfreude!
Teeny Tiny Turtles at Silangan Island
We have just had the trip from hell down from Kudat to Sandakan. It can be done in one hit as an overnighter or at a more leisurely pace by sailing for 4-5 hours each day and anchoring overnight, which takes 4 days. We chose the latter, after waiting for a week for the wind to die down enough to poke our nose out of The Pond at Kudat. The first day was to Mitford Harbour on P Banggi and was a great sail, apart from finding that the water pump for the engine cooling system which we though we had repaired in Kudat was still not working properly and needed to be bled each time we started the motor while under sail - not the most fun in a bouncy seaway. We spent the next couple of days there waiting out another bunch of strong winds, then headed to P Tigabu where we anchored in the lee of the island off the encircling reef. All was fine until about midnight when a thunderstorm hit with 20+ knots of wind and lightening etc, accompanied by a windshift of 180 degrees, so it was blowing straight into the anchorage, swinging as around so we were hanging about 20 meters off the reef and bouncing and rolling in the chop from the wind. It lasted about two hours before calming down. The next day we picked our way through the reefs, sand cays and shoals to the mainland and sailed down the coast and found a nice ten-mile long stretch of soft mud beach to anchor on. Lovely and secure until the wind changed 90 degrees during the evening and put us side on to the swell. We tried a stern anchor, but still rolled like a pig. Sleep was pretty much impossible as we were rolling about 30 degrees each way, and you had to hang on to stop being thrown out of bed, and all the stuff in the cupboards and drawers was clanking away merrily.
At the Sandakan Market
Next day, by this time getting slightly psychotic with lack of sleep, we moved
on and found a lovely white sand tropical isle to drop our anchor by in a gentle
breeze under a clear sunny sky. After a swim, Bruce went ashore and cam back to
tell me we were anchored at the turtle hatchery and there were baby turtles
scrambling down the beach to the sea. We went ashore and watched, which was very
cool. In the evenings they had a programme where you could go with a ranger to
watch the female turtles come ashore to lay their eggs; apparently about 40 come
each night at the moment! We went back in later at sunset to sign up for the
event, and about 8 o'clock when we were in the office with the ranger all hell
broke loose outside as a major squall hit. It must have been around 40 knots in
the first ten minutes, dropping to 30 after that, and of course, it was 180
degrees from the normal wind so the boat was on a lee shore being blown back
towards the reef. We ran back to the dinghy and shot out to the boat, which
seemed to be handling it well and not dragging her anchor, so we got the engine
going and prepared to leave if we had to, thinking it would probably blow over
in half an hour, as most squalls tend to do. We noted on the depthsounder that
in swinging around we had gone from having 5 meters under the keel to 2.2
meters, but thought that should be OK. Of course, we didn't factor in to the
equation that the sounder was near the front of the boat and that with the
steeply shelving bottom, there could be considerably less at the stern. That was
until the waves kicked up by the wind started rolling in to the shore, picking
Daemon up and smashing her back down - on to the reef! Fortunately we were all
set to go and managed to get to deeper water quickly, but she had been slammed
down on to the reef five or six times before we could get out, but no harm seems
to have been done. Thank god for ridiculously overbuilt yachts with full-length
integral keels! Of course in the midst of it all, the water pump stopped pumping
cooling water to the engine, but we were out far enough to get some headsail out and sail her
to deeper water. After that we gave up and sailed on through the night to Sandakan (home of the WW2 death march) where sympathetic friends and a welcoming
yacht club (swimming pool! showers!) awaited us.
So, here we are in grubby Sandakan harbour, resting up and waiting for a new
water pump to come from the UK. Well, that's it from us, just off to town to
check out the markets and eateries.
