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Today we arrived at the Island / State of Labuan, it was a very straightforward trip from Miri.

We left Miri Marina on Friday, around 9AM and had a good send off from the other yachts there. We made some great friends, Brian and Glee (Ozzies), Roger and Lucie (Belgique), Ian and Marilyn John and Carol  (both Ozzies. Although John was made in Britain and has a lot of knowledge, and supports the Gunners), Walter and Gesila (Germans) and Dick and Prill (Americans). There’s a great little community there and every Friday night everyone brings food and drink to the communal area on the shore and drink and talk nonsense for a few hours. Also there’s usually something going on on Wednesday nights too. We expect to meet up with some of them again before we leave Borneo, as it’s quite a small cruising area up at the north east end. We left Miri with some extra kit, a Kayak, two fold up bikes,

a new awning, working watermaker, working windgen, shiny hull and varnish, and a lot more things working that were iffy before.

As we left the marina it was great to feel the boat swaying around in the waves, she seemed to be very fast as well, which I later found to be down to a spotlessly smooth hull, thanks to the divers. They did a great job. It was at the end of July when we pulled into our slip in Miri so the hull had 4 months of growth on it, and in the tropics, that can be quite bad. Nothing but praise for the Jotun Seaforce 90 antifoul I paid a fortune for.

From Miri we headed up and around the headland that separates Malaysia from Brunei, and 5 hours after departing we were motoring up the river Belait in Brunei, into the town of the same name.Right away you could see this was not a poor country. Everything looked very smart, and there were two plush hotels overlooking the river. It’s spring tides now, which means high highs and low lows, and as we arrived at low water we anchored in 2.5 metres of water, which is a bit scary for us.We were well protected in the river, and it would have been lovely except for the speedboats that seemed to use us as a mark for their constant big loops up and down the river. Two of the boats were just very fast racing boats, but the third was a serious motor boat, the type that flips over easily.

Fortunately as the sun set, the engines faded away and the sound of the cicadas took over. Kathy cooked a lovely dinner and I plotted out the next leg of our journey to Jerudong. On doing this I realised it was a good 45 miles, or 9 hours for us, so I wanted an early start. The other news I got was that the Malaysian met office was putting out severe weather warnings and telling boats like me to stay in harbour. This came out of the blue, as the forecast for the next week was calm calm and more calm, when we left. Normally I take note of the professionals, but this time I checked my other weather sources, and they were all still in the calm camp. I upgraded my free subscription to WindPredict a web weather site, to paid, to get more detailed weather forecasts, and still calm conditions was all that was on offer, The Malaysians were still all doom and gloom. So I decided to get up at the break of dawn and check again, if all was good we would leave early, giving us the maximum time to run for cover if needed.

Saturday morning 5:45 and I’m up, downloading the forecasts, the met office hasn’t even bothered to update theirs yet, so I check out the forecasts on predictwind using the European and American models and all looks great, so up with the anchor and away, we start to head out the river just as the sun pops over the horizon. It was a little tricky as lots of Bob the builder boats were coming and going, and stopping and turning, so I had to do a lot of getting out of the way. Once out, all eyes were scanning the water for a big obstacle that had been reported just outside the river, but we didn’t see anything. There was sod all wind, but we had the headsail out and it helped a little. At least the engine was putting some charge into the battery.

We managed to get the mainsail out later when the wind picked up a bit, but really the predicted storms never happened. By 3pm we turned into the breakwaters at Jerudong and dropped anchor behind a small man made island in perfect calm, in 5 metres of water. Now Jerudong Marina is an interesting place, In the late nineties, the Sultan of Brunei found out that his brother, Jefri, who was in charge of the hundreds of billions of pounds this very rich country had, had spent all of the money. It appeared that Brunei was now facing bankruptcy. It’s a bit hard to get your head around how one person can fritter away so much money, but in one of his palaces he had 2,300 cars, mostly Bentleys, rolls Royces and Ferraris. None of them had more than 40 miles on the clock. He also bought lots of property overseas and was very generous to his friends. Anyway, one of his projects was to build a seriously big marina, mainly as a place to keep his various superyachts. So at Jerudong, two huge breakwaters reach out into the South China Sea, creating a massive safe enclosed space. In the middle of it is a manmade island with a beach and coconut palms. Just as Hyundi were about to start building the $83 Million dollar marina, the proverbial hit the fan, and Jefri was removed from his post. For a while he was expelled from the country and lived in Paris and New York,  So the Marina didn’t get built. Perhaps it will in the future, when the coffers are re-filled sufficiently, however I don’t think there’s enough yachting around here to support it. For now it’s just a massive empty space, where I believe members of the royal family sometimes picnic, and a security guard in a boat turns away us yachts looking for a safe anchorage for the night. Fortunately for the prince, he has been allowed back into his home country, but has to make do on a basic income of $300,000 / Month, which is the standard disbursement to members of the Sultans family. I got this all from a google search last night as we safely bobbed around at anchor, thanks to the plans of Prince Jefri, so the facts may vary.

We left Jerudong about 6:30 the next morning, I didn’t want to meet any security arriving to possibly close the area off, but also the forecast was still saying storms, and as it was still flat calm, I thought, let’s get going and have the maximum headroom. As soon as we left the harbour, I was showing Kathy how to transfer a course change from the Chartplotter to the antiquated autopilot, and in effect perform a 90 degree turn to the right, just as the boat swung around, we both realised the manoeuvre would have been better just after we passed this huge pole/pile marking the entrance to the harbour. We were about 5 seconds from ramming it head on, I whizzed the autopilot control around, but it didn’t seem to be responding anything like quick enough so I disengaged it, jumped to the wheel and did a ‘hard to port’ course change and we missed the pile by several meters. I was thinking I need a nautical version of the driving mantra, Mirror, signal, manoeuvre. Perhaps, ‘look where you are going, you idiot’ However I do have a new safety system in place, whenever I put a fishing line out, I put a foam beer can cooler over the gearstick, so I cant go into reverse without being reminded to bring the line in. It seems to be working.

The wind picked up right away and I got all the sails out and we turned the engine off and did a healthy 6 knots for the next 2 hours, before the wind headed us and we motor-sailed the last couple of hours to arrive at a sand spit jutting out of the southern tip of Pulau Kuraman, first we anchored to the North, but the swell was too bad, so we popped around to the south, which was much better, but after a little swim, I checked the charts, and with it being springs, realised we would go aground at 6AM on low water, so we upped anchor again and headed 100m further away from the shore and dropped the anchor again. Finally we have a place away from insect/mossies/sandflies etc. I slept well in the cockpit that night. 

The very large supermoon, lit up the area all night and was directly overhead at one point. I watched a wonderful sunrise around 6AM.

I had a nice swim around the boat and checked the anchor, which was very well set.

I also had a look at the anodes on the bow thruster, this little lump of lead, or aluminium decays away in order to save the important bits of the bow thruster, and must be replaced when it’s almost gone, but I couldn’t work out how bad it was, I’m getting new ones in Feb, so will get them replaced then I expect.

Finally we left and headed for the marina in Labuan, I don’t think I have ever seen so many oil rigs and support vessels in one place.

Kathy had to do a lot of steering to miss all the oil support vessels 😉

We tied up in the marina without any problems, first impressions of the marina aren’t great, it’s very run down, but it has all we need, so we are happy, but it’s very hot. Tomorrow we will get the bikes out and explore the Island.

 

Paul Collister

November has flown by and in a weeks time we will have left this marina and the joys of Miri, and be in Brunei on our way to Labuan and then Sabah for Christmas. The main thing I’m looking forward to is being able to sit in the cockpit of an evening without being devoured by sandflies.

So the previous week and next week is all about getting the boat seaworthy again. I have put another coat of varnish on the cap rails, which seemed to be popular with the creatures captured below.

One of the jobs I had to do was service the windlass (Anchor Winch) and find out why it wont go in reverse. I suspected the solenoid, and removed the cover to get access. I gave the leads a wiggle on the solenoid to remove them and clean them up, knowing that wasn’t the problem, however very little wiggling was required for the connection to snap off the solenoid, there was a 50% chance that the one I broke was the down connection, which didnt work anyway, but I had just used up my good 50% chance wiring up the remote for my neighbours windlass for him, so I ended up breaking the UP side of the solenoid, so now I had a useless windlass!

