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Thursday 22nd June Temburun to Airuba

An early departure was planned and I duly woke early to discover that there had been a fierce storm in the night. Paul had sat in the cockpit and watched it – prepared to motor off if it escalated, while I had slept all through it again (catching up on all the sleep lost through being disturbed by the wailing no doubt). We were back out tackling the coral reefs by 9 o’clock. It was overcast and thus easier to spot the coral without any glare from sunlight. The dark clouds soon brought forth a squall so I went below to check the course on the OpenCPN programme on the laptop, and by 10:30 we hit the open sea. There wasn’t enough wind to put a sail up but Paul put a line out just in case he got lucky and bagged a fish…still no luck on that front, though.

An hour later the wind was strong enough to put the mainsail up. I steered and kept us into the wind, I’m definitely getting the hang of it now. With the main and head sails up we were able to lower the engine revs to save on fuel because Paul was concerned there might not be enough to get us to Kuching. Just as we turned the engine off completely though, the wind disappeared altogether and it went on again. We arrived at 3:30, anchored in 9.5 metres of water and admired the beauty of our surroundings. It’s quiet, uninhabited and totally unspoilt. Just what we (or I at least) needed after recent crowds and noise.  The pictures speak for themselves.  I took them during a trip in the dinghy to check out the area.  The litter-free beach had a tree full of butterflies and the clear water revealed fish we hadn’t seen before on our explorations such as a huge flat fish which looked like a plaice but was probably a ‘ray’ of some kind. One day I hope to be able to name some of the exotic creatures and plant life we see more accurately.

Friday 23rd June – Airubu to Bawah

On to our final Indonesian destination today.  Bawah, our quaint guide book proudly boasts, is a paradise island set to rival the beautiful Tahitian island of Bora Bora. Proud claims indeed! We negotiated our way through a passage between two islands with coral banks very efficiently – we’re definitely getting better at this 😉

From about 11:30 onwards we were subjected to squall after squall. The first one wasn’t too bad but at 1 pm we endured a fierce one. I had to take the helm while Paul got the sail down in heavy rain, 30 knot-winds and poor visibility. The radar picture shows the extent of it. Due to the pitching and tossing (think ‘bucking bronco’) motion of the boat I had felt slightly nauseous but the combination of cool wind and rain on my face up in the cockpit soon sent it away. Paul hand steered during the worst of it, relishing the challenge as usual 🙂

The bad weather had abated by the time we reached Bawah. It had left big waves in its wake though and I hoped the lagoon we were heading for would be sheltered from the resulting swell. The shallowest part of the entrance to the lagoon dropped to 3.5 metres – excruciating for me, always fearing going aground but it got deep again almost immediately. Next, we had to hook a mooring buoy, but it was totally unlike the ones I’m used to. This one didn’t have a loop to catch at the top. A different technique would be necessary to hook it so we swapped our customary tasks. I took on the steering towards it while Paul got ready near the bow to secure it with the boat hook.  It’s a tricky manoeuvre because steering isn’t as easy when speed is slow and I’d never tried it before but I was chuffed to get near enough on the second attempt for Paul to grab the hook.

We were the only boat moored in the lagoon, which is surrounded by a semi-circle of small islands. The main one is under construction to become a luxury resort that is due to be completed sometime this year. The whine of a sander or a drill involved in the construction could be heard when we switched the engine off. It struck me as an incongruous sound in such a paradisiacal environment. We’d learned earlier in the afternoon that it isn’t currently possible to go ashore because of the construction work going on but I didn’t think we’d be missing much. It was a cool and overcast afternoon so it lacked the benefit of being bathed in sunlight as in Airubu but this island wasn’t a patch on it. It’s pretty enough but it lacks something. Perhaps it’s a little too refined with its luxury accommodation and symmetry so that through being tweaked to perfection the natural beauty has been marred, stripping it of charm. Viewing it from the boat was fine for us anyway. Our plan was to stay for two days but Paul said he’d check the weather and we might possibly leave earlier. I set to making some bread in case it would be too rocky to do it on passage.  Looking through the binoculars later to peek inside the chalets under construction, I made a note to check the place out in a few years to look at the finished result.

Saturday/Sunday 24th & 25th June – Depart Bawah for night passages

The forecast was for more squalls so we decided to stay another night. It had rained on and off all night but was only slightly rocky so we took the opportunity to catch up with various tasks on Saturday and had an overall restful day, watching the guys working on the resort, tidying the quarter berth and playing scrabble (we know how to live it up here 🙂

On Sunday we got up at 6am for our planned early departure and I positioned myself at the bow to check the coral at the shallow entrance. It was beautifully clear and we skirted over it with no problems. Up went the mainsail, Captain Mainwaring was steering and we were in the cockpit discussing the journey when I happened to look down and noticed coral alarmingly close to the surface. I yelled out ‘Paul – the depth!’ It was 4.5 metres and he quickly steered us away from an unexpected coral reef! This was the start of a 48-hour passage which is the longest we’ve done on this boat. It’s also the longest that either of us has been without internet. It’s not such a bad thing considering all the recent bad news and also how much of a distraction it can be but I do miss keeping up with news from friends and family. We are able to get news from The BBC World Service which is often a little ‘scratchy’ sounding, and reminds me of wartime broadcast recordings.

We put the watch system into operation straight away and Paul took the first 8 until midday one. As soon as the wind picked up all the sails were out, giving us a speed of 7 knots without the help of the engine. This lovely situation lasted until I took over, by which time squally showers were all around and the speed had gone down to 5 knots.  The wind changed direction frequently an hour into my watch, making the sails flap noisily, and then heavy rain fell and visibility was poor. Paul had to come up to deal with the sails and we both retired below, using the radar, AIS and OpenCPN until it abated. My plans for dinner went slightly awry that evening. I had been thrilled to find dried pasta penne on sale outside one of the shanty shops in Terempa. It was displayed loose in a huge basket and despite entreaties for less, the lady server kept piling it into a carrier bag, smilingly insisting via hand gestures that it had to be 1kg.  I tipped two portions of it into boiling water and as soon as I stirred it I could tell it wasn’t any kind of pasta penne I had ever come across before. Almost immediately it dissolved into a creamy glutinous mass and when I tasted it a few minutes later I hastily made plans for a more appetising alternative (wholewheat spaghetti). I still don’t know what we bought but it definitely looked like pasta as the pics below show.

I took the 8 until midnight watch. The moon had set by then and it was full dark, clear and the sky was full of stars. It’s mesmerising to lie on your back staring up at them, and there were plenty of shooting ones too. I also saw a spectacular display of lightning in an electrical storm – long jagged spears of it hit the sea, creating a bright orange gash through the blackness. Not many boats were nearby, I only had to steer behind one to avoid a collision.  To fight sleep I stood up near the companionway and let the cold breeze wash over me – an effect equivalent to a splash of cold water on the face.  There were no more squalls but the sea got steadily choppier.

Monday 26th June – Night Passage in The South China Sea.

Spotting Paul doing the usual ‘sleep-doze-alarm-check-back/to/sleep’ cycle on his watch, I suggested he go below for a proper sleep at 4:30 am. I was wide awake and all set for my four hours by then anyway. Stars were still visible but it was already beginning to get lighter and it was easy to see where the sun would rise, from the hazy orange hue on the horizon in the east.