28 August 2009
After
various delays of the mechanical kind, we finally made it to the Kinabatangan
River, the longest in Borneo, 360km of river winding through jungle (and palm
oil plantations -grrrrrr- thinly disguised as jungle). Check our anchor spot on
Google Earth at N05'40.8", E118'22.8. So far the river has been easy to
navigate, with plenty of depth, but it was just getting across the 5 mile wide,
less than 2m deep bar entrance that took many years off my life, but no major
dramas, fortunately. The Kinabatangan is stunningly beautiful, even though we
are only at the lower reaches at the moment, which are all mangrove, nipah palms
and palm oil plantations (and don't start me on those!!), we sat out at sunset
last night watching all the birdlife and listening to the frogs and monkeys
yabbering away. Today, even though we aren't in the "good" bit we saw macaque
and langgur monkeys as well as proboscis monkeys, which have to be some of the
homeliest animals in the world. The locals call them "Dutchmen" after the
earlier colonisers of Borneo, and they have ginger fur, huge almost trunk-like
noses and great pot bellies. The males also seem to be permanently, ah, aroused.
Lots of birdlife, especially swiftlets, egrets and brahminy kites. Very special.
I can see there'll be lots of exploring to be done.
Leadlining to sound depths at the Kinabatangan Entrance
It is good to be out of the seething cesspit that is Sandakan Harbour - the town
is fine, but the water seems to be the local trash disposal, there is a constant
flow of rubbish, especially plastic of all descriptions floating past all day
and night. Just gross, especially for a place that calls itself a nature haven.
Other joys include being anchored in the flight path of every ferry & fishing
boat, all captained by the curious who want to come past the yachts really close
& at high speed to check you out - 24/7. And we won't mention the eye-watering
stench of being stuck between two fish docks. However it does have a shop which
sells NZ cheese and lamb (and MacWilliam's Sweet Sherry, but in the words of the
prophet Kenny, you need to know when to walk away, know when to run), the
location of which is passed between cheese-starved yachties (none since Honiara,
apart from some very dubious bright orange processed plastic American stuff in
Palau - it doesn't melt, just sits under the grill & glares at you) and takes
quite a lot of finding, especially when you have just bargained the taxi driver
down & he is disgruntled. So, yes, I managed to have most of my fantasy meal and
it was GOOD! (A fantasy meal is the one you talk about at sea or in deprived
places, and consists of the things you most want - mine is lamb rack, baby
Jersey Benne potatoes with mint and fresh asparagus.) We BBQed the lamb and had
it with oven roasted chips and broccoli, and washed it down with our last bottle
of pinot noir (thank you Dai & Taka!) It was so good I wanted to throw the bones
on the cockpit floor and roll in them! We couldn't remember the last time we had
a bottle of wine, so as you can imagine it went straight to our heads, hence the
rolling thing.
Laid back orang-utan at Sepilok
Probably the next biggest attraction in the Sandakan area
after the cheese shop is the Sepilok Orang-utan Rehabilitation Centre. No, it
isn't like the ones everyone in Hollywood ends up in, but where orphaned and
injured 'tans and those displaced by the (here we go again) palm oil plantations
are taken to heal and to be taught to live in the wild before being released
back into the forest. It is a lovely idea and very worthy etc, but as a tourist
attraction it wasn't my favourite. There were 9 million tourists gathered on a
viewing platform to watch 2 'tans come down to feed - very much like a zoo. Then
if you want to stay for the afternoon feeding there are walking tracks through
the reserve, except they CLOSE between 12 & 2, just the time between feedings
when you are bored and wandering around wanting to go for a walk. What the hell
is that about???? The highlight was during lunch in the cafeteria when a macaque
monkey (they hang about to scrounge the leavings from the 'tans) made a smash
and grab raid: she came belting into the cafe, grabbed the display box of
chocolate wafer biscuits then took off out, scattering them and grabbing as many
as she could in the process. She then climbed to the gable on the roof, where
she sat, out of reach, peeling and eating her loot. She looked very pleased with
herself.
Much better was the dinner we went to last night. One of the Yacht Club members
took us and a couple from another yacht to his home for a big Chinese-style
feast. PORK! At last! An excellent meal, about a dozen different dishes, but I
must remember to enquire more carefully about "special delicacies" which in this
case turned out to be a) fish bladder soup and b) steamed pork with fermented
fish paste. A great night though, and lovely people. Coming home that night
after a thunderstorm the temperature had dropped to a chilly 26'C and I needed a
jacket. I have a feeling Auckland in November is going to come as a nasty
shock...