I tried to disassemble the rest of the windlass, but it’s held together with the screws/bolts shown below, they are supposed to be hex slots, but they are all mangled, well the two I need to remove next, so I’m going to have to drill them out, a major pain, I’m putting that to one side for now. I have also ground back the plastic on the solenoid and managed to solder a wire onto the snapped connection so the up is working now. In case you are wondering, when I drop the anchor with 50m of chain, it’s not possible to pull it up by hand, it’s  just too heavy, so I would have to resort to manually winching it up using the sheet winches, which would take all day. Just as I was staring at the windlass pondering my problem, a Banded Archer fish took his opportunity to attack. I was kneeling over the windlass on the bowsprit when a powerful jet of water hit me in the eye, I was quite confused, it was like someone had shot me with a water pistol, but I couldn’t work out how, I wondered if it was a weird kind of rain. I remained confused until Ian from next door explained that the fish spurt a jet of water out to knock ants off overhanging branches at the waters edge, they are first rate aimers, and can move to be under the falling creature in milliseconds, which is impressive. Not so impressive is their inability to distinguish between an ant and an aging 59 year old man. Said fish is depicted below

The new canopy arrived and is not a bad fit, but could be another 6 inches longer. At least it’s waterproof and we dont have to jump up and shut the portlights every time the rain starts

Sitting in the marina for 4-5 months is not good for the boat, I sent the GoPro camera down to look and the prop was quite barnacled up. The local yachties all expressed surprise that I hadn’t bagged up the prop when I arrived, a custom I was completely unaware of, apparently I should have wrapped the prop up in a plastic bag when I arrived.

Anyway, I called up a local diver who was happy for RM400 (£70) to dive with his buddy and scrub the whole hull and clean up the prop. They were in the water for nearly 2 hours. I would normally clean the prop myself with my snorkel mask on, but the big ‘Beware of Crocodiles’ sign, and Kathy’s recent sighting of a big Jaw moving through the water has dampened my enthusiasm for this. The divers deliberately waited until after crocodile breakfast time before entering the water, they also believe the bubbles from their mask will scare off the crocs, but I’m not so sure they have actually tried this yet.

A much cleaner prop, the anode is good, but apparently this isnt the case on the bow thruster, so I need to source anodes for that soon.

Much of this week has been spent trying to fix the galley sinks, I tried to re-engineer it all in local PVC pipes, but I just couldn’t get it to work with the weird angles I had, so with the help from Brian, another old-timer here, we set off to find a stainless steel fabricator who could replicate the old rusty fitting. We had to supply the materials to him, but he was optimistic that he could make the piece, part of which involved cutting and drilling a big stainless steel pipe fitting into a retaining nut. A few days later I cycled the few miles to his workshop, alongside the river and cemeteries to see how he got on.

The workshop was a fascinating place, probably somewhere Charles Dickens might have felt at home in.

Despite the primitive state, he managed to make the part as requested, sadly when I got back, it turned out that the welds were not watertight, which is not great for a sink drain. So back for another pleasant trip down cemetery lane

Each time I made this trip, usually about 8AM when it’s still cool, I would pass fish stalls setup alongside the river, The fish is not as cheap as it once was here, there’s such a huge worlwide demand for fish now, and these waters are so heavily fished,  however I managed to find a massive fish for RM20 (£4) which tasted fantastic last night I also got the repaired fitting back, with apologies about the weld, he tested it this time and didn’t charge for another slight mod I needed. Sadly it still leaked when I fitted it. However it’s such a small leak, I might just fix it with a bit of epoxy. That’s tomorrow’s job.

We popped into the Main shopping mall here as Kathy wanted to get ingredients for a Vegan curry, we had been invited to join the other cruisers for the regular Friday night get together in the marina, the requirement being that everyone bring a curry along. The guy on the far left of the pic below, is Phil, who amazingly lives here, but I used to see him in my local sailing club in West Kirby when he lived there a few years ago. Small world.

I’m getting up early tomorrow to fit the two headsails, which have been bagged since we got here. I need to do it early, as there’s usually no wind then, by the afternoon we have a bit of an onshore breeze which would make it difficult, given it comes over the stern of the boat. I’m also hoping to get the outboard motor fired up and replace the broken kill cord stop switch. After that there’s not a lot to do, I need to find a gas supplier as we have emptied one bottle and are half way through the other.

The wind is now starting to turn, as it’s officially the start of the NE Monsoon season, which runs through till March/April, however winds are quite light and variable most of the time. I’m hoping we can get up to Labuan next weekend, before the NE winds really get established, as NE is the direction we have to travel.

Paul Collister

 

November began pretty much as October ended here in Miri. I can’t say that I missed the sound of the bangs, whistles and explosions of fireworks that people were complaining about on social media during the build up to the 5th. Our peaceful time is our own here, and we often find ourselves asking what day it is. There is a sense that Christmas is coming in some of the shops and supermarkets but nothing like the scale back home. It feels very strange, having entered a cool mall from the blazing heat and humidity outside, to be pushing a trolley in a Malaysian supermarket to the strains of ‘let it snow, let it snow, let it snow’. Paul has made great progress ticking off the list of boat jobs. He began this by cycling to town one morning to buy the necessary tools, paints, brushes and an electric drill and has been getting up early to work on painting the hull and varnishing the cap rail.

We decided we would eat out twice a week because restaurant and cafe prices are so reasonable here. On board we mainly eat salads (which aren’t generally available to order in restaurants), soups, or pasta and noodle dishes. In tropical temperatures, it’s far too hot to have the oven on and for this reason I’ve temporarily stopped baking bread. We found a couple of bakers that produce decent wholemeal loaves with no added sugar, so it makes sense to buy those instead. In the marina park complex we spotted a Tandoori Restaurant that hadn’t long opened for business so we stopped there on impulse one evening on our way back from a shopping trip and the food didn’t disappoint: Tandoori Chicken for Paul and Vegetable Jalfrezi for me with Roti and Naan bread and rice, all for less than £6 complete with drinks! We’re regulars now.

We were invited to another social gathering in the communal area a few days after the Halloween party. The invitation came from a German couple who wanted to show how tasty their sausages are with the inhabitants of the marina – no sniggering at the back there, they were Bratwurst sausages 😉 .  Before that, though we had to go and buy an aluminium pole for the awning in the cockpit. The route to the hardware store took us right through the centre of the Kropok Cemeteries. The Malay/Muslim cemetery and the Chinese cemetery are situated next to each other along the banks of Miri River. With space at a premium, the last major road expansion meant that due to limited space, some of the tombs ended up right on the edge of the road. I wasn’t surprised to learn that the road is reputed to be haunted – although the reported supernatural sightings haven’t been verified, according to Borneo’s Resort City Resource on Miri. I was struck by the rural surroundings we cycled through. The fields, narrow tree-lined lanes and farm houses reminded me of the English countryside.

The pictures below show how Paul transported the lengthy pole back to the marina. I had serious doubts about the wisdom of this method but should have realised Paul had thought it all through. One customer, watching it being affixed to Paul’s bike with cable ties, was sorry that he hadn’t driven his pick-up truck that day – he would have willingly given us a lift back he said, which was very kind of him. My role was to stay behind Paul on my bike as close as I could. We got some very strange looks, and some smiles and waves from drivers and pedestrians especially when they noticed the ‘warning flags’ in the form of a pink carrier bag at one end and a blue T-shirt at the other, but we got it back with no incidents.

Bratwurst sausages weren’t for me obviously, but a feast had been laid on with plenty of other nibbles by the time we made it up to the party. People we had met before from other marinas were there so it was a good chance to catch up and have a drink with them. This is one of the few marinas I have been in that doesn’t have a bar or café, but the communal area with its roomy table and chairs creates a more informal meeting place and people are encouraged to bring their own food and drink.

Work, cleaning and repairs are ongoing and Paul has submitted measurements to Steve at Kiwi plastics’ shop for a new boat canopy which is hopefully being constructed as I type. We moved the boat last week; it’s now on the other side of the pontoon and the port side has been painted and varnished to match the starboard side, which is just as well because today (18th November), a bride and groom posed right in front of it, sitting on the pontoon. Word has got around about Paul’s computer expertise and knowledge of technical systems and he has spent a fair bit of time on neighbouring boats helping them to fix various technical problems. Let’s just say that it hasn’t made him any more enamoured of Microsoft systems 😉 (no one has come to him with Apple problems). Nevertheless, Roger and Lucie from catamaran Catamini opposite us were so impressed and grateful when he managed to resolve the issues on their computer-based navigation system, they invited us on board one evening for a drink and cakes and also treated us to dinner at a local Chinese restaurant the night before they left the marina for Thailand. We got to know them quite well and they passed on some very useful tips and information about places and marinas we plan to visit. We hope to meet up with them on our travels in future.

The car we hired was ready for us the evening before our day trip to Niah Caves so we took advantage of it and went to a supermarket to stock up (well, where else 🙂 ). This one was new to us and had a few things we hadn’t managed to get elsewhere. Unfortunately not sage, though. I never thought finding a particular herb (especially the dried variety) would prove to be so elusive. Every other one from A-Z lined the shelves but not sage. I finally managed to find a jar a few days ago but will be bringing some back from the UK. On the way home we stopped at a vegetarian restaurant called The Healthy Vegetarian – you can see the dishes they offer on the pic below. I still cannot bring myself to try veggie ‘mutton’ ‘spare ribs’ or ‘fish’ along with several other dishes I would never have touched as a meat eater 40 years ago. I chose a bean curd dish and Paul had sweet and sour mushrooms. I’ve got used to having soft drinks when we eat out (it’s a case of having to really) and have become very fond of fresh, iced lime juice, although the request for no added sugar is always met with surprise.