Nothing was around, the waves had diminished leaving only a slight swell and it was deliciously fresh and mild in the cockpit.  The flat water presented some intriguing shapes as I stood looking out. One dark shape that I was convinced was a whale turned out to be part of a thick tree trunk, while others were nothing more than black rubbish bags. I did see one huge black thing leap out of the water, far too fast for me to determine what it was. I watched the sun rise at 6, drinking coffee as the sky displayed an impressive array of red, orange and pink shades. All the sails had been taken down during Paul’s watch because there was no wind at all. I did suggest it might be a good idea for me to learn how to control the sails but for some reason he didn’t seem too keen on the idea and insisted he really doesn’t mind being woken up to do it! I slept a little during the morning. It was going to be a hot and long day with the 4 hours on, 4 hours off system in place. There was little to do apart from read or type so it’s very relaxing in a way and it’s never boring. My leisure time is spent with Charles Dickens in Victorian London or Jo Nesbo in frozen Norway, not to mention a host of other places through the travel literature I devour. I’m also compiling a notebook of information on provisioning, storage and recipes for future reference.

It was flat calm with no wind during my watch so the engine was on the whole time. With the wine all gone, I had a can of cold beer as my evening drink. Another dinner plan went slightly awry when I discovered that weevils had invaded the last packet of sosmix, so the fish had that for dinner while we had eggs instead of veggie sausages to go with the fried potatoes and beans. A very comforting and filling meal for the lethargy that kicks in after two days of broken sleep.  I struggled to stay awake during the 8 until midnight watch. Apart from the current pulling us off course a couple of times, it was a quiet and uneventful four hours and it was a relief to hand over to Paul.

Tuesday 27th June

It was something of a struggle to rouse myself to take over the 4 am watch this morning. Paul told me I would need to keep checking the autopilot’s course because the current was pulling us to the right and we had to avoid the headland!! I also noticed we were in considerably shallower waters. I’d clearly need my wits about me. On the plus side it was getting lighter by the minute, the sea was calm and it was a lovely temperature.  I could see Borneo in the distance and that kept making me grin with amazement and delight. Me in Borneo! The word alone evokes memories of David Attenborough speaking reverently while crouched on its shores as he told us about the origins of life in programmes from the 70s and 80s. It was yet another ‘I never thought I’d get to see this’ moment on this literal trip of a lifetime.

We were due to reach our anchorage in the afternoon and progress was steady. There wasn’t much of a sunrise view but it began to get hot quickly when it rose so I retreated to the starboard deck where it was cooler and sat looking for sightings of sharks or dolphins…or anything alive. Speaking of which, in case anyone’s wondering; Paul still hasn’t had any success catching a fish! Sometime around mid-morning we crossed over from Indonesian waters into Malaysian. I know this because my phone changed its time to an hour ahead. We arrived at a place called Cape Tanjung Datu just after 3 (or 2pm Indonesian time). As this is just a stopover on the way to Kuching it was a good time to read up about it and its environs: phrases such as ‘tribal longhouses’ ‘former headhunters’ and ‘old trading town suffused with old memories’ jumped from the pages and thrilled me. It also promises some unique street markets, quaint shops and and great street food. We’ll have to hit the streets then.

Wednesday 28th June – To Telang Besar

Sometime during the night it began to rain and continued heavily well into the morning, bringing a significant swell with it.  We weighed anchor at 9:30 in the drizzle but it was deliciously cool and there was sufficient wind to put the sails up. Our course coincided with a squall: we headed straight for it, listing heavily to starboard under a white and dark grey sky. The angle sent a few things on the move below but stowage is pretty good now.  The next few hours were not exactly ‘rough’ but we tacked a few times to make the most of the wind, so the boat tipped at steep angles alternately from port to starboard. Sometimes we were pitched and tossed in the higher waves. There was some doubt whether we would make our original destination due to the weather and current hampering progress.  Rather than rush and risk getting there in the dark we decided to stop halfway at a small island called Besar which is also a turtle sanctuary. I was so thrilled to spot one on our way in to the shallower water. It was huge – much bigger than I thought turtles were and I happened to spot it in the act of catching a fish. Its head emerged out of the water and a flipper followed to hit the surface before it dived down for its prey. The beach where the eggs are laid and hatched is visible from our spot so with the aid of binoculars we could look for more sightings. It’s good to be back in Malaysia.

Kathy

 

 

 

Friday 16th June – Provisioning in Terempa

Woke to another blistering hot, sunny morning and breakfasted on tiny sweet bananas while listening to the radio. We’ve resolved to download some podcasts of favourite shows for future long passages with no internet.  Muslim shops and businesses tend to either close early or remain shut on Fridays so we went to town mid-morning to see about acquiring more water and fuel for the journey. Two very helpful ladies from a roadside stall near the mosque were advertising diesel for sale, and arranged to deliver it to the boat the next morning.  After that we bought a case of soda water and orange juice, but all our enquiries about where to get water for the tanks proved unsuccessful. Luckily, an Indonesian man employed as crew from another yacht happened to overhear us as we bought two huge plastic water containers and offered to translate Paul’s request to one of the harbour staff.  While Paul filled the containers from inside the ferry terminal, I chatted to the guy. He told me he was from Bali and that it was his first visit to Terempa, too. When I asked what he thought of it, he replied that he wasn’t too sure what to make of the place. Probing a little, I got the impression that he’d expected them to be a bit more developed. While loading the water into the dinghy we met the couple anchored next to us who were collecting water they’d ordered for their tanks so we were able to arrange a delivery with the same guys. A highly successful morning all in all.

When we got back to the boat, it began to rain heavily and Paul caught more water from it – he’s still figuring out how to devise the most effective construction for the purpose.  In the spirit of this ‘good life’ lifestyle we seem to be adopting, I got on with baking more bread. I blame the old packet of yeast I used, but it wasn’t a success – it was so heavy and hard, it could have put a hole in the boat if dropped.  Back to the breadboard then – I’ll keep trying.

Saturday/Sunday 17th&18th June

In order to drown out the loud wailing and shouting of prayers last night, I plugged my earphones in and listened to The Archers on my phone…I bet there aren’t many people who have put that in a sentence!

The diesel arrived bang on time at 10am and while the tanks were being filled I was able to indulge in the luxury of washing my hair now that water is in the tanks. That’s not as bad as it sounds – going for long periods without washing hair. I have it in a ponytail most of the time and there’s no requirement to look one’s best here 🙂 Humidity and sea water soon make a mess of long hair so I know why bandanas and scarves are so popular with female sailors. I made more bread, which came out really well this time despite using too much water due to one of the measuring jugs being way out with its cup levels. The boat was covered in sticky dough and flour and took me ages to clean it all up but it tasted gorgeous.  It toasted well the next morning too, and we have a tiny freezer so one loaf was stored in there. We didn’t do much on Sunday apart from listen to the radio and catch up on internet stuff.

Monday 19^th June – Departing Terempa – attempt fouled and getting stuck on rocks!

Up early and off to the market for the final shop and to check out of Indonesia before our departure. We were out by 9am on a cool, fresh and overcast morning. Our first stop was the fish market so that Paul could have a fresh fish for dinner.  The picture doesn’t show him with the fish he bought which was put into a small bag with its tail poking out of the top – it looked so funny.