Daemon is also becoming acclimatised to Asia - she now has the requisite set of
flashing blue anchor lights. As noted in one cruising guide, Asian fishermen
subscribe to the "Christmas Tree" system of boat light signals. No-one is
content with a standard single regulation white anchor light, no sirree! The
harbour at night is a veritable disco of multicoloured flashing lights of all
hues and flash sequences. Makes our two blue flashers look quite tame, although
they seem to do the trick in drawing the attention of the psycho fishing boat
drivers that there is a yacht about to disappear under their bow.
10 September 2009
Wow,
what a special place! We had a great time on the Kinabatangan: we could almost
kid ourselves it was deep jungle and not a stretch of regenerated bush a couple
of hundred meters wide each side each side of the river. As environmentally
reprehensible as this is (you could park by a seemingly intact piece of forest
and hear the plantation machinery working behind the trees) it does have the
effect of concentrating the wildlife in a narrow area. The river was easy to
navigate - broad and deep once you passed into the main river. During the day we
would meander slowly up it (not much else we could do with a 2 knot current
against us), sun awning spread, doing our African Queen impression, admiring the
scenery (and dodging barges and giant logs hurtling down the river) and wild
life spotting. After we had done an exhausting 3 hours or so, we would pull over
to the side of the river and anchor to watch the evening monkey show. Around 4pm
there would be a loud crashing in the trees and monkeys would start appearing to
feed and socialise before settling in for the night. They were great fun to
watch - the large proboscis ones were the most impressive and would do some
amazing flying leaps between trees, but the macaques were the most fun - lots of
little babies learning to climb and nearly falling out of trees, mock fights
etc. One night we were most peeved because the proboscis monkeys came to sit in
the trees about 30 meters behind the boat and while we could see them, we
couldn't get decent photos. The next morning we got up at dawn and went outside
with our coffees to see if they would come closer, but to our amazement, the
trees by the boat were inhabited by three orang - utans quietly feeding in the
branches. We watched them for an hour or so until a speedboat came past and
frightened them away.
'Tan in a tree
Macaque family
After 4 days of progress, we made it to the small village settlement of Sukau, where most of the wildlife lodges are located and anchored off the village. While we were there we took the dinghy up one of the tributaries and got to see millions of monkeys (and tourists). We also went on a night trip with one of the local guides. He had the most amazing eyesight and could spot tiny birds in the trees. We saw lots of birds really close-up, as we would sneak up under their trees in the boat then spotlight them and photograph them, poor buggers. Also saw a pit viper way too close up for my liking - the guide parked the boat right underneath the branch it was curled around (about 3 feet above us) and extolled the venomousness of it and encouraging close-up photography while we were both cowering back in our seats. I had my exit route planned...
Stork-billed kingfisher
Pit viper
After a couple of days we headed back down the river, hoping to spot one of the herds of wild elephants that live by the river, and as we went past a likely spot I spied large brown shapes moving in the trees. We did a fast u-turn, dodging floating logs and fighting with the current to come alongside the bank where I'd seen them. We peered in with binoculars to see big brown eyes peering back curiously - it was a herd of cows (henceforth known as "cowlephants") that was the closest we got to big game. One of our downriver anchorages was beside the entrance stream leading to a huge and very beautiful oxbow lake, which we planned to explore by dinghy. Coming in to anchor we spotted what we initially assumed was another "logodile" (log which looks like a crocodile at first inspection) but when we looked closer, it turned out to be a 3 meter crocodile basking on the bank. Bruce offered to set the dinghy up so I could go in and photograph it, but I declined his kind offer. We still had to go near its sunning spot to get into the lake, which was a little frightening - I had my oar ready to repel boarders.
Buffy Fish Owl,
aka Buffy the Fishslayer
Proboscis man
Not a logodile...