Our intrepid trip to the caves of Niah began slightly later than we intended. The journey would take about 90 minutes, so to make the most of our time there we planned to set off at 8am. When we woke up, however, it was raining very heavily so we waited a bit in case things improved, but it just got heavier. This didn’t bode well for a walk through the jungle: millipedes love wet conditions. I mentioned this to Paul and he remarked that he already anticipated a short enough visit for me to shriek a bit and then we’d return home. I resolved to prove him wrong.

The roads were terrible on the way. Water covered the road surfaces and we drove through several huge puddles and floods. The wipers weren’t up to much, and we felt every bump and lump of the many potholes we went over. It made me realise how much I’ve become used to cars with good suspension. Almost there, and we realised we’d forgotten to bring a torch. This would be an essential item in the caves and rather than risk hoping they would have them on sale there, we took a detour to the nearest town to find a shop. The road we took was in a worse condition than the other one, and at times I thought my head would hit the roof of the car! 45 minutes and two shops later we had acquired two torches from a store in a small town called Bekanu, which in some parts, reminded me of scenes typical of the ones portrayed in ‘Disney-style’ American frontier towns.

The journey back to Niah didn’t do much for the car’s suspension. It sounded so rickety I half expected to see parts of the car fall off with each jolt. Still, at least the rain had stopped by then. With the heavy cloud cover gone our surroundings were lit up by glorious sunshine. We drove through lush forests, swamps, palm oil plantations and flat farmland. Most of the houses we passed were on stilts; some were wooden and flimsy-looking, some had been abandoned altogether and some were plush, newer models made from much sturdier materials. I couldn’t help thinking of the houses in the story of The Three Little Pigs.

We arrived at the park’s headquarters at about 11 and prepared ourselves for the trek. For me, this meant donning socks, trousers with elasticated bottoms, plimsolls, a hat and a shirt. Paul had forgotten his hat, so had to fashion a head covering from my shawl. We both packed insect repellent, water, and a torch each, sprayed ourselves with sun protection, put our sunglasses on and we were ready.  At the ticket office we were given a map of the route and a brief explanation of what to expect. I was so preoccupied with preparing myself for the millipedes and talking myself into being brave, I missed some of what was said, trusting that Paul had it all in hand. We made our way to the river bank where a ferryman would take us the short distance across the muddy water to the beginning of the path. The river looked very atmospheric. I’d just finished Redmond O’Hanlon’s Into the Heart of Borneo and it looked just like scenes he’d described during his travels up the river Rajang in a dugout canoe in the 80s. Our crossing took little more than 30 seconds and cost about 20p each.

Nerves kicking in, I followed Paul along the concrete path that soon turned into the wooden plank walk that would take us all the way to the caves. We’d been told not to touch the wooden handrails because the red ants crawling on it can cause nasty irritation if they bite. It turns out that millipedes like to hang out on the handrails too: 10 minutes later I saw my first one, then another, and another…  From then on I walked in the centre of the path with my head down until we worked out that if Paul walked ahead he could ‘flick them on’ without my seeing them. I could then enjoy the sights and sounds of the jungle all around me. The sounds were like the ones you used to pay to hear on relaxation cds in New Age shops. It was great to stand still and just listen to the jungle chorus, with the knowledge we were actually in the Borneo jungle. We encountered less than a dozen people during the whole excursion so no other noises intruded. On either side of us and below the raised planks, lush jungle vegetation abounded: swampy mud, ferns, moss, and trees of all shapes and sizes, displaying amazing roots and creepers. A few lizards scuttled across the planks but the birds we could hear were too shy to show themselves.

The first part of the walk was mainly level and pleasantly easy-going, but the going was about to get a lot tougher! It became necessary to climb – gently at first, up slopes and then steps, and then more (steeper) steps. We reached Traders’ Cave after about an hour and saw the remnants of bamboo scaffolding where birds’ nest traders had once set up a camp (amazing to think they often climb 200ft high on precarious poles and rope ladders). The cavern beyond this was magnificent and I naively thought we must have reached, or be very near to, the journey’s end. Paul pointed out that we were only at the beginning and there was still a very long way to go. This was the part I’d missed hearing at the ticket office – that the trek was four miles long altogether, so it would obviously be four miles back. It was well past midday by then and all I had on me was a cereal bar! It was going to be a long day.

‘Oh well’, I thought ‘at least The Great Cave won’t have millipedes’. It turned out to contain something far more dangerous! I knew there would be bats (12 species to be exact); bats don’t scare me, I like bats. I knew their droppings, known as guano, was highly-prized as a rich fertiliser so a musty odour was to be expected, and I covered my nose to block that. I also expected the total darkness and we had torches for that. The torchlight revealed some fabulous images: bats hanging from the roof, bats and swiftlets flying around; stalagmites, stalactites and other eye-catching rock formations; ferns, feathers…and spiders! Spiders don’t scare me either but the one I saw was huge and as they seemed to be all around us I was curious to know what they were. I retrieved my little guide book, pointed my torch at it and located the chapter. It informed me that on this part of the trek we should expect to see giant crickets and scorpions in the caves as well as bats and birds. I read that walkers are protected from these poisonous spiders by the raised plank walk above the rocky floor! Well the creatures we could see were ON the plank walk. I told Paul and we managed to reassure ourselves that what we were seeing were, in fact, the giant crickets (they had long antennae waving around on closer inspection). However, despite the slippery surfaces and steep steps and total darkness, and cobwebs and bats swooping just inches above our heads, we increased our walking and clambering speed quite considerably through this part.

The experience reminded me of passing through the tunnel of an undulating fairground ghost train without the carriage or sound effects. Here, though, there were many steps to climb and it was very humid and smelly but it was still thrilling to look around at the striking views. Ropes leading from the swiftlets’ nests were hanging down, and we spotted torch beams from collectors near the top where they would be scraping nests off the ceiling. Apparently the nests, which are believed to have medicinal properties, can fetch up to $1000 (USD) a kilogram! 30 minutes later, we emerged hot, thirsty and tired onto a plateau where a Malay family were seated round a table with the remnants of a picnic. We joined them to rest our legs and exchanged smiles and empathetic pleasantries via gestures and facial expressions. Considering the strenuous footslog we had all undertaken, words weren’t needed to communicate our feelings.

The Painted Cave was the next and final place on the expedition, which was another 30 minute walk on a (thankfully) level plank walk. We were sheltered from the afternoon sun’s rays by the trees but it was still hot, and we were quite high up by now. The cave was welcomingly cool when we got there and three men were sitting on a rock near the fenced off wall. One of them turned out to be a guide and he helpfully explained the exact location of the paintings when he heard us having difficulty seeing them. They are very faint, and it has to be said, lacking in ‘wow’ factor as images go. It was still incredible to think they were created around 1,200 years ago though and to read about the story of their discovery in 1958 by explorer Tom Harrison who found a human skull along with the paintings. I marvelled at how people had got there before all the staircases and paths. We sat for a while to rest in the cool, looking out at the glorious view and pondered on the kind of life that was lived in these caves by the hunter gatherers of 40,000 years ago.

Exhaustion and aching legs were beginning to kick in for me. The very thought of the long trek back was daunting to say the least, but time was getting on and we had a date with the ferryman at 5 30. Needless to say making our way back down the steps, slopes and rocks we’d climbed was very hard on the legs and of course we had to go back through the bat cave where the scorpions lurked. I kept thinking of the little bottle of wine and a packet of crisps waiting for me in the car. We stopped to rest a lot more on the way back, hoping to see some of the birds that were squawking and singing above us but unfortunately they remained elusive. We also heard something very heavy lumbering through the thick trees, cracking twigs and branches as it stepped on them, and waited in silence for a while to see what would emerge but sadly it didn’t appear.

I can honestly say the 6 hours of walking and climbing and clambering on that trek was the most strenuous thing I’ve ever done and I ached for days afterwards but I’m glad I did it. I proved that my phobia doesn’t prevent me from seeing sights that are worthwhile. I think I’ll pass on the Mulu Cave expedition though. Ian, from the boat next to us told us that the millipedes there are a writhing mass in some areas and that there are hundreds of them. Here’s a pic of just one of the little blighters!

Not a lot of exciting news, but as the title suggests, I have had to fix stuff again. I enjoy fixing stuff, if something breaks, I love the challenge of fixing it, and throwing it into the bin is a kind of defeat. I usually strip it of useful parts first anyway, to soften the blow. I think I may have taken up this lifestyle of living on a boat so that I had a constant supply of interesting things to fix. This blog will mention just a couple, the sink and the watermaker, however within these tasks, many more problems arose, so I have a full order book of ‘things that need attention’.