We then made our way towards the immigration and customs area for the usual bureaucratic process and lots of waiting around. Humidity had increased by the time we emerged to continue shopping and it’s hard to concentrate in the heat and crowded pavements. This way of shopping – with the language barrier, all the traders gesturing and beckoning, and talking at once while brandishing various produce at you – just adds to the stress.  It’s particularly hard in the market where you have to select your produce, hand them all to the vendor, ascertain the cost, get money out while balancing bags, purses and reading glasses. All this in narrow, crowded hot alleys, being jostled and nudged while customers and traders are staring and blatantly curious. At one point I felt like a living exhibit in a performance art production and was close to bursting into tears. One stallholder, noticing my discomfiture asked where I was from, engaged me in conversation and said I must miss my family. He was so kind, I soon regained my composure.

We won’t have another chance to shop for quite a while so I’m going to have to be creative with what we’ve managed to accrue.  We went back and forth to the dinghy with our stashes and on one trip, discovered that the rope Paul had tied the dinghy to the wall with had shifted with the tide and moved the dinghy so that it was inaccessible.  This part of the jetty is always full of people waiting for their lifts back so it wasn’t long before Paul was able to hop on one of these to get to the dinghy – it provided a bit of entertainment for the people watching anyway.

A few more trips and we were all done. It was a relief to get back to the boat and prepare to leave, until we discovered that we were stuck! The anchor had either lodged under a rock, or the chain had wrapped around one. We tried a few tactics to free it but to no avail. Seeing our predicament, a guy from a neighbouring catamaran came over and told us he might be able to help by diving down tomorrow. Hearing this, we switched the engine off and prepared to stay another night. An hour or so later, however the guy returned with his diving gear and a friend, all set to free us. It took a few goes, with all four of us playing a part but we were free by 5pm. It was too late to go very far by then but we needed to anchor somewhere away from the coral and rocks.  I was all for going further out of the bay but Paul thought it would be a good idea to try the bay around the corner. So off we went, and it did look nice there. It also looked like it was about to rain and was getting steadily darker so I was keen to get settled. We motored around a bit, chose a likely spot…and got stuck on a rock again!  Thankfully we were able to free ourselves without the use of a diver and returned to Terempa Bay before it got fully dark. We anchored in 18 metres of water and crossed our fingers that it wasn’t on rock.

Tuesday 20th June To Temburun

It’s been the coolest temperature since I arrived in Asia almost a year ago.  Rain showers continued throughout the night and when we opened the windows early this morning, a fresh breeze wafted in that almost verged on the chilly side…but not quite.  Paul had some programming work to finish so we had a leisurely morning until we felt the anchor jolt, and sure enough, it was stuck on rock again. Hoping against hope that we wouldn’t have to call on the guy from the catamaran again, I was relieved to hear Paul shout that we were clear and very thankful to be leaving that particular anchorage.  We were heading for Temburun to see the waterfall there, described as magnificent and spectacular in the guide book given to us at the tourist board event. It’s at its best after lots of rainfall so that box had been well and truly ticked. The description goes on to say that the running water looks ‘graceful’, and that the clear water is like a ‘snow-melt flowing in between black and brown stones’ which I thought quite bizarre in a country that isn’t likely to see any snow. The attraction is narrated in a similar quaint manner that can’t fail to raise a smile (and not in a sneering way). It’s rather cute:

This waterfall charm more obvious when you’ve climbed. To arrive at the location, exactly in the middle of the waterfall, you have to climb staircases on the rugged hill, located on the left side of the waterfall. Tired enough to ride…but when you reached there you will treated by its exquisite view and the cool atmosphere around it. Its clear water is just like chasing each others, flowing without pause, through the cavities of various form and size of the stones. At certain points, the flow comes down to a natural pond that a quite wide sizes. Translucent greenish. It’s tempting anyone to jump and immediately tasted its cool sensation.

The passage to get there was potentially hazardous because we had to traverse the shallow coral reefs but it went well much to my relief, and we anchored in 14 metres of water at 1pm.  The waterfall was visible from our spot. Rivulets of water running down the brown rocks as opposed to torrents and we could see the steps (staircases) when we looked through the binoculars. The village itself looks a bit like the Muslim village we went to in Thailand in that the small dwellings are on stilts with wooden walkways. The visit would wait until the following day however. I had bread to bake and soup to make while Paul made the most of the internet connection in case we lose when we move further on.

Wednesday 21st June – Waterfall in the rain

Just as we were about to set off to go ashore, a squall arrived so we had to wait for it to abate. I had a go at steering the dinghy across to the jetty in a fine drizzle of rain. I got the hang of it eventually – Paul thinks it will be handy for me to know what to do in case I need to rescue him at any point! A fisherman tying his boat to the jetty nodded and smiled as we approached and Paul asked him if it was ok to leave our dinghy there.  As he tied it up, I noticed that our arrival had attracted the attention of other villagers. Faces appeared in some of the windows and two pretty little girls were waving frantically from one of them. They were delighted when we waved back. It was so quiet in this village after the hustle and bustle of Terempa. There were the usual motorbikes riding around but not as many. It is without doubt the most remote place I have ever been to. Visualised on a map, it’s little more than a speck among the tiny group of Anambas Islands – themselves a fair way out from the mainland of any country. Tourists are rarer in these parts than in Terempa, obviously. The people here stared at us but it seemed less intense somehow. I had the feeling they were just pleased to see visitors.

We asked a young boy via a series of gestures whether we were going the right way to the waterfall and he nodded eagerly and pointed to the pathway. The rain had stopped and it felt very humid again. It was also wet underfoot and I hoped it hadn’t brought out any millipedes or leeches.  We soon found the steps that led up to the falls and I jumped when a lime-green lizard scurried across the path and into the ferns. That was one creature I wouldn’t have minded having a closer look at. The climb was easy enough although parts of the steps next to the waterfall itself were a bit difficult to negotiate in flip-flops.

The rainfall had increased the flow of water and it was worth the climb but we could only go half way because the steps ended there. Paul thought the way to the very top might have been via a main road but it was too hot to double back and we could see the top anyway. The view was impressive enough from where we were and we took a few pictures.

The halfway point had some dilapidated buildings that looked as if they had once been destined to form some kind of visitors’ centre but either the money or enthusiasm for it had waned and the idea had been abandoned.

We ambled slowly back down to the village and walked its length, taking lots of pictures of its remarkable waterside dwellings. All along the walkway, people came out or looked out to view the foreigners in their midst. It’s probably the nearest I’ll ever come to feeling like a VIP. One man insisted that Paul stood right in front of him on his porch while he shook his hand and asked the customary ‘where you from?’ I wished that the guide book had devoted some space to some information on the village rather than pages of lofty language on the waterfall.  Halfway along, the concrete path turned to a decidedly rickety wooden one, with areas of rotten wood and gaping holes. The thought of falling into the creature-laden and swampy mud below was terrifying enough to keep me looking down almost constantly. Most of the houses have fish cages outside and there were several chickens and roosters strutting around. Paul pointed out their sources of water and electricity, and they would use gas bottles for cooking. Rubbish is burned and we presumed that sewage is emptied straight into the sea, as there is no obvious plumbing.

It began to drizzle again as we retraced our steps back to the dinghy. As we pulled away, I wondered several things:  whether I was the first (and only) person from Swindon to set foot in that village, what the place had looked like 50 or a hundred years ago, and perhaps more importantly what it will look like in the future. Lots of pictures follow below in an attempt to capture the remote and thought-provoking beauty of Temburun.