We left the river with no untoward incidents, a far more
relaxed trip than the ingoing one, as we knew we could follow our track in and
have deep enough water, and headed back to Sandakan to clear out and provision
up for the overnighter to Kudat. The trip to Kudat was uneventful (I love that
in a trip) and we are here now catching up with friends we haven't seen for ages
before heading around to the west coast of Borneo.
19 September 2009
Well, we dragged ourselves out of Kudat (love that little town!) and headed down the coast of Borneo to the bright lights of Kota Kinabalu. Again the trip was uneventful (I've stopped counting cowering in the cockpit on anchor watch during the usual evening thunderstorm as events), and we stopped at some nice anchorages on the way, particularly Pulau Mantanani and Pulau Gaya, which is in the Tunku Abdul Rahman National Park, a stone throw from the centre of KK.
No! You mean they let yachties in HERE?
We are now in the marina at Sutera Harbour Resort and in a quiet state of bliss, not least because I don't have to worry about the said nightly thunderstorms. The marina is an extravagance for us at $25 NZ per night, but it is attached to a 5 star resort and we get to use all the facilities for that. As a room at the hotel is US$300 per night, it is quite a bargain! We have a choice of 5 swimming pools, ten pin bowling, free luxury shuttle bus to town, a super cheap laundry service (so we don't spoil the look of the pace by draping washing over the boats), lots of restaurants (if we could afford them) and wonderful, wonderful showers, all marble and frosted glass with free bath caps & shampoo and soap and baby powder etc and to top it all off, they issue you with fresh towels every time you go near a shower or a pool! And the towels haven't been two months between washes and used for mopping up spills, rainwater ingress etc etc. Absolute, indescribable bliss! I found myself standing in an exquisitely-designed airconditioned marble and carved wood lobby the size of an aircraft hangar reciting "It was worth giving all this up to live in a cramped, damp, hot space that rolls all night. It was worth..." I'm telling myself I'll get bored quickly. Check out www.suteraharbour.com and drool.
4 October 2009
From the sublime to... Labuan. As predicted, luxury palled fairly quickly (day 2, "Hmnn, I've stayed at better...") and just in case telling myself this wasn't working, the Sutera Harbour berth spaces and our budget ran out at the same time, so we had to move on. We went out to Gaya Island and anchored overnight before heading towards Labuan Island. We had planned to anchor at Pulau Tiga, Ground Zero for the Survivor tv series, where the first series was filmed. Tried to get photos for you, Ross, but the weather was foul so we had to move on without stopping.
Marina del Crap
We got to Labuan a couple of days later and saw friends were in the marina, so
we pulled in and tied up there as well. BIG mistake! The marina is only 2 years
old and cost 30 million NZ$ but it is in very bad shape. It seems to have been
designed and built by the same group of monkeys, who, if put in front of
typewriters, would produce the complete works of Shakespeare in several thousand
years. Well, obviously they had only given this bunch of monkeys a couple of
hours at the drawing board because the design and build in no way took into
account the conditions marinas experience. All the floating pontoons were one
rigid boardwalk with no provisions for flexing, so when swells, surge or boat
wakes came in, they whiplashed themselves to death. The few fingers left to tie
to seemed to be nailed not bolted to the main walkways, and while we were there
two self-destructed. Several of the smaller ones had no supporting piles and had
come adrift and tilted over long before. There is a small team of workers
constantly trying to patch it up, but they seem to be concentrating on things
like lights and cleats and ignoring the disastrous structural failure. To make
matters worse, it is the catchment area for all the rubbish thrown from the
stilt villages further up the harbour, so all around the boat is a solid layer
of rubbish, which stinks and bangs against the boat. Annoyed by a persistent
thudding against the hull one night, Bruce went out to remove the offending item
and when I asked what it was, he said it could have been one of two laundry
baskets, a hard hat, one of several logs or boards, a kitchen cupboard door or
one of many bottles. Add vege waste, plastic of all descriptions and dead fish
to that lot, cook in the sun & humidity and you have some idea of the stench.
However, it is free. There is a very posh marina office which is brand new but
has never been opened. What a colossal waste of money.