A couple of weeks ago, the galley sinks blocked, we have two sinks and what looks like some very old plumbing below. I hate plumbing, especially sink plumbing, and I knew this would need attention at some point as there was some signs of dripping below the sink and some damp wood. The bit under the galley sink is always a bit of a damp no go area on a boat, but I decided to remove all the fittings under the sink, clear out the blockage and clean everything up and reassemble it so it looked like new.

The first problem was taking the fittings off, they are custom made for this sink and boat, steel pipes welded to get the right angle to join the sinks so the water runs away ok. unscrewing the seized on fitting caused it to break off the sink drainer, closer inspection revealed it was beyond repair.

The problem now arose that I doubt I can get anyone to make me this fitting as it needs the special ring that connects to the drain, so I’m faced with replumbing using the local standards. This comprises of PVC pipe, glued together, of a size that won’t connect to my seacock where it all drains out of the boat. A further complication is that I found the seacock/through hull fitting (Tap) that the drain goes through  to exit the boat won’t shut off. This limits me to what I can do and I may have to wait for the next haulout to fix it. In the meantime, I have jury rigged one sink to drain ok, with the other sealed off.

I finally worked out a design for the canopy/awning to cover the main cabin. you really need something to keep the heat off the decks of the boat, otherwise it’s like being in a greenhouse. I have given the design to Steven at Kiwi plastics? who is currently making it up for me, it should be ready any day.

I have been up early most mornings painting the boat, well the blue strip down the side, That’s all done now and the varnish is back up to spec. We had to move the boat to the other side of the pontoon so I could finish the work on the port side, so we had a little motor around the marina, it was fun to have the engine running and the boat manoeuvring again. I also tried some diluted oxalic acid on the hull and was astonished how well she came up. I have a bit of touching up to do, but all in all I’m very pleased with her appearance now. 

We hired a car for two days, and immediately headed off to do a mega big shop, mostly drinks and other bulky items that don’t go in the bikes baskets too well. Kathy was very keen to check out the christmas decorations in the big stores (Not).

I was amazed to find Irish Cheddar on sale, it looks like real stuff too, I can understand guinness making it to these shores but Cheddar! Especially as we invented the stuff, and we can’t even export it to one of our old colonies.  It’s not a good omen for post brexit if you ask me.

I did a bit of shopping on my own for boaty bits, on the way out of town I was pleasantly surprised to find myself driving through a cemetery, it’s quite surreal, the dual carriageway splits with cemeteries on the left, in between the carriageways and on the right. many neglected but looking very interesting all the same. This happened the morning after the ‘day of the dead’ but the ghosts seemed happy enough.

I tried to buy a liferaft from a local specialist, however he didnt have any, and didnt know much about them either. The entry level to being a professional here can sometimes be quite low.
I needed some thin walled stainless tube sections, and found a great little workshop where they copied the one on the left and made me two identical pieces as shown below. This cost me about £7, amazing. These parts might be crucial to our safe passage across the Pacific. The form a linkage in the self steering system. they are made to be quite weak, so that if we hit a log or other submerged object, rather than the self steering rudder breaking, these shafts bend/break. You then pull the rudder out of the water and replace the bent bit with a new one.  So now I can hit three logs and be safe.

As you can see above, they mostly make fancy gates for the rich here.

The next day we took off to the Niah Caves, they are about a 90 minute drive south of Miri. They are situated in a national park and are full of creepy crawlies that Kathy hates. When we arrived we had to pay Charon  a Ringit to ferry us across the Styx and into the park proper. I think the river is really called the Niah and he may not be called Charon 😉 but the river is well populated with crocs, and they can steal your memories away.

Once over the river, there is a 90 minute walk along boardwalks like belowOccasionally there are tourist information signs, but these are often in need of attention

Here Kathy is at the entrance to the first cave, behind her you can see poles hanging from the roof, these are used by a team of men who climb them to gather swiftlets nests for the famous birds’ nest soup.

Above is a picture of such activity I copied from the museum. After the big cave entrance, we had to walk for 20 minutes through a pitch black cave, using our torches the show us the way. This cave was full of bats, often just above our heads, and there were scorpions on the ground, but I think the one below is just a cricket.

I enjoyed the cave, but it was quite an arduous walk getting there and back.

I expect Kathy will write about that experience in a lot more detail shortly.

In the shopping mall tonight I spotted a wedding photographer with a stall and noticed he had a picture taken next to our boat, but we were just out of sight. I wonder if he told the bride there are crocodiles here?

 

Finally, the watermaker saga nears its end.

I promised myself to rebuild the pressure pump and replace all the seals a few weeks ago, but I have been putting it off. Yesterday I finally got down to the job. It took me four hours to dismantle the pump and rebuild it. I dread this type of thing, I’m so used to losing a little spring or some other small but crucial part. Also I love digital stuff, as everything, no matter how complicated it seems, always comes back to something being a ‘one’ or a ‘zero’. with mechanical stuff, things can be in many states, they have curves and things that need to mate up perfectly. High pressure says lots of leaks to me. Anyway I took the pump apart, I had a full set of spare seals / gaskets, poppet valves etc, or so I thought. It went well, but I did damage 2 shaft seals in the process, and guess what, they were the two missing seals from the kit. .

Anyway I rebuilt it and put it back on the motor and connected it to the membrane and a water supply and lo and behold, it worked, but only in the crap way it worked before, i.e. the water evaporated faster than I was making it. However with the knowledge I gained from this adventure, I realised that the piston wasn’t really travelling very far in and out of the pump cylinder. Perhaps the pump was not the problem, but the gearbox driving it. I tried to take this apart, but it wouldn’t let me, but playing with it I realised that it mattered which way the motor ran. In fact if I put the red electricity down the black wire and vica versa, the piston was travelling three times the distance. Now this is a gearbox that takes a rotating shaft as input and generates a pumping action (out/in/out/in…) on a piston rod. It never occurred to me that direction of rotation on the input would matter. However it was clear that it worked much better with the motor polarity reversed. But how could the motor be going backwards, then I remembered I had disassembled it many months ago, when it was seized. Presumably I didnt put it back together properly!. Damm
So I connected it all back up, with the red to ground and the black to 12v  and lo and behold it started making fresh water, loads of it. So it looks like the membrane might be ok after all. Today I re-installed it under the bunk, and started the job of replacing all of the bacteria laden hoses that connect to it. Tomorrow I will be able to run it properly for a while and see what the water actually tastes like, after I have tested it with my fancy TDS meter. Hopefully all will go well and I will have saved myself some £4000 on a new watermaker.

I celebrated tonight with a huge fish steak, that looks well weird, but turned out to be one of the tastiest fish meals I have had in a long time.

Paul Collister

While we are just chilling in Miri Marina, the blog will naturally get fewer posts from us. Otherwise it would be akin to social media style hourly updates of things we ate, what time we got up, what we bought in the shops and so on (although there is some of that in this post). I have carried on making notes in diary form, which has proved useful to us when we need to know dates relating to things like car hire, bike buying and when the worst squalls happened but otherwise makes for very mundane reading. This post will condense the few weeks since my last post by narrating the more (hopefully) interesting events and activities of that period.

The days here are largely leisurely and – yes – it is rather wonderful to indulge in such a relaxed way of life. There are no time constraints, no telephones or doorbells ringing, no bills or junk mail, no places to rush to…I could go on. This more flexible manner of living was brought home to me during a recent trip to town when I asked Paul if I had time to browse the bargain books in a department store and he pointed out that I could take all the time I needed since our time was our own.  The bikes have brought about a different kind of freedom. We now tend to shop on a daily or every other day basis. The long, hot walks into town are no more; we simply load our purchases in the baskets Paul fitted on the back of the bikes, or in our rucksacks. I was a bit nervous about cycling to start with. I know the saying ‘it’s like riding a bike’ and that you’re not supposed to lose the ability once learned but it’s been a while since I pedalled any distance and that was on a country cycle track. We collected our bikes from a shop in town and had to ride them back to the marina. After a slightly wobbly start, I gained confidence and found my balance but both of those deserted me once we set out on the main road. The traffic, the noise and my lack of road skills left me feeling vulnerable and I had to get off and push it a couple of times. Away from the busy roads, I found cycling to be pure bliss. The wind as you speed along is cooling, the roads are flat, and people smile and greet you (or maybe they are smirking at our helmets 😉 ). Best of all, there is no risk of coming into direct contact with the centipedes crawling along the pavements. Much as they scare me I do try to avoid squashing them.

One of our first excursions was to the Coco Cabana event space on the waterfront, where the iconic seahorse lighthouse is located. I discovered, when looking at its Facebook page that it only opened in April this year, and was created as a ‘seaside ambience’ from which to view ‘the best sunset in Malaysia’. I’m sure other locations in Malaysia have also laid claim to that boast, but nevertheless it is a great place to watch the ocean from. Tables are set out overlooking the coastline and it’s also possible to sit on the boulders next to the water watching the waves crash onto them while sitting with a drink in the cool evening breeze.