Kathy

We left Pulau Patok, into a heavy tide and swell which slowed us down to a couple of knots. The forecast was hopeless, possibly a little wind but from the wrong direction, also there wasn’t anywhere obvious to take shelter from the swell on the next 220 miles of coast, other than a commercial harbour, which looked a bit grim. so I decided, perhaps rashly, to go direct to Miri, which is 180 NM as the crow flies, and would take about 36 hours if we could average 5 knots. As it turned out we didn’t, and took 44 hours. Just before we arrived, we got a weather forecast over the NavText that the severe thunderstorms to the north of us would continue until yesterday. I have no idea what the point of such a forecast is, in fact I shouldn’t call it a forecast at all, perhaps a hindsightcast would be more appropriate. However that did explain why we had light winds, but huge swells.
We sailed offshore, which gave us a more direct route, but also kept us away from the inshore fishermen in their small unlit boats. We would have two nights at sea, and it was only when I got the correct charts up on my plotter that I realised just how many oil and gas platforms there are here. I was fortunate that we would reach the first major block of them just as dawn arrived, it was the second night that was going to be a problem. We were low on fuel, so I took every opportunity to sail, even in such light winds. In fact I was really pleased at how well the boat sailed in just 5-10 knots of wind, I used the time to play with the sails and the rig to get the best performance. Slowly it’s all coming together.
There were lots of ships around, and a lot of them not lit correctly. The ones I hate the most are the tugs, sometimes they just have a small flashing light on the tow and the tug itself has a single white light.

Sometimes the tugs have AIS and so you know it’s a tug, other times you can just make out some lights and a shape on the radar. If you get in between the tow, you’re in big trouble, I hate to think what a mess it would make of our boat. The other thing is the tow, in this case above, a huge load of logs, is usually trying to go in a different direction to the tug, and the tug might be pointing in quite a different direction to what it is travelling, very confusing. At one point a fishing boat appeared behind me, this was my fault for not looking astern enough, but he would have been within 50ft, I shone a torch at him, and he turned on all his deck lights, killed the engine, then drifted, before quickly going around my stern and away. I’m not sure who was shocked the most!

I had a lot of notes about this area, and I re-read them again, and also found the admiralty guide had a section on this area, which cautioned against travelling here at night, unless you had a good clear full moon. I was expecting the moon to rise about 3AM, half moon, and hidden behind clouds. The main problem is well heads, underwater structures where oil is or had been extracted. There are a lot of disused well heads which apparently can come close to the surface and are not lit. A catamaran on the Sail Malaysia Rally hit one last year, fortunately no serious damage occurred. After a while I decided that most of the well heads would be within the designated fields, and I should be fine away from them. I was also worried that back home I got chased away from the Douglas Gas platform in the Irish sea as you are not allowed within 3nm of the rig, yet here the rigs were often only 4-5 nm apart, making that difficult. I later found out that 500m is the distance you have to keep away. As it turned out it all went quite smoothly, I dropped the mainsail about 6AM knowing sadly I wont be using that again for a few months. A squall came through just before dawn, and as the skies lightened, we approached Miri, where we planned to anchor at 7AM and contact the Marina for guidance in, and to wait for high water at 08:30. however the swell was so bad I decided I would prefer to motor round for an hour rather than anchor and be kicked around by the waves. Kathy and I had been doing 4 hour on /off watches, but not doing it properly and we were both tired now. Looking at the tide tables, I realised that as we only have one tide a day, the twelfths rule doesn’t apply, this rule is a way of working out how fast the tide comes in, and the upshot was we would have enough water to get in now, also big ships were ploughing into and out of the marina. So after a gap in the big ships, we shot in and grabbed a berth.  It felt odd, I tried the bow thruster before we came in, but it was running for a second, then making a weird noise, I had worried that the fouling from Santubong may have affected it, but on closer inspection, i.e. me hanging over the bow while Kathy powered it up, made me realise that the swell was lifting the bow thruster clear of the water, and it was whizzing around in the air, not good for it. Once in the marina we moored up, it went remarkably well, Kathy jumped ashore with a line, I stopped the boat and passed her the other lines and that was the end of a ten week trip from our last Marina in Johor Baru.
Now we have to get used to having an electric kettle, a toaster that doesn’t burn the toast, and all the water we want from the tap.

That’s us above in Miri, now we have ten days to do a lot of cleaning up and putting away before we come home. but for now we are off to explore the area a little before a long deep sleep.

Paul Collister

I decided last night to take the inland river route to our next destination, rather than going by sea. You can see the route below.Now this kind of sailing boat isn’t really meant to be going down rivers, for one, the rivers are usually very shallow in places restricting the boats movement, and makes sailing quite difficult if not impossible. The boat also has a deep keel, as deep as some quite big ships. But as the forecast was for no wind I thought it might be more interesting than following the coast. I checked the chart a lot, I didn’t like the navigation guidance in the admiralty publication, it stated that details wouldn’t be given as it should not be attempted without a pilot on board. However these guidelines are intended for bigger boats than me, I studied several charts and came to the conclusion that the one shallow bit at 1.5 metres would be ok if we hit it near high water which was 4.5 metres at 10:50 AM, Low water was only 1.5 mtrs so even at low water we should be ok. I also realised the currents in the river would be strong and had to factor that in, however as its neap tides right now, the tides would be at their weakest and so there wouldn’t be a better time to try. So off we went an hour late, and where straight into a 2-3 knot flood current racing us along at 7.5 knots, unfortunately, our little paddle wheel under the hull which tells me the boat speed through water, as apposed to the GPS which gives us boat speed relative to land, was all fouled up from Santubong and didn’t work.
I left Kathy on the helm to pop below and clean the paddle wheel. I really needed to be on top of the currents for this trip. The paddle wheel can be pulled back into the boat through its hole in the hull, this leaves a 2″ diameter hole in the hull a few feet below the waterline, so obviously the sea tries to come in and fill the boat up. My fancy paddle wheel fitting has a flap which closes as the wheel is removed, stopping a huge influx of water, sadly it had fouled up as well, so I got quite a soaking as the water gushed in. I have a plug that goes in, but it takes a few seconds to insert and tighten, eventually the wheel was cleaned, lots of barnacles were present, but it’s all working again.
We were going to turn North halfway along the river and exit by our destination, the island Pulau Patok, the timing meant that the tide should have turned and we would also get the ebb tide as we headed north. We met a few little fishing boats, a few bigger boats and a container ship on route. I wondered if the pilot on board was looking at us and tut tutting, I still didn’t know if the northbound passage was navigable at this point as it’s not a main shipping route, and had some seriously shallow bits on the chart.
Just after this ship passed we went around its stern and north, where we saw a few more boats, including a ferry visiting various jetties tucked into the shoreline. There was plenty of debris in the river.We had to keep a good lookout for these logs, this one reminded us f the ‘Statue of Liberty’, possible planet of the apes style. At our anchorage I can see where some of the tress come from, using my impromptu telephoto lens (binoculars) I took this picture You can see the roots completely exposed at low water, soon these trees will topple over, lets hope not tonight.