Anyway,
we tied alongside one of the walkways, with the prevailing SW monsoon winds
holding us off. Well at least until the second night when a huge squall came
through, with 50 knots of wind from the NE blowing us right on to the jetty. It
was absolutely terrifying - we spent 2 hours in howling wind and driving rain on
the jetty shoving the boat off so she didn't slam on to the jetty. Waves were
breaking over the walkways and soaking us as well. It was horrible, but we
managed to stop her hitting, although it was 3 days before I could raise my arms
above shoulder height again! As soon as the winds abated enough to launch the
dinghy we spider-webbed her with ropes across the fairway to hold her away from
the jetty. Something I hope I never have to do again. The next day we walked
into town and there were trees blown down all over the place, so it was
definitely a howler.
Trees blown down in the local park
We spent a few days in Labuan doing boat stuff, finishing my last essay for the
year and stocking up on duty-free booze, as Labuan is a duty-free island.
Actually got some decent wine (Chateauneuf-du-Pape)for only NZ$7! Very drinkable
- a change from the usual yachtie standards where a "sophisticated" wine is one
that doesn't make you grimace and shudder for he first 3 sips. And they had my
fave 42 Below passionfruit vodka from NZ as well! Booze in Mayalsia is taxed to
hell, as it is a Muslim country, so this was an opportunity not to be missed.
When the time came to get out of the marina (yes!) we found our engine wouldn't
go (no!). There seemed to be some electrical failure, which Bruce & our friend
Mike from Kantala spent the afternoon trying to track down. The gods were
obviously looking after us (probably feeling guilty about the squall!) and tied
up beside us was an electrical engineer! Within 15 minutes he had diagnosed a
failed battery switch and in another 10 had fixed it. Phew!
So, off we went to make the huge international ocean passage to Brunei. Four
hours and a nasty squall later we were there, and are now anchored off the river
by the yacht club, enjoying the clean, flat waters of the Brunei River mouth.
After the traumas of Sabah anchorages, we think we'll relax here until we head
back to NZ.
24 December 2009
Remember us? We're the ones doing all the
sailing stuff and who have been too lazy/busy/preoccupied to write. So here is
what we have been up to since we last wrote:
We spent our last week in Brunei finishing boat chores, reprovisioning, filling
up with diesel (NZ 30c per litre!) and buying a new solar panel - NZ$ 230 for a
75 watt panel - excellent deal. Maybe now I can do emails etc without the
power-consumption police glaring at me. We were befriended by a local expat
couple who were very generous with the use of their car, and also took us for a
burn down the river to the Malaysian border town of Limbang for lunch one day.
That caused some concern as we got half way (about a 30-40 min trip) and
realised we didn't have our passports with us. Much hilarity ensued as the idea
of anyone at Limbang checking passports was apparently absurd. And sure enough,
we just tied the boat to the jetty, hopped off, had lunch. looked around town
and got in the boat and went back to Brunei. Border security in this part of the
world only exists in the minds of bureaucrats. The Indonesian officials who were
astounded that the Malaysian terrorist leader could get into Indonesia
undetected to mastermind the Jakarta bombings are either naive, stupid or lying.
Despite thoroughly enjoying our time in Muara/Serasa it was time to move on, so
we up anchored and headed down the coast, picking our way through a thicket of
oil rigs just off the coast. Our first stop was Jerudong Marina, which strictly
speaking, we should not have been in, as it is the private marina of Prince
Jefri, the Sultan's brother, built at great expense (about twice the size of
Westhaven) to house his superyacht, "Tits" and its tenders, "Nipple 1" and
"Nipple 2". Classy guy. There are even artificial islands in the marina to
provide extra shelter from the swell. However, his boating days seem to be over,
so the marina is now unused, apart from passing yachties and sheltering
fisherman, and the security guards seem to have given up hassling anchored
boats, so it is now a very welcome piece of shelter in a coast pretty much
devoid of good anchorages.
From there it was up the river to Kuala Belait, a booming oil town with a huge
expat population where we spent a couple of nights and checked out of Brunei and
then headed down the coat to Miri in Sarawak, Malaysia.