It’s a popular hangout with families and teenagers, who also flock to the regular artistic and cultural events held in the wooden event hall.  One Friday evening I bought some home-made perfume from one of the vendors during an art event there. It was the best copy of the Chanel fragrance (Coco Mademoiselle) I have ever come across. The lady who made it had several other brand name copies on sale and told us how she created them. At only £10 and cruelty-free, I walked away very happy…and smelling nice.

Paul got a puncture in his back tyre on our second day out cycling. Funnily enough we’d gone out specifically to get more cycle accessories such as locks, lights and puncture kits. I stood by and watched, impressed, while he turned it upside down and fixed it on a busy, dusty street. I tried to remember how I used to cope with this situation in my bike-riding days as a teenager. I remember pumping tyres up but the business of inner tubes, glue and patches must have been delegated to my dad or brothers I think. We also got caught in a torrential downpour while riding along a town centre road, becoming soaked through and chilly within seconds. We had to take shelter under the roof of a shopfront until it stopped. Arriving back at the marina feeling damp and still a bit cold, the boat felt wonderfully warm and dry and it seemed an appropriate evening to make sausages, sweet potato mash, mushrooms, fried onions and gravy for dinner.

During the early hours of the morning of Friday 20th October we had the worst storm I have experienced while berthed in a marina. The wind felt frighteningly strong (60 knots we discovered later) and the sheet of heavy rainfall was a sight to see; the marina was completely obscured behind it! Paul went out in it to check the bikes and to tie anything down that was likely to blow away. One gust was so fierce and noisy during its build up and so strong when it hit the boat, it made me squeal in alarm. We later found out that it was the worst weather anyone local could remember and there was a fair bit of damage around to testify to its severity. The worst of this was, as Paul related in his post, the sentry box complete with sentry inside that blew across the marina forecourt. Apart from being literally shook up, he was thankfully unharmed. There was another powerful storm early the following afternoon, with a wind strong enough to cause some concern that the boat in the berth opposite would break its mooring ropes and hurl into us. Marina staff came and secured it just in case. We sat it out in the cabin for the whole day, preferring to stay onboard even when things settled down later on. The boat was rocking due to the combination of the big waves caused by the previous night’s storm and the powerful gusts. It had caused a fair bit of debris to scatter around the car park: broken glass, roof tiles, tree branches and building materials. Paul pointed out a house that had collapsed just over the water when trees had blown on top of it.  On our way to Miri on the bikes, we cycled through the park by the promenade and saw several trees that had either been uprooted completely or pushed almost horizontal. Meanwhile, the waves looked as if they were reddish brown in colour as they crashed on the beach, possibly due to algae having been whipped up by the storm.

One of the more beneficial (for us anyway) consequences of the gales was that a kayak belonging to a neighbouring yacht blew away, leaving the couple with only one. Paul heard them deciding to dump or sell the remaining one since they didn’t really use them any more, and as he’s been intending to buy one, he bought it off them for a bargain price. So now we have a kayak to add to our growing lists of accessories. It’s very smart, and Paul enjoyed taking it out for a test ride in the marina. I suspect it’s another activity that looks easier than it actually is for me to do, a fact I discovered when I tried to windsurf once. I’ve been promised a lesson in kayaking anyway so we shall see.

I got on with making another batch of bread dough while Paul was kayaking and battled with a different kind of challenge. Using the other bag of flour we’d chosen from Bakery Ingredients, I tipped it on to the tray while I got the other ingredients ready. I made a well in the flour and cursed when I spotted a fly that must have landed on the pile. I went to shoo it off and realised that it wasn’t a fly: it was a weevil, and it wasn’t alone! These pesky things are a fact of life here in The Tropics. There is a choice to be made on discovering them. Throw your hands up in horror and chuck the product away, as we have indeed done before, or deal with them by sieving the flour and using it as normal. I did a bit of research on the net and discovered they are harmless (as we’d already guessed) and that most grain products have them. I mustered up my courage and dealt with them. I can’t say I’m happy about the situation. I’ve found them in biscuits, nuts, breadcrumbs and packet mixes. Depending on the product and the amount I either throw it or use it, but we have discovered that putting the bags in the freezer for a few days and then storing them in the fridge is an effective way of dealing with the problem. Anyway we have had no ill effects, the bread was made and eaten – weevil free and I discovered a core of bravery I didn’t know I had 😉 .

One afternoon in Miri we found ourselves near the bar where we’d been told all the ex-pats go to meet and socialise. Called The Ming Café, it’s on the corner of a busy street in the centre where lots of hotels and hostels are located. I was curious to see if they sold wine since it is so popular with foreigners so we parked the bikes near a table by the pavement and sat down in the busy bar. I knew it wouldn’t be Paul’s favourite type of place. It had screens showing sport, signs advertising all-day breakfasts, soccer matches, beer by the bucket and a wide range of imaginatively named cocktails (pictured below). They did serve wine by the glass, however – with soda too, so we had a drink there, but didn’t fancy ordering from a menu offering burgers, sausage sandwiches, potato wedges and mixed grill. I quite liked it in there though – it was lively, the music was good and it’s a great place to sit and people watch.

It was time for a wine run on Monday (23rd). It looked like the glass I’d had in the Ming Cafe would be my last for a while if I didn’t restock.  I didn’t want to have to pay the hiked up prices for a bottle from our regular supermarket, so we returned to Merdeka Mall, where it’s less expensive.  It’s a bit too far to cycle and we found it cheaper and more convenient to use ‘Grab’ taxis for both journeys. The wine worked out at about £12 a bottle – still pricey but better than £17.  With my indulgence catered for, Paul cycled off early to get his the next morning; a fresh fish from the town market in Miri (the type of fish he’d like to catch one day).  Each morning, just as dawn breaks we get visited by several little birds chirping and flying around on deck. I can see them through the hatch above the V berth and there’s often quite a few of them near the mast. Paul was concerned that they might be nesting but it seems they just like paying a morning visit – so much so that when Paul returned from market with his fish, one of them was flying around in the cabin! It beat a hasty retreat soon enough but I don’t know how long it had been inside while I was sleeping.

Other visitors to our pontoon, not quite as regular as the birds are ‘just married’, or about to be married, couples, complete with a photographer and dresser, whose main job appears to be to arrange the bridal dress and veil in ‘natural’ flowing poses by throwing the material up in the air and letting the wind catch it. It looks likely that Sister Midnight will be in the background of many a glossy wedding album, and we have often had to either wait or take a detour while all the snapping is going on. It’s quite interesting to watch all the preparations and Paul is keen for the boat to look its best for its backdrop role. He has been busy painting, varnishing and cleaning the starboard side all week; getting up early to make the most of the coolest part of the day. It’s looking good, especially the varnished wood gleaming in the sunlight. The port side will need doing soon in order to preserve symmetry, which means moving the boat around for access to it. We will literally have a change of scene when that happens ;).

Last night being Halloween we went to the party organised by Brian and Glee further down the pontoon. Our contribution to the victuals was a pumpkin jack o’ lantern carved by Paul and lit using one of our led bike lights because we’d forgotten to get tea lights. We also took some chocolate vermicelli ball cakes and hoped these offerings would make up for our choosing not to dress up in fancy dress (I know…#partypoopers). There was a very impressive array of food set out on the table and all the usual spooky decorations, masks, and lanterns hanging up. Party games and dancing were also successfully avoided by us but we enjoyed ourselves just the same. The atmosphere was great, and I have always preferred watching people dance to doing it myself. Brian passed on some useful tips about Labuan and Kota Kinabulu (popularly known as KK). Both of those places are on the agenda for visits later this month. Before that, though we intend to have a look at the nearby Niah Caves, where we will see the intriguing sight of relics from the cave dwellers of 40,000 years ago. Images below are from the party and from some of our daily bike rides.

 

So the storm passed, although we have had a few blows since, nothing like the big gusts we had a week ago. We went for a cycle the next day, there were scores of fallen trees, but as they have all recently been planted, it wasnt that surprising. The gardeners on this massive reclaimed estate are already busy clearing up.

Sticking with storm clouds, or rather silver linings, one of our neighbours, who has a large motor cruiser / trawler was up in the night and saw one of his Kayaks take off into the air during the storm. We  have no idea where it ended up. In the morning he told his wife they would have to buy another, but she pointed out they never use it, I expect the Jetski on their aft deck gets more use, and so he decided to ditch it, so I picked it up off him for $100 with a mounting frame, which is a fifth of the new price, and it’s in great nick. I had a little kayak around the marina, which was a first for me, and great fun.