What I hadn’t bargained on was the wind picking up from the North, the grib files where hinting at 5 knots, maybe going to 10 overnight, but we found ourselves with 15 knots from the north, fighting a 2 knot current going out. This creates a condition sailors know as wind against tide, with the two fighting each other, this causes the waves to rise up quite steep and close together, this slowed our passage through the water down, but the current pushed us along nicely all the same. My main problem was that our destination is protected from every direction except the north, when we arrived there was little shelter to be had, and I envisaged a rocky night, however the wind just died down, and as I write this it’s a light breeze, the tide is turning now so the sea should calm down a lot. One problem we always have is that as the tide turns, we usually have 30 minutes to an hour where we are side on to the swell and that’s usually makes the boat roll a lot.

For anyone interested, I have put some pictures of our anchorage from Monday, on the charts you can see the route we planned. There are several buoys to guide us into the deeper water path, but half of these were missing, in one case literally half the buoy was missing, just the base in the water was left.

This is what the same place looks like from space

And heres a bing image I used in openCPN that really shows the sandbanks at the entrance to the river And this is what it looks like from the anchorage, looking west back to the tip we hid behind to protect us fro the westerlies

Paul Collister

Friday and Saturday 9th/10th June – Pidi Island

We decided to stay on in Pidi for a few days because it’s nice and we’re in no great hurry to go anywhere else.  Several of the yachts are moving on to Indonesia’s Natuna Islands as part of the rally and Deb and Bruce are heading that way too so they called on us in the morning to say goodbye before they left.  It had been great spending time with them and we’ll miss their company but we’re going to stay in touch and will be looking them up when we get to Queensland.

Due to the time difference we were able to listen to the UK general election results as they came in. I’ve never been able to do that before and I’m glad I did for this one because it held quite a few shocks and surprises, and the commentary was fascinating even though we weren’t impressed with the result. Once all the boats had left we were completely alone in the bay. The staff from the barbecue had all left and from what we could tell, there was just a caretaker on the tiny island. After the noise and ‘busyness’ of Terempa, the prospect of a couple of days spent reading, cooking, listening to the radio and swimming and snorkelling when exploring in the dinghy was a blissful thought.  Returning from one of these excursions, however, the propeller on the dinghy hit something in the water and broke it, so Paul had to row us back in quite a strong current.  While he got on with fixing that, I had a go at baking some bread because we had none having rejected what was on offer in Tarempa. I just googled something like ‘simple bread recipe’ and followed it exactly, not really expecting much success but we were pleasantly surprised with the result – an improvement on the sugary doughy loaves we’d been having anyway.  I also made a roasted vegetable sauce for pasta with the veggies we’d bought from the market. It will be a long time until we do a ‘big’ convenience shop so I’m going to have get creative and inventive with the options available. All good practice for future long passages in the South Pacific.

Sunday 11th June – Blue Starfish Bay

Paul told me he’d been puzzled by a sound very much like African drumbeats coming from the island during the night! All I’d heard when I woke up in the early hours was some mellow prayer songs drifting over from the larger island on the other side. They were at a pleasingly lower volume than those in Terempa. We had a visitor in the morning. A young local fisherman in a dugout canoe stopped by to say hello and admired the boat so much that Paul invited him on board. The language barrier meant conversation was scant but they managed a pleasant exchange with smiles, a few words and hand signals. He told us his name was Tommy and he gave Paul a fish but adamantly refused any payment for it. He sat in the cockpit watching Paul work on the broken propeller for ages. I was typing in the cabin but he wouldn’t come down for a look around because his clothes were wet. I would have loved to have taken a picture of him but didn’t in case it caused offence (a few people who just happened to be near something I wanted to photograph have covered their faces in case they are inadvertently in the picture) and sensing his shyness, I didn’t want to embarrass him by asking.

Our next place, Manda Riouw Darat was an hour away so when Paul had finished fixing the propeller we set off. Just as we had set the anchor, it began to rain heavily. We’d been waiting for this because having used up one full tank of water since leaving Puteri in May, Paul was keen to try collecting some rainwater up on the coach roof using a plastic sheet a tube and a funnel. The system needs some fine tuning but quite a bit of water ended up in the containers. He also lathered up with gel for a shower but typically the rain stopped at that point so he had to rinse it all off using the tank water. Again, all useful learning curves for long passages when water and fuel need to be conserved.  It brightened up later and I was thrilled when Paul came back from a snorkelling trip to tell me he’d seen blue starfish and turtles.

Monday 12th June – On to Penjalin

It had been a very rocky night due to the huge swell from all the storms.  Both of us, me in the V-berth and Paul in the cockpit, adopted the same strategy to maintain stability which was to lie across the width of the boat, with feet pressed firmly against the wooden sides. Sometime around 5 am it calmed down enough for us to get a solid sleep until 9 o’clock. Toast from homemade bread made for a tasty breakfast and then we went for a spin in the dinghy. All around and underneath us were the wonders of nature to admire and gasp at. Several white birds swooped down alarmingly near to us and screamed loudly when we approached rocks where presumably they had chicks or eggs to protect.

All types of coral could be seen in the crystal clear water. We don’t know the proper names for them so we tend to refer to them as ‘doughnuts’ or ‘teeth’ or ‘bones’ according to their shape. The fish darting amongst it were stripy, black, big, small, blue and yellow – it was like looking in an aquarium. We also saw turtles and sea snakes and I was thrilled to spot the blue starfish Paul had seen. They are quite big and their tentacles move very slowly and gracefully – such beautiful and unusual creatures.

We beached the dinghy to take a look at the shore, and were sad to see all the rubbish that has accumulated on it. The amount of plastic bottles we’ve seen in the water or on the beaches is staggering and I fully support the efforts of organisations such as ‘Sky Ocean Rescue’ in their mission to clear the oceans and shores of plastic waste.

After a pleasant hour beach combing and snorkelling we set off for Penjalin Island and anchored there in 13 metres of water early in the afternoon.  Finding a spot well clear of the coral was easy enough and it’s a lovely spot with a long, curved white sandy beach and the clear water we’ve come to expect in Anambas. Watching the sun sink behind the granite rocks and forested hills, it struck me that the land formation before us showed no sign of human intervention whatsoever, and this vista would have looked much the same throughout the preceding decades. I hope that continues.

Tuesday 13th June – From Penjalin to Tenggiling

This morning I donned my new swimming cap (it reminded me of school swimming lessons but did a grand job of keeping hair out of my eyes and preventing my ears blocking with water) and went snorkelling with Paul. For an awe-inspiring hour I shared the habitat of a vast and stunning variety of fish, coral and anemones, watching snippets of their lives as they fed, swam, slithered and swayed in the water. The sea was clear, shallow enough to stand up in and warm – all ideal conditions for me as something of a nervous snorkeler.  I’ll definitely do more.  We left for the two hour passage to Tenggiling early in the afternoon. After a hot start, the wind strengthened sufficiently for Paul to put the headsail up and we made steady progress with it, arriving around 4pm to anchor in 14 metres of water. The bay is surrounded, cul-de-sac-style with forest and as we sat on the bow early in the evening we speculated about the tiny little house we could see on the shore. Straight out of fairy tale imagery, it had a well-tended garden, surrounded by thick forest, smoke coming out of a chimney, two cats, a gnarled old tree (well, ok it was a banana tree but you get the picture). There was also a boat parked near to it and some children’s playthings. Was it a home? Were they self-sufficient in a ‘Good Life’ kind of way? Or was it a holiday home? It made me wonder if it’s allowed to build a house wherever you fancy here, without the rigmarole of planning permission and mortgages etc.