We passed the giant seahorse (don't ask) at the shallow, rolly entrance to Miri
Marina (some of these designers have never been on a boat) and friends from
Melric & Pied a Mer were on the dock (N04'23".09, E113'58".3)to take our lines.
Miri was a great little town, lots of good cafes and shops that sold useful
things (canvas, hardware, jerry cans) and a great sense of the absurd in
commerce. My favorites: Classy Inn (SO not!), Divine Crust (a toast restaurant.
No, really.) and my all-time winner, Frank-ly Delish, a frankfurter restaurant
with the catchy billboard slogan: "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Sausage". I hope that
read better in Chinese. It was also difficult to go past the staff t-shirts in
the wonderful Ming Cafe (huge plate of mudcrab, laksa, baby green veges, 2
handles of beer and 2 ice coffees for NZ$20!) which proudly announced "I've been
to Borneo and pissed at the Ming Cafe!". Either they've left a word out or we
are subjected to way too much information.
From
marina world in Miri, we headed out for a 3 nighter sail down to Santubong, on
the mouth of one of the rivers going to Kuching city, which is where we will
spend Xmas. The sail was good, gentle winds from astern, not much motoring, but
a hell of a lot of thunder and lightening during the night. I prefer to think of
it as god having her fairy lights out for Xmas. Speaking of which we are about
to string Daemon with her lights and have hoisted Cap'n Santa, our inflatable
Father Xmas, up the mast. It is slightly unfortunate that Cap'n Santa looks like
a reject from a Chinese inflatable sex doll factory (he has a very
willing-looking mouth) but as we got him in Papua New Guinea last year, choice
was a little limited. It stops me missing the Creepy Whitcoulls Santa - I can't
believe they gave him a makeover!
So, here we are, parked under a dramatic little mountain in a peaceful river,
almost on the equator, with no other yachts about (N01'42".99, E110'19".77)
deciding on what to cook for Xmas lunch. Whatever we have, we'll raise our
glasses to all you guys, wherever you are.
Daemon spends Xmas at
Santubong, Sarawak.
31 December 2009
Well,
this is more like it! Apart from a preponderance of giant kitsch cat statues (Kuching
fancies itself as cat city) Kuching is a very attractive and interesting city.
As many of you had picked up, we weren't quite so enthralled with what we had
seen of Borneo as we may have been. This is mainly because of the destruction of
most of the northern part during the war, and the consequent rebuilding of the
cities hastily, and in an incredibly ugly and brutal concrete style, which paved
the way for similar architecture to follow. Kuching however, has lots of lovely
old colonial shophouses and warehouses around the town and an attractive
waterfront along the river's edge where you can sit and stroll. It also has the
old "white rajah" forts and colonial courthouses etc which are well-preserved.
And as for the food! Yesterday for lunch I had roast pork noodles with a beer
for NZ$3!
Shophouses,
Kuching
Mnnnn, roast pork!
There is also a lot of interesting old curios here - the rest of Borneo had had
a huge amount of ugly tourist crap, but there are some nice pieces here. Not
necessarily genuine, but nice. We picked up an old parang, or headhunter sword,
as our souvenir - not sure the sharp weapon on a boat thing is a good idea, but
what the hell. Now as Bruce will tell you, a parang is not to be confused with a
palang, which is a decorative penis insert employed by the local indigenous men
in order to a) imitate the Sumatran rhino which has an appendage naturally
embellished with one and b) excite the women. There was a display of them at the
local museum, with a head and shoulders photo of a local guy above the exhibit.
I presumed from the stunned expression on his face he had had one. Despite all
my "...if you REALLY loved me..." comments, Bruce remains steadfast in his
refusal to try this local custom. Wimp.
Bruce considers a career in headhunting, Borneo-style.
Anyway, despite wishing to spend more time
here, the days are moving on, so today it is off to Johor Bahru, which should
take us 4-5 days, and is not a trip I'm overly looking forward to, as the
shipping traffic in the area is notoriously heavy. Oh well.
Anyway, we sign off, now as apparently there is a big croc on the riverbank I
should take a look at. Nnnnm, OK, hope our anchor isn't snagged!