It’s mostly been a very relaxing week here, I don’t have any serious deadlines, the main one being to depart next March, everything before then is trivial. This is probably the first time in my life where there hasn’t been some kind of important event looming, and I must say, it’s very liberating to just laze around like this. However, I’m not great at lazing around, so I have pushed on with the jobs, and in true boat style, one job always creates another. For example, the footswitch which turns the anchor winch (Windlass) on and off packed in a while ago, thinking this was a special kind of micro-switch, beyond my repair skills, I waited until I got some new ones back home, and as well as a chain up switch, I fitted a chain down switch, this is very handy for when the chain or rope snags in the windlass feed. I usually use the clutch when lowering the chain, much quicker. However on wiring it all up, it turns out the windlass won’t go in reverse. So this means taking the motor assembly apart and having serious words with the solenoid, helped with a small hammer I suspect 😉 .

 

 

 

 

I don’t know if there is a standard, but I have gone for RED=UP with the arrow pointing at the bow. If there are no objections to this I will create an RFC / BIP (in joke)

The next job I took on was to paint the blue strip down the side of the boat, I did this in penang and it had faded within months, so after a bit of research I learnt that a standard (cheap) Acrylic building paint would be as good as a fancy ‘Yacht’ paint. We shall see, it doesn’t look like a big job, but I don’t ever want to have to do it again, I’m just so fed up of removing paint from the dock, my clothes, me, and parts of the boat that didn’t need to be painted. I wonder if I can sign up for a painter decorator course somewhere?

It’s important to get a good primer on for acrylic paints, as they are water based, and they don’t adhere to oil based paints, so on with the primer. I foolishly thought primer was like paint, but crikey was I surprised, it was more like plaster, and it set almost as soon as I applied it, leaving mountains and valleys the length of the boat. I was now quickly heading into the ‘Father Ted’ just knocking the little dent out of the car with a hammer’ territory, if you havent seen that episode, I highly recommend it. Anyway I eventually got there and the next day, after a lot of sanding the paint went on, only one accident, and I thought I was safe as I only spilled the paint on the pontoon, I soon had that cleaned up and hosed down so it looked like new, sadly I left the hose on the pontoon, and it had a squirt of water spraying the ‘yet to dry’ blue paint, which then ran down the side of the boat. I think Kathy might have been expecting this kind of event as I started shouting for her help to get the hull clean before it set any further. She appeared with a very worried expression.

I have now added another two coats of varnish, getting up at 6:30 AM to work, as that’s the only time of day when it’s cool enough, evenings might work, but the air is getting moist not drier then. Still I can always siesta as needed. I’m very happy with the end result, just a shame I have to turn the boat around and repeat the whole process on the other side.
The canopies / covers on the boat look awful, but we met a local merchant who is going to make new covers for us, I’m just trying to get the design right. They need to be easy to put up, and take down if a storm approaches, they need to be light, waterproof, let the air flow underneath and possibly double as water catchers. The also need to look very smart. That’s a lot to ask. I’m having the covers made with plastic and heat welded seams, normally I would want a nicer fabric, like sunbrella, but thats not an option here, also this is a lot cheaper and I am seeing it as an opportunity to fine tune the design. in a few years time when we return to Phuket, I might have the perfect design for a better fabric.

Now, the problem with Paradise
Well basically it all stems from the heat, that causes such a lot of activity in the insect/and/little creature world. I’m currently covered in bites, not from mosquitos, at least I haven’t seen many, I expect it’s one of the millions other little creepy crawlies or noseeums around. If you look closely at any surface here, it’s teeming with life, from microscopic ants all the way up to little lizards/geckos. They just love the heat. Weevils appear in all the dry goods very quickly, I won’t go into the details, but below is a little video of one such chappie inside a bag of breadcrumbs kathy bought. The flour is rife with them. We now know that the flour has to be kept in the freezer for a few days after purchase to stop these little guys from hatching. Still a little extra protein never hurt anyone, especially vegans 😉

We often pass through the main park here when cycling around town, I will try to get a video sometime, but this dancing thing, Zumba, I think it is called, seems very big here, often stages are setup in the malls and maybe a hundred people join in. Weird.

Eating in Miri is great for Kathy, there are plenty of good veggy options around, although Kathy seems more pleased with her iPhone than anything else here.

Fried eggs with everything here

Last night we cycled 5 miles to the other end of town to check out the weekend market, a more subdued affair to those we saw in Phuket, but lovely all the same.

It’s very common for couples to parade along the pontoons here for their wedding photos, several times a week we see them, and often have to wheel our bikes around the flowing bridal dress, Kathy wondering if she should have left her knickers and other bits of hand washing drying so visibly on the guard rails of the boat.

Anyone for a bit of Durian

Maybe some fresh corn

A prototype lunar lander?

 

Sunset as seen from our cockpit.

Paul Collister

Sorry about the email notifications, I can’t work out where the problem is, some people aren’t getting notifications of our posts, but it’s a bit random. The problem may well be with the hosting system at bluehost. Anyway, if you notice you are not getting notifications, let me know so I can decide if another change of software is in order.

Now onto the more important business of what happens when you are squeezed between a high pressure weather system and a low pressure system, which is what is happening here right now. Basically, you get big winds. Last night being a prime example, I was kept up for many hours keeping an eye on the boat, at one point a gust, that must have exceeded 60 knots hit us. even though we are protected here in the marina the boat still heeled right over, Kethy thought we might capsize, so strong was the blow. I have never known anything like it. I waited for the gust to subside, and in the screaming wind and pounding rain I went ashore, just in my shorts and recovered our bicycles which were heading along the pontoon, then back to the boat to pull the dinghy back into the centre of the foredeck. Lots of bits of the boat were trying to escape with the wind, but were thankfully secured. We are doubled up on all our mooring lines, which is just as well, as they were very taut. the strong winds blew for over an hour, and today we still have 30+ knot winds. On talking to the others here I was surprised to hear that a finger pontoon broke loose last night downwind from us and headed off to the far side, with a motor boat still attached. There is debris strewn everywhere, trees have fallen, but the worst I heard was the security man, who sits in a little cabin, not much bigger than a portaloo, was lifted up and blown 100ft across the car park, inside his cabin, he suffered cuts and bruises, but hopefully nothing too serious.
One of the other yachties took me around the marina to show me the mooring lines on a big old clunk of a boat moored directly upwind of me. The lines are chafing and if they break we could have 20-30 tons of boat piling into us. We contacted the marina owner and he sent a lad onboard to add some extra lines, but they are cheap and will chafe quickly as well. I’m putting this picture here so you can see, and also so I have some proof in the cloud should the worst happen and we need to make an insurance claim 🙁

The boat to starboard of the hulk is a police boat that came in this morning, I feel sorry for them if they were out in last night’s weather.

I know this doesn’t compare with the weather Ireland has just had, but it does remind you just how strong the forces of nature can be. We also had an earthquake warning for east of Sabah, but only 5.4 and no Tsunami was expected.
If the weather calms, I will fix my puncture and we will go for a bike ride to survey the local damage. Below is yesterdays ride as logged on my phone. Paul Collister

Or so it seems, yesterday we both bought ourselves folding bikes, and today we used them for a little shopping trip downtown. Besides a massive downpour, which made the Borneo Post, it was so severe, and a flat tyre, they are a great success. We didn’t spend too much on the bikes, about £120 each, the good ones started at over £1000 (Brompton, Dahon etc), they are alloy, and might last a year or more, we will see. So far they have been great, and really extend our ‘shopping’ area 🙁 However, soon I will be able to pop off on my own and check out the fixings and fasteners shops, along with the electrical supplies, and even take in some sightseeing down the docks!

Earlier in the week, the weather took a decided turn for the worse, strong winds from the SW monsoon have set in, bringing very wet squally weather. This is the same weather that made it so difficult for us, beating up to Thailand a year ago, and is due to continue for quite a few days now.

One day the kids came into the marina to practice their sailing as the sea was too rough

While replacing the missing blades on our wind turbine, which now works really well, I found an anchor light above the canopy which I must have left out. It’s the white one on the left, but it was the same as the red one next to it two months ago, just shows what two months of UV does to plastic.

We popped over to the spit of land that makes the breakwater for the marina, this is where the seahorse is, it also has a lovely large hall, built by indigenous craftsmen here, possibly from the Iban tribe, using traditional methods, it’s mostly made of bamboo, looking up into the roof reveals a wonderful lattice of bamboo rafters and supports

Inside there was an exhibition of local art, I snapped these pictures, including the lovely representation of the marina, where I nicked the banner above from.

Below is a pic of one of the many rig crew supply ships that calls into the marina, ferrying lots of ‘bob the builders’ between the rigs and land. there are about 10 of these ships and they are in and out every 30 mins or so, so quite busy.

On our trip to get the bike I took a few pics, below shows there is no shortage of plastic flowers here, or just plastic in general.