Wednesday 14th June Tenggeling to Mubur

The beautiful sunny morning we woke up to lasted for a couple of hours until Paul, returning from snorkelling said we had to prepare for a coming squall. I could see it in the distance, dark clouds with rain falling from them and what looked rather alarmingly like a spout at the bottom of one of them, bringing to mind visions of a huge twister transporting us away a la Wizard of Oz! The wind increased and when the rain came, Paul said he actually felt cold – for the first time since being in Asia. He’d been busy on the coach roof collecting rain water and we now have two large containers filled for emergencies. With rain water, and the watermaker, once it is fixed, we should have more than enough for our needs in The South Pacific.  Squall over, we weighed anchor and were soon on our way to Mubur, another Anambas island to tick off the list and another beautiful (and empty) bay to spend the night in.  Lots of coral on the sea bed here but we found a suitable spot to drop the anchor in 20 metres. For dinner, I made a roasted vegetable tart with more of the market vegetables, using aubergines, peppers, pumpkin and onions with sun-dried tomatoes (having no rolling pin I had to improvise using a glass bottle to roll the pastry). Paul’s efforts to bag a fish are still proving fruitless, or should that be fishless, but there’s always the next place which will be much better for fishing 😉

Thursday 15th June – Mubur and Terempa

During one of his anchor inspections in the early hours of the morning, Paul noticed three or four guys wading in the water near the beach, clearly collecting something. Later, both of us heard a noise we couldn’t identify. I said it sounded like hundreds of frogs croaking all at once, while Paul thought it was a pump or something else emanating from the boat.  In the end we concluded that it was merely fish nibbling the hull, and it was quite a soothing noise to drift off back to sleep to.  When we got up a couple of hours later, the guys were still adding to their haul. Huge sacks had been filled and piled next to their small boat on the sand. Was it clams or shrimps or seaweed? or were they clearing rubbish? It wasn’t until later, that we found out it was nothing more than sand! They’re probably collecting it to make cement or to sell for that purpose. The guide to The Anambas, produced by the captain of a catamaran a couple of years ago, mentioned that long-tailed macaques populated the beach at dusk but they hadn’t shown the previous evening. Chirrups and chattering sounds were coming from the trees opposite and I trained the binoculars on the branches for ages in case they were there but I didn’t even spot a bird!

For a late breakfast, we had a juicy and very tasty fresh pineapple, washed down with lashings of local hot black coffee (well we had no ginger beer on board ;)).  When the men on the beach left, we decided to dinghy over to investigate what the beach had to offer.  There is no spectacular coral scene in the shallow water here, but the lush jungle, with its swaying palm and casuarina trees and leafy green ferns is just as striking. The beach was littered with the usual plastic bottles, carrier bags and polystyrene cases and several palm trees had toppled over into the sea, exposing large clumps of exposed roots. It was obvious where the men had been collecting sand – they had cut into the beach and extracted it in the manner of stone from a quarry. Some pics below show the peaceful and delightful Mubur.

On the way back to the boat, the outboard, which had been problematic for a while refused to start at all.  This would cause major hassle for us in Terempa, considering the number of trips back and forth to the village we were planning in order to provision for the next leg. It was taken apart bit by bit when we got back, each part examined before being put back together and it turned out to be the sparkplug. A quick break for lunch and we set off through the pass between Matak and Mubur for the return journey to Terempa. It was deserted in the harbour, and there was just one other boat behind us coming in, so we had more space in which to choose a spot and manoeuvre. We anchored in 24 metres, a little closer to the shore than previously, and we completed it a lot faster, too – although I couldn’t help feeling a bit concerned about the proximity of the coral (I guess it’s going to be an ever-present concern in coral reefs).  Once ashore, we restocked with drinks and a few groceries but couldn’t see any salt on the shelves so Paul looked up the word on his phone when repeatedly saying ‘salt’ to a bemused-looking shopkeeper got us nowhere. His face lit up when Paul said ‘garam’, and he produced some for us from a pile of packets near the sacks of rice. Again, it struck me how we rarely have to ask for such things in the UK (except when asking which aisle certain products are located in). The higgledy-piggledy, disorganised shelves in the shop units here are charming in an old-fashioned way and tend to invite interaction – conversation even, in a way that supermarkets don’t. I wonder what the people from the village would make of a Tesco hypermarket!

 

 

I returned the car to the hire company on Monday, that was typically a Malaysian experience, the young lady who was waiting to take the car off me didn’t really speak much English, even though it’s compulsory at school to learn English, the Malays have no reason to use the language, and rarely do. They have a few stock English phrases that pop up a lot, like ‘No have any’, ‘can do, and it’s counterpart, no can do’. I know I‘m generalising here. But this girl looked at the car, without reference to any paperwork and said ‘had crash’ after pointing to scratches at the front, I pointed out that they were marked on the paperwork when I took the car, the response was, ‘already have’. She then pointed out the tank was empty with the phrase ‘No fuel’, I pointed out the gauge only worked when the ignition switch was turned, which I did and got ‘Fuel ok’ in return. A final ‘Car OK’ allowed me to leave and march on to meet Kathy who was spared the ordeal as I had dropped her off at the shopping bazaar, thereby also sparing me an ordeal of endless racks of handicrafts.

I did manage to get a couple of lovely items from one shop which specialised in timber products, especially with the local hardwood. I’m now worried that I didn’t check the source of the wood, I’m assuming it’s from a renewable source, but who knows, probably customs at the airport do 🙁

I also took a couple pics around town.

Kathy seems to be perfecting her bread making technique, just lately she has had a lot of success. I had wondered how many bad loaves I would need to produce before she took over 😉

Tuesday-Thursday were spent on the boat doing chores, reading, sleeping and generally being lazy. I got a coat of varnish on the starboard cap rail, as this was flaking, so the previous 9 odd coats had lasted me through the year, but really it needs a new coat at least monthly, so theres plenty to do in Miri.
I think it was Thursday I looked out of the window and saw a branch of a tree, which was a little worrying, closer inspection revealed a tree was wrapped around the boat. I poked it with a boat hook, but it wasn’t budging.

It had got caught in our anchor rode, in fact it was the rope snubber I had put out the night before that had snagged it. Which in a way was good, as I could just undo one end and it slipped through the tree roots and the tree took off at quite a pace. It was only when I realised it was making a beeline for the two fast police motor launches just upriver from me that I wondered about my timing. Bother, still it took a turn to the shore just before them and went into our little set of pontoons and then aground.I had heard about this happening to other boats, and wondered why I never saw any trees even get close to us. I think this is what they call getting experience. I expect there to be a bit more touching up to the hull to be done now, what with the ferry imprint and the gouges from when I had the pre-purchase haul-out.

Another yacht, a GibSea arrived on Thursday, skippered by a young lady from Lausanne, Switzerland, coincidently, the home of the company I do the odd bit of work for. Small world. She had arrived to go to the Rainforest World Music Festival (RWMF). They anchored just up the river from us and came aboard on Friday morning before they headed off to the festival. It was nice chatting, she had a dream to sail a yacht around the seven seas, and had come to Langkawi a year ago and bought the boat at Rebak, something I would recommend to anyone with a similar dream. Rebak and the area has a lot of great yachts desperately in need of new owners, and there are some great bargains to be had. Off they headed to the festival, her male friend who was visiting, didn’t seem 100% cool about the crocodile news we gave him.

