It was good to arrive at the marina and tie up. Below you can see there is an inner and outer harbour here, the inner is shallow but better protected, we went into the inner end and found an empty berth that looked deep enough, and tied up. Two days later we wondered what the jerking/bumping was in the boat at 7am, Kathy was alarmed, and I think her memories of other groundings had her alert to the fact we were touching bottom. It’s sand here, so I wasnt too worried, we were on the lowest tide of the month, and so it wouldnt last long and the tides started getting bigger each day until we leave.
The marina is quite run down, I think the pontoons get a hammering from the ferry wake and any storms, as the wall around the marina is made of loosely coupled piles, also I think they are strapped for cash here, as it’s a council marina. Still for £70 / week, one musn’t grumble. 
Still it’s a shame the rubbish accumulates here.
Stepping ashore revealed a very modern canary wharf type complex, Labuan is an offshore financial haven, it’s also duty free so at last Kathy could stock up with wine at UK prices. Outside the mall we found a few nice eateries and plenty of shops. I went to one bicycle shop and asked if he could provide me with two new inner tubes for my bike. He produced a couple with £2 (in myr) written on the side, I was happy and offered him £4, at which point he said, “No it’s £8″, I was confused and thought perhaps he was selling me 4, so I pointed to the £2 on the inner tube and said 2*2 = 4, to which he went ballistic with me, shouting ‘I don’t work for nothing’ don’t expect me to work for nothing, I charge, £8 £8 £8….”, he was very angry, until I explained there was no work required, I was going to fit them when I needed them, they were spares, he then calmed down, he had assumed I wanted them fitting for free. What a palaver.
While walking around one of the malls we stumbled on a performance, much like the school xmas play, but this was all dance based, by some teenagers. They all seemed to be having a great time and it was fun to stop a while and watch.
Once we had checked in with the harbourmaster, Immigration and customs, we did a bit of exploring on our bikes. The botanical gardens, once home to the British governor of the island was very pleasant. It reminded me of Birkenhead park, back home, just without the graffiti and slightly menacing air you get with the kind of places crack addicts hang out in.
Another spot we enjoyed visiting was the Labuan Museum, below is a scene from a chinese wedding, Kathy sort it was a bit ‘Doctor Who Scary’. The museum has quite a few interesting exhibits, and a great section about the 2nd world war with Japan.
Early one morning we headed out to the new market they have built here, it was very impressive, perhaps the most extensive and well stocked market we have seen in Malaysia. Below Kathy is looking pleased as she slipped a turnip into her bag unnoticed. 
I bought a bag of fresh squid next door in the fish market, which tasted great
On another long cycle we saw this lad paddling out from his stilted village on a lump of polystyrene with his net in a box behind him.
Just around the corner is Ramsey point, a beach where the allied forces landed to liberate the island from the Japanese, now it’s a holiday spot with restaurants and the option to jump off a building on a zip wire that dumps you in the sea.
There are a lot of war graves here, immaculately kept by the War graves commission. Many Australians, Indians and others gave their lives liberating the island, and looking at the headstones, many where only in their twenties, When the Japanese invaded, Britain was in charge of the island and had a few troops here, but were ordered back to defend Singapore, which of course they failed to do. The whole of Borneo and Malaysia eventually fell to the Japanese.
One of the great things about a duty free island is that I can get stuff sent here from home and elsewhere and not to have to worry about getting it stuck in customs or having to pay duty. Amazon sent me a new solar panel inverter, this is a clever bit of hardware that adjusts the power from the solar panels so that it can charge the batteries most efficiently. best of all I get to talk to it from my laptop or phone, and I can see if it’s sunny without going outside 😉 see below.
I’m very happy with it, the panels work much better with this controller, and when they are replaced with the new ‘state of the art’ panels I should have far fewer problems with power. The repaired wind generator and the new solar panels already seem to providing us with plenty of energy.
Yasmin also sent me bits to repair the windlass.
So after a week here, we checked out and headed to Brunei, we were going to have one night there, checkout the capital city, then head back to Malaysia.
However, it was such a hassle checking in, it took over 2 hours, and required much form filling (in triplicate, without any carbon paper or NCR) that we didn’t go ashore in the end.
The trip there took us past many ships involved in the oil/gas trade.
Brunei has a new bridge, not on the charts, and as usual it didn’t look like we would fit under it, even though we have 11 meters clearance.
Kathy did the honours and got us through safely.
The following morning we headed back towards Labuan, after another hour’s tortuous checkout with immigration, customs, harbour master, harbour manager, health officer and another harbour official who I ended up skipping after I wasn’t able to find him. I was sent through a door that only led upstairs. After walking for ages, up 4 storeys, past dead pigeons and such on the steps, I ended up on the roof. It was a nice view, but a lot of steps and no harbour managers office!
Once we had dinghied back to the boat, I called into the harbour port control to let them know we were leaving, only to be told off, we had anchored in the way of a working barge, and they were not happy they couldnt get me on vhf 16. I had actually anchored in the designated immigration area, but there was so much work going on it was hard to anchor anywhere away from construction boats. Once he was placated we scooted out of the port and headed north, to the river Klias where we will start our inland waterway exploration tomorrow.
On our way we had to traverse the Labuan anchorage, you can see from the AIS screen grab above how many ships are there
We are now anchored in the entrance to the river, and tomorrow we will travel 20 miles along the river to a point where pylon cables cross, we have to stop then, otherwise this might well be the last blog 😉
Paul Collister