I think they need to re-instate this meter cupboard at some point. I think it’s gas, which is odd as you don’t normally see much piped gas here, however this is a oil/gas town.

We went shopping in Boulevard, a biggish Malaysian chain today, they had a good display of plastic christmas trees, but it was halloween that caught my eye, I didn’t think it was common here, but the young kids seemed to love it

Another Mannequin display caught my attention in the mall, they don’t look very happy! 

For a long time I was confused when checking out in the big stores by the first question, which back home was usually ‘do you need bags’, but here it sounded more like Havka, or HavMemKa, which I eventually decoded into ‘have Store card? or have Member Card’. I figured it would be difficult to get as an itinerant, however recently we saw great savings on offer for members, so I enquired and for £2 got a store loyalty card, which would have paid for itself if we got it before Kathy bought the £18 bottle of cheap plonk! Not only did I get the card, but a gift was forthcoming of a glass jar with a cat lid, in a cloth outfit. This will be ever so useful 😉 (I wonder how many more they need to move on)

And if I wasn’t excited enough with that, I got a free, tasteful, and subtle ‘bag for life’

The rain has been lovely, keeping the temperatures down, and the breeze very refreshing. Today is also the first day I’m not suffering from bites, it’s hard to avoid here, I think it’s mostly sand flies, in many ways they are worse than mosquitoes as you can’t see them, but they certainly itch all right.
I have managed to get a few jobs done, The wind generator now has all six blades running, and the vibration has stopped now. The watermaker is in bits under the cabin table waiting for me to service the high pressure pump and then re-assemble. The chart table area has been re-organised and the plastic boxes now have lots of items neatly stowed and catalogued out of the way. but by far our favorite achievement has to be getting bikes.

Kathy had to be persuaded to wear her helmet, which eventually she agreed to. (the mess behind Kathy is all hers by the way)

Kathy soon took to the bike, some adjustment to height was later required.

And this little video is of Kathy bombing along, the house behind looks so big, I thought it was a hotel, or apartments, but it’s actually one house, belonging to a Brit, called Bob, who we made friends with last time we were here.

So while the kids here are throwing themselves onto the tarmac from their scooters at 30mph, we tootle along at 7mph, Helmets, front and rear lights and reflectors, locks, pumps and a repair kit; So first world. No wonder we get stares.

Next up is the Watermaker and a rework of the solar panels. In November we are going to sail up to Labuan, which I believe is pronounced in a french sort of ‘La Bwan’ way. Labuan, is duty free so I want to arrange to get stuff shipped there that we need from the UK or America.

Paul Collister

 

After another walk to Marina Square on Monday evening (9th October) we went for a meal in one of the Chinese restaurants we had seen and liked the look of. It turned out to be less of a restaurant and more of a ‘hawker’ style eatery.  These can be confusing, and this one was no exception. In the street, or in a market development it’s more self-explanatory even to a foreigner. You have to order your drink separately from the drinks vendor (who is often the owner/manager of the centre), and you pay for that as soon as it’s brought to you. When you’ve looked and chosen the meal you want from the stalls, you point or gesture to where your table is and the meal is brought to you, and once again you pay on the spot. So there might be two or more people in your group, all ordering from different places, with servers and money and change all coming and going at the same time, but it works and I like it because the food is freshly cooked and inexpensive. This place looked so much like a restaurant that we sat down and were immediately surrounded by four people all proffering different menus. This was disconcerting enough but when we’d taken them and the table was strewn with an assortment of menus, they all stood watching and waiting expectantly. We ordered drinks so that eliminated one of them and Paul asked the rest if we could have a few minutes to choose. We sifted through the selection of menus, made our choice and then (of course) struggled to get anyone to come back to us to take the order! The food was worth the confusion when it arrived. I enjoyed a substantial tofu, vegetable and rice dish with a tasty sauce. Paul opted for the duck with rice but it was a fairly small portion and he wished he’d ordered the same as me. We’ll definitely go back anyway.

Tuesday 10th October

It was time for a big shop, and for that we needed a car. Paul had booked one the day before and set off at 10 to collect the keys. It was a funny little thing – that’s the phrase that entered my mind as the day went on. The air conditioning didn’t quite get cold enough, and the alarm had a tendency to go off if we didn’t close the doors properly. I went to drop our laundry off and took the car keys with me while Paul went to the marina office in the same block so that I could let myself back in the car. Waiting inside it, I began to feel very hot, so opened the door to get out and the alarm went off, so I had to shut the door quickly and fiddle with the buttons on the keys to shut it up. I was then trapped in the oven-like temperature until Paul came out. The windows only opened when the engine was on and I didn’t want to set the alarm off again. Luckily I had a battery fan to alleviate the heat a bit but I kept thinking of the poor dogs who get left in such temperatures. We caused some amusement at a petrol station, and outside a shopping mall when Paul had to make a few attempts to stop the alarm stopped blaring out when he walked away. The car, a Perouda, also struggled to get up hills and the rear passenger door didn’t close properly.

Still, it got us to all the places we needed to be. Namely, a succession of supermarkets. The bigger ones are situated in indoor malls, and the first one we went to, as Paul has described, was quite an eerie experience. It looked totally closed. No cars were in the car park, which is most unusual here. The stairwell leading to the mall looked disused; it was full of litter and smelled stale. The level we walked in to didn’t look promising. Metal shutters were down on the shop units, some of which looked abandoned or incomplete. I wondered if the day was a public holiday we were unaware of, but in the basement we found the supermarket – empty but open. It was a treat to walk the aisles with no one else around, if a little disconcerting. Slowly, however other shoppers began to appear and all soon felt normal.

Two, or maybe three, supermarkets later and pretty much all the items had been ticked off the list, including some cough mixture, as it seems to be the only medical product we don’t have on board. The previous evening I couldn’t help wryly noting the array of ‘products’ on the table for our various ailments: Lemsip; plasters for blisters & cuts; throat sweets; paracetamol; cream for bites & stings; tweezers to remove a splinter from Paul’s foot; and tissues and antihistamines for my allergy. All we needed was a bag of Werther’s Originals for it to look like the day room in a care home 😉 Paul wanted to have a look at the Piasau Boat Club before heading back to drop off the shopping. It looked a little like a holiday resort, situated as it is in a Nature Reserve Park, with a nearby beach, children’s playground and a sea view from the clubhouse. I was pleased to discover that its Beachcomber bar sold white wine – one of the few places that does here. We sat on the terrace looking out at the view. Not many other people were around that afternoon, but judging from the signs and posters on display, plenty of activities and events take place there.

The car had to be returned by 5pm on Wednesday so we set out at 11 30 on our mission to look at bicycles.  Several of the neighbouring yachts have folding bikes; they are handy for getting to the local shops as well as an ideal way to get physical exercise. It was difficult to know which type to buy though. We debated whether to get cheap ones to use while here and then donate them to some local children when we leave, or splashing out on decent foldable ones to keep. We started our search in the Marina Park complex at a shop called Giant. Their folding bikes were great but more expensive than we’d budgeted for. The next place had a reasonably priced second hand folding bike which made us consider getting that and a cheaper temporary one but Paul discovered the frame looked a bit bent on a closer examination. The salesman, keen for us to buy, offered to buy any bikes we chose back off us if we wanted to take them for a short period. He told us he would even include the shopping panniers we needed and fit them for us.  We looked at a couple more shops that day, and another one since then but finally settled on one we looked at yesterday and will be off to collect them soon.

Miri city centre is worth a mention. When we visited in July, I noted that it looked as if it is mainly made up of Chinese shops and businesses, but that the town lacked something that I couldn’t define. I think this was because I was comparing it rather unfairly with lively, atmospheric Kuching. Returning after a two month break, I viewed it more favourably. Miri is an oil boomtown, although its oil rig ceased production in 1970, and new inland oil fields were found in 2011. The birthplace of the Malaysian petroleum industry, Miri urges people to visit The Petroleum Science Museum, located on the site of the first oil rig, which we intend to look at before we move on. Anyway, the city has its share of shopping malls, restaurants and plush hotels and the handicraft centre we went to before we left for the UK is a great place for Sarawakian arts and crafts and handmade and unusual gifts, all made by local producers (they were so friendly, too – we chatted to them for ages). I think it’s fair to say, however that Miri is a gateway to several other inviting nature-based attractions that surround it, such as The Niah Caves, Mulu National Park and the Bario Highlands, all of which I’m also looking forward to seeing.

We had a quick look at one of the recommended fruit and vegetable markets before driving home. We didn’t need much, only an elusive courgette, but the markets are so colourful and interesting to amble around.