Later we went ashore and started the 1 hour walk to the festival, I didn’t think it would be difficult to get a lift, and if that failed an Uber, or GRAB, which is the Malaysian version was an option. Sure enough a charming young Indian couple stopped almost as soon as we hit the road and offered us, not just a lift to the festival, but cold beers to drink on the way!  Once we go close to the festival site officials sent us off down a side road to park, by the time we got to the park, we were almost as far away as when we started, however it all worked out once we got a spot, and we walked the final 5 minutes to the entrance. There were no queues, in fact despite quite a decent attendance, the place felt spacious and everything was available without a wait. They even had wine for Kathy, but given this is Malayasia, don’t chose this country to become a wino, unless you are very rich.

The festival is held on the site of the cultural village we had visited a few days back, so we knew our way around. It comprises of two main stages, were the bands alternated during the evening, and in the day there were performances by regional/cultural artists in various buildings around the site. A lot of the traditional houses were host to workshops or performances during the day. I particularly loved the various groups that had kept their traditions alive with exciting music and colourful costumes. They seem to have such a rich and until very recently, alive culture. It made me wonder if we don’t have any more to our culture in the UK in the way of dance and costume and rituals, than the somewhat sad Morris dancers I have seen. Kathy reminded me that we had Maypole dancers once, but that is going back a long way. The performers seemed to genuinely enjoy putting on a show and loved working with the audience, getting them onstage and performing the moves.
I have come to realise that the Sarawakans, and I’m sure the rest of the inhabitants of Borneo have a very rich culture and a fascinating history, which I plan to explore as much as I can. I think there is a very distinct difference between the Malaysians from Peninsula Malaysia and Sarawak/Sabah.

There were all the usual stalls you might expect selling t shirts and merchandising, some excellent craft shops, and government sponsored stalls about things like biodiversity and rainforest preservation. There was a stall promoting synthetic oils, of the engine, rather than massage type. This seemed odd to me, but I was temped to visit, as I have a need to buy some oil for the boat and had wondered why people say I shouldn’t use synthetic oils, but decided it would be just too odd to be discussing engine oil viscosities and the like at a rain forest music festival. There were lots of regional and national food stalls, I went for a local tribal food, which the man became exasperated with trying to explain what everything was to me, the fruit that was part of the chicken dish was somewhere between an apple and a pumpkin, there is no translation, so in the end he told me it was all very tasty and to just eat it and stop asking. He was right. The bands from around the world put on a great show,

but we left before the last band came on, they were an Indian British band, from London, I didn’t think Kathy would like them. We were both feeling our age a little, plus we had to be back before low water at about 2AM so we left summoned a grab taxi for the ten minute ride back to the river. I was relieved to see that the dinghy was floating on the pontoon, in another hour we would be high and dry, our options being to wait about 6 hours on the pontoon for the tide to return, or wade through crocodile infested mud in the dark until we were in deeper water. The video below shows how lively the Mud is here, so lively that there is no way Kathy would go in the mud, I could drag the dinghy to water, then carry Kathy across, but I might slip, and the screaming that would then ensue might be too much for the residents of Santubong.

Today (Saturday 5th July) we upped anchor, along with quite a bit of organic/fishing line debris and motored out of the river. The chain had a healthy coating of pre-barnacle growth for it’s 2 weeks in the river, yet the prop seemed to work. As we left the river I revved up to max revs to give the engine a bit of a work out, and found we can only get about 75% of our normal speed, so I think the prop will need a good clean soon. We motored, no wind at all, to Pulau Lakei about 5 hours east of here. We tucked behind the island to get away from quite a big swell coming in from the NW, however as always the swell managed to find a way around the island and we have had a rolly day here. We passed this mark on the way into the anchorage, It’s not on the chart or any notice to mariners I have seen, so I’m not sure what it is, however I now know it doesn’t light up at night, so it’s a hazard in itself. It’s pitch black outside and we have rocks all around us, it’s quite a tight anchorage, and right now all the cliffs around the anchorage are being fished by local boats, Is it Shrimps or Squid they are after? I’m hoping the tide only drops the 4 metres the tide tables say, as that will leave us with about 1.5 metres under the keel at low water at 3:30 AM, I don’t want to be woken then with a thump.

Tomorrow we do a 55NM trip over to Sungai Rajang (Sungai means river) where we will took into the first bend in the river. We have just had a strong storm warning come in for the sea area just north of us, I’m not expecting that to be a problem, but it may well send some big swell our way, which make for an uncomfortable passage/anchorage.

Paul Collister

Tuesday 6th June – Terempa

Our customs inspection was due this morning, but before we could prepare ourselves for that we were told we would have to move the boat to make room for a ferry to leave the bay. My heart sank at this news, considering all the faffing about it had taken to anchor. It was suggested we could tuck in near an island just outside the main bay but when we motored out there to check the location it proved to be too deep and there was a lot of coral, so back we went to nearer where we’d come from and set the anchor just a little further back from our original spot with not too much bother at all.  The customs inspection went well. Two guys came on board, had a cursory look around, asked questions and filled in the answers on their form.  They were both fasting for Ramadan but we were quite shocked to learn that they are not even allowed to have water when we offered it to them. This means that even during the hottest parts of the day, while visiting a series of hot, stuffy boats they can’t even sip water – self-denial in the extreme. We had to go back ashore at 2:30 to hand some more paperwork to the customs officers.  I was careful to wear trousers this time to avoid causing any more offence.  We took a walk on the eastern side of the island, and we attracted more interest in these more rural streets. The children especially, delighted in us and as in Thailand, were keen to try out their English phrases on us.

I took lots of pictures as we went along in attempt to capture life on the parched, dusty streets. The wailing (and that’s not meant to sound derogatory – it’s merely the best way to describe it) was once again an apt audio accompaniment to the environment.  Clearly the town and the way of life is different from that in more modern developed cities. It’s hard to find the right words to describe it without sounding condescending. The pictures below show it how it is anyway. What I can say is that without fail, everyone we met was friendly, looked happy and there was an overall air of dignity and politeness in the village that is sadly lacking in some communities in Britain and Europe.

Wednesday 7th June

Yesterday evening we went for dinner with Deb and Bruce at a restaurant called La Luna, which comes recommended by several yachtsmen who have eaten there.  I went along armed with some dishes and phrases I’d looked up online in order to avoid any unwelcome fish or meat additions. Deb had also brought along her Indonesian phrase book so I was able to enjoy a local dish called Cap Cay (pronounced Chop Chai, the waiter smilingly corrected me when I asked for it as it’s written) –  a tasty dish of stir fried veg and boiled rice.  The intriguing-sounding Gado Gado (veg with spicy peanut sauce) was not available and I later found out it’s only served in the mornings. The wailing and chanting and prayer recitals had blasted out full volume all night. I lay awake wondering how many people were in the mosques and whether the loud, angrier-sounding recitals were akin to the fire and brimstone warnings in some Christian sermons.  In contrast to that, some of the singing is very mellow and soothing.  There was a lot of swell on the water today which always makes me slightly nauseous so I didn’t do much other than read, watch more boats coming in to the anchorage and listen to the various comings and goings of the Sail Malaysia Rally boats on VHF.