So, all of you have a great new year, and think of us on the high seas while you
celebrate.
5 January 2010 (OK, I know it is in the 09 blog, but it works out that way, OK?)
Well, we did it! We made it through one of the busiest
shipping lanes in the world into Singapore unscathed! And we did it at night.
Under sail. Poled out. Yes, we are idiots. (Actually towards the last part we
did succumb and motor) The "sail" from Kuching was pretty tedious. It started
with leaving the Santubong River at dead low tide on a king tide (yes, I said we
were idiots, but with one tide a day it was either that or in the dark) and
creeping out over the bar touching mud underneath us on occasion, crocodiles on
the bank watching with interest. Well, I say with interest, but that is
presumption on my part - it is difficult to discern interest on the part of a
crocodile, unless it happens to be attached to your person at the time.
However... After a few hours the wind died and we spent the next 2 days
motoring, wincing at the thought of our 31c litre Bruneian diesel being burned
up, until, on the day before reaching the Singapore approaches, we decided to
stop for several hours so we would get to the busiest bit at daylight. Of
course, Sod's Law of Yachting kicked in, and after an hour or so, the first good
wind of the trip arrived. We were getting nervous about our diesel situation, so
we decided to hell with it and chucked the sails up and had a great run
downwind, headsail poled out, during the afternoon and evening. The downside was
arriving at the start of the traffic separation zone around midnight.
The traffic separation zone into the Malacca Straits at the bottom of Singapore
sees all major shipping traffic sorted into lanes like a motorway, and indeed,
being in a small yacht amongst tankers, container ships, freighters, tugs and
barges etc could be likened to riding a tricycle down a motorway in the dark.
Scary is an understatement, but you can only be terrified for so long before
your system accepts that as normal and just gets on with things. Huge tanker
bearing down? Oh yeah, OK, just accelerate to nip in front of that giant barge
with a huge tow behind it and we should be able to dodge the bulk carrier coming
up from behind at 22 knots. Yeah, no sweat. I do seemed to have aged about 10
years since we left Kuching though, and the nervous tic in my right eye is a new
development.
We made it through the zone and into the anchorage area just before dawn, and
the anchorage area is amazing - hundreds upon hundreds of huge ships laid up at
anchor all lit up like cathedrals. Thank god for the recession is all I can say
- the thought of all those added to the brew in the Straits is too horrifying to
contemplate. By this time we were feeling pretty cocky, as we thought our timing
was great to make it across the bottom of Singapore (inconsiderate bastards have
built a causeway across the Johor River connecting Malaysia and Singapore which
means you can't shortcut around the back of Singapore from the east) and in to
the Straits of Johor and the river, where our destination marina is sited, by
late afternoon. Naturally this was sheer hubris, and we were immediately hit by
a 30 knot squall right on the nose, which saw us tacking our way through the
anchored ships, taking waves over the deck. Just like Auckland but with more
ships! Fortunately this passed in a couple of hours but delayed us long enough
to make getting to the marina touch and go, so we made it into the relative
quiet of the Johor River and drop anchor near a river village before collapsing,
as we had been up for 36 hours straight.
This morning, considerably more coherent, we motored along the river, and
arrived at the Danga Bay marina to meet up with friends who have been staying
here working on their boat. The marina at Danga is one of those places you hear
about, but don't believe in: great docks, lots of facilities and FREE! There is
an oversupply of marinas in the neighbourhood and Danga has just opened and is
trying to attract punters, and it is certainly working. The only downside is
that it is exposed in the SW monsoon, so when we go back to NZ we'll move the
boat down the river to the extremely sheltered Puteri Marina, which, with their
65% discount deal, is also very affordable (NZ$35 per week), and also completely
5 star. I can't quite figure out how luxury resorts think having a bunch of
tight scruffy yachties attached to their waterfront is an attraction (unless it
is sort of like a petting zoo to amuse the locals) but I'm not knocking it.
Well that's it from us. Off to start planning our overland trip which we'll head
off on in a week or so. Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, here we come!