I’m used to people staring at us now, and I think traders like it that we take the time to look around and ask questions. We bought some apples, a bunch of fresh rosemary and some pumpkin but our request for a courgette was met with either bemusement or amusement. Paul looked up the word for it in Malay on his phone (sejenis labu kecil) and we were directed to a stall selling a white, round vegetable that we were told was like a courgette as it was part of the marrow family. We bought it after another stallholder took the time to explain to us how to cook it. He did state that it was a bit bland in taste and he was quite correct – it proved to be a poor substitute for the courgette 😉

Life goes on in a lovely leisurely way here in Miri. We try to go out for a walk each evening, either to the Marina Park or the waterfront area so that we’re getting daily exercise until we get the bikes. The rainy season is upon us and we’ve seen some spectacular downpours. I’ve got used to springing up to close all the windows as soon as the drops hit the coach roof. The good news is that there are no leaks on the boat! The rain showers are welcome actually because the temperature drops and it really is delightful listening to it pound and patter outside while we are cosy and dry inside. I tried to capture the image of how heavy the rain is in pictures but couldn’t do it justice. I am pleased to report that my second attempt at baking bread turned out successfully so I think the flour from Bakery Ingredients is a hit (see pic below).  The pictures that follow it are of our excursions to the waterfront and the five-hour walk we took into Miri yesterday to choose our bikes.

 

 

 

We’ve been back in Eastern Malaysia for just over a week now and we’re just about getting used to the time difference and the contrast in temperature. It doesn’t feel as hot and humid as it was back in July – I know this because I have felt more inclined to do jobs instead of lazing all day ;-). There have been one or two occasions when the breeze felt cool, as opposed to feeling like the blast from a hair dryer, which combined with a few heavy rain showers, made it feel almost autumnal! Having said that, it is still hot…well, we are in the tropics after all. It feels good to be back on Sister Midnight and the ‘liveaboard’ life.

During the unpacking and stowing on our first day here, I rediscovered things I’d forgotten I had left on board, and hadn’t needed to bring over from the UK, such as reading glasses and various cruelty-free toiletries. We had arrived at night, relieved to find everything dry and creature-free so we only had time for a brief sort out – enough to get the bed made up, the power and water running and to move some of the large deck equipment out of the cabin. Paul was up early the following morning, on a mission to get bread and bottled water, and when I woke a bit later to join him for coffee and toast, I naively assumed we had effectively dodged any jet lag and would now slip smoothly and effortlessly back into normal sleep patterns. We didn’t! For two or three days after that we were both lying in bed with our phones lit up for much of the night, while feeling lethargic and dozing for parts of the day. Our first full day was spent unpacking, sorting and stowing. I was intrigued by a new sign that had been put up on the wall warning people in the marina about the possibility of crocodiles in the water and wondered if there had been an incident that had prompted it. We found out later from one of our neighbours that it’s merely for ‘insurance purposes’ and it’s highly unlikely that one will venture into the marina. It won’t stop me looking though.

We took a walk into Miri centre early that first evening to get a few more provisions from the supermarket. I couldn’t help remembering the wriggly, reddish brown centipedes or millipedes that tend to traverse the paths at that time of the evening. I’m trying to control my urge to squeal when I see one because it’s going to limit where I can go and what I can do, not just here but in other countries too. However, it’s not that easy to eradicate a phobia by employing mere mind over matter. Ask anyone who’s afraid of spiders!  One of the books I’m reading isn’t providing much comfort on the matter. Redmond O’Hanlon describes his journey upriver into the middle of the jungle in his 1983 book Into The Heart of Borneo and the first paragraph on page one lists certain local creatures and diseases to be avoided, along with helpful hints on how to thwart them:

‘…there is no matching the strength of that irrational desire to find a means of keeping your head upon your shoulders; of retaining your frontal appendage in its accustomed place; of barring 1,700 different species of parasitic worm from your bloodstream and Wagler’s pit viper from just about anywhere; of removing small, black, wild-boar ticks from your crutch with minimum discomfort (you do it with Sellotape); of declining to wear a globulating necklace of leeches all day long; of sidestepping amoebic and bacillary dysentery, yellow and blackwater and dengue fevers, malaria, cholera, typhoid, rabies, hepatitis, tuberculosis and the crocodile (thumbs in its eyes, if you have time, they say).’

Into The Heart of Borneo, (p.1), Redmond O’Hanlon

Admittedly, he was venturing deep into jungle territory, but the mere thought of a necklace of leeches is enough to keep me from being near the perimeter of the jungle. Anyway I will keep trying to conquer my fear. The supermarket in Imperial Mall, I remembered, had an impressive variety of vegetarian food in their freezer department so I spent a happy 15 minutes examining it all and reading the ingredients (I know how to have fun 😉 ). I was particularly fascinated by a bag of frozen prawns that looked exactly like real prawns. I called Paul over to see them and he was less than impressed, remarking that they shouldn’t be allowed to use the word ‘prawn’ in the description.

Wine is terribly expensive here. We bought one bottle for the princely sum of £17! We have since found somewhere that sells it a bit cheaper but it’s still pricey. After that pleasant amble around the aisles of the supermarket, we went for dinner at Madli’s, a Muslim eatery we’d visited a couple of times in July. Situated (almost literally) on Miri’s long, lively main street where there are several bars, restaurants and clubs, it’s been there since the 90s and has a good range of food, including traditional Sarawakian, Chinese, Malay and Western (they also cook veggie dishes to order) and the staff are lovely.

On Saturday evening, after a lazy ‘do-nothing’ couple of days, we thought it would be nice to walk to the waterfront area opposite the marina to watch the sun set. I had been trying to shake off a persistent bad cough and hadn’t done much for two days, so welcomed the idea of some exercise. It’s a 40 minute walk to this area, where the seahorse and the CocoCabana complex is located but it’s a pleasant walk along the wide tree-lined pavements.  People were jogging past us in preparation for the charity run that would take place later that evening. The build-up had been quite a noisy affair, with PA systems being tested by playing an assortment of bass-heavy music all day, which was so loud it had made the cabin floor vibrate. Now, an MC was trying to get everyone in the mood by yelling out corny pantomime-style exhortations to cheer and dance and shout out that they were happy and ‘ready to run’. We bought a beautifully refreshing cold drink from one of the refreshment stalls when we got there. I was expecting the lemon juice drink I ordered to be sour because I asked for no added sugar (they tend to put lots of it in drinks here) but it was gorgeous and even eased my cough for a while. The pictures below show how beautiful the sky is at twilight here.

Woke up to heavy rain late on Sunday morning, and a much cooler temperature. Paul has referred to the bread I baked on this afternoon in his post. It was disappointing because I had tried it at home and it was a huge success with a golden brown crust and fluffy white texture. My granddaughters loved it. I used Jamie Oliver’s basic bread recipe which unlike the one I had been using previously, doesn’t require cooking oil but has more yeast and less kneading. I had been looking forward to trying it out on the boat. It all looked fine until it went in to the oven where it rose and smelled the part but for some reason it remained white in colour, even though it was clearly ready to come out. The bottom was brown so I can only assume I need to tweak the temperature and the shelf it’s placed on. The flour may also have been a factor. Here, unlike the helpfully labelled ‘bread flour’ on the shelves at home, there are several types on offer but we’ve had to ask which one would be best for bread. We’d been told that the high ratio type was ideal and that was what I used. Since then we have been to one of the shops in the complex here and sought further advice. This shop is aptly called ‘Bakery Ingredients’ and is delightful. Inside, it smells like sweet cakes and has a fascinating array of products – the majority of which are sugar-based but there was plenty of flour to choose from. We came out with two bags of ‘top flour’ which we were assured contained more protein and was perfect for baking loaves. I haven’t tried it yet so watch this space. Anyway the anaemic loaf was edible at least and it came into its own when toasted 😉 .

We walked to the area known as Marina Square late in the afternoon. This is the huge shopping and dining complex about thirty minutes’ walk away from the marina. I had made notes about the place during our visits to it in July and I have looked at them to see if my initial impression had altered. I had described it as deserted and soulless and it still seemed like that to me. It’s a fairly new structure, built as part of a plan to turn the whole area into an attractive tourist destination. Signs advertising the completion of this, promise it will be in April 2018. For this reason, quite a lot of the units haven’t been sold or opened yet, while those that were had few customers. The bars and restaurants are mostly the type you’d expect to see in major cities, except that they lacked atmosphere. To be fair, this is probably only a temporary state. A couple of the more popular establishments show how it could become a lively and vibrant stomping ground in time.

Before we left for the UK we had been to a bar called Chillax to have a drink with some of our neighbours in the marina, and it was here we headed for.  I think that in the two months we’ve been away, more units had opened and it seemed there were more people around. Chillax is one of the more favoured bars, but like all the others, (we asked) it doesn’t sell white wine – only red. We guess this is because it’s not as easy to keep if there is little demand for it.  We ordered some chips to share with our drinks but weren’t expecting the huge bucket of them that arrived, so ‘Tiger’ beer and chips turned out to be my somewhat unhealthy dinner that evening.

Oh, and it appears that Christmas has arrived here already so never let it be said that the UK is the only place where decorations start to appear far too early 😉