Courtesy of Deb and Bruce, we had been invited to a dinner laid on for the Rally participants by the Anambas Tourism Office, so at 5:30 we joined them, along with some of the others at the jetty to wait for the minibus.  The venue was at the top of a very steep hill and the sheer drop down on the right hand side of the road seemed perilously close whenever we rounded corners on the twisty road.  Representatives were waiting to greet us as soon as we stepped out, scuppering my intention to walk over to take pictures of the view.  We were ushered into a cavernous sports and leisure complex, passing some striking-looking ladies dressed in colourful national costume on the way.  Reaching the top of a staircase we found ourselves in a hall where tables and chairs had been set out and two women were ladling bright pink liquid into bowls.  Just as we were all sitting down the boom that announced the end of the day’s fasting went off and some of the men went downstairs where prayer mats had been laid out for them on the indoor football pitch.  The evening would begin, said the beautiful female compere, once the prayers were done. In the meantime we were served a bowl of the pink ‘soup’ with fruit floating in it (like an unset blancmange), a plate of rich stodgy cakes and a cup of sweet jasmine tea. I guess this glut of sugar is welcome for anyone who’s been fasting all day.

Photographers milled around taking pictures of us all as we tucked in, while the ladies in national dress rehearsed their dance performance under the instruction of a choreographer. I admired the compere, who had the difficult job of translating a speech given by the tourism minister into English at suitable intervals. It can’t have been easy doing this while people were still arriving, food was being served and the photographers were snapping away.  It felt a little like a corporate business event with an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ theme. The Andaman Tourist Office are keen to promote their islands as a paradisaical holiday destination, so welcoming yachtsmen on sailing rallies is all part of that. Obviously no alcohol was available and I’m sure some of the participants would have welcomed beer but when you don’t expect it, it’s not a big issue.  After the speech, the girls performed their dance and another dignitary spoke about the plans for developing the area and if anyone had any tips and suggestions they would be very welcome. The Sail Malaysia Rally has been taking place for a few years, so the next speech was from a captain who had taken part and praised the organisers, the tourism authorities and so on and so on.  He was presented with a bag of gifts afterwards, which I coveted as it contained some guide books and maps. I needn’t have felt disappointed though.  We were all given one and I was delighted to discover the bag also contained a piece of traditional batik cloth and a handmade souvenir (a wooden spinning top).

Dinner was announced shortly after this. It was a hot buffet, consisting of chicken, fish and rice. I’d expected that, but the starter was watermelon, jackfruit and mango so I made do with that as an accompaniment to my rice.

While everyone was tucking in the girls performed another traditional dance and a singer/pianist sang some love and power ballads consisting variously of contemporary songs, songs from Disney movies, or 80s classics. Next it was time for a ‘turn’- in the form of karaoke or personal party pieces – from some of the participants. I thought they were very brave to go up without the help of an alcoholic tot or two. Looking around me I could tell some people were getting restless but there was more to come before we could politely take our leave. Another present-giving ceremony was in operation. This bag contained a sailing cap, a T-shirt and a drybag all bearing the ‘Wonderful Indonesia’ logo, and we all got one.  A thoughtful and generous gesture and I was really touched by it (especially as we’re not part of the Rally). It had been a good evening and great to chat with other crew members and captains, some of whom we’d met before on our travels.  Back on the boat I wasted no time in checking out the guide books. They are both useful and entertaining, in that they have great photos but the translation looks as though it’s been done through a copy and paste procedure straight from Google translate. Nevertheless, I was impressed with the effort they had gone to and grateful for making us so welcome.

Thursday 8th June – To Pidi Island (with coral grief)

The internet in Terempa is much more reliable early in the morning so we’ve been getting up early to make the most of it. Some of the boats on the rally began to leave and we would be joining them on their next stop for an evening barbecue at Pidi. First, we went ashore for a few provisions and another bit of officialdom.  A young lad took our tender for us when we arrived and he also took our rubbish from us to take to the bins. Paul gave him a tip but I think he was more interested in interacting with us than the money so we chatted with him as best we could given the language barrier.  Our first stop was the quarantine office which never seems to be manned, but this was our third try and we wanted to get our clearance. Knocks and repeated ‘hellos’ produced no one and the empty desk looked as if someone had stepped away from it in 1946 and never returned.  A nearby military officer noticed us leaving so Paul went up to him and explained what we wanted. The guy nodded and marched into the room and down a corridor where we heard his raised voice say something before he returned and signalled for us to wait before leaving with a smile. A bleary-eyed guy emerged from the corridor gruffly asked us a few questions and produced a form to record the answers on. It was all done very quickly. He dismissed us with our clearance form and presumably went back to bed.

It was searingly, almost unbearably hot as we shopped. With no ‘all under one roof’ supermarkets around it’s a bit like going back to the old days of grocery shopping when produce was sold separately in butchers and bakers and grocers. We decided against the bread from the bakery however because the last sugary loaf we’d bought had contained added protein in the form of weevils. Armed with drinks and lots of fruit and vegetables we walked back to the dinghy where the same young lad was on hand to help us load it.

More boats had left by the time we got back and we weighed anchor at 1 o’clock to follow them.  The route took in a notorious coral reef in shallow water but we would be following the waypoints of a previous captain, which is what SV Matilda had done and Deb had emailed Paul to say it was a doddle. As we approached the reef I wanted to double check the method of how to spot any hazardously close or shallow coral spots. Unfortunately we had a different perception of the exact meaning of ‘keeping the sun behind you’ and it turned into such a debate that it made us lose focus of the coral itself. Paul was horrified to look up and see we were almost upon it and guys on a passing fishing boat were warning us with gestures of alarm. We soon got back on course but the guys on the boat very kindly led us through the whole channel.  Paul had no luck catching a fish again but there’s always a good reason for this 😉 . Drama over, I could concentrate on the lovely scenes before us as we got nearer to Pidi.  Deb had been spot on with her description of it as gorgeous.  We joined the other yachts at anchor in the bay at 4 o’clock.

The barbecue was at 6 o’clock just across from our anchorage and we were greeted at the jetty by one of the team. It was a lovely location: the jetty was lit up and a long table was laid on the platform at the end of it. Cool boxes held beer and soft drinks which we could help ourselves to and pay for later, and the food was being kept hot in the kitchen area. I hadn’t expected to have any food because it was advertised as a fish and chicken barbecue but Paul, having spotted some veggie accompaniments with the rice, paid for me to eat too.  He tucked in to copious amounts of the chicken and fish (which was served having already been barbecued) to make the most of the rare treat of freshly-cooked meat. There were about twenty of us altogether, some of whom we’d met at the dinner. It was a nice evening in a glorious setting with good company.  Couldn’t ask for more than that really.

Kathy

Well we got a hire car on Monday in Kuching town and off we went shopping to properly replenish supplies. There’s lots of good shops here, especially along the waterfront, a street named Main Bazaar. We have been to many cities around Asia now, and in many you see the same handicraft products, which I suspect may be made in a factory in China and shipped around in containers on the ships we pass, but here in Kuching, there are many exquisite items, very obviously handmade, and unique to the region. There is a local wood called Billian, or Bornean ironwood, which is dark and very tough. Many handicraft items are made of this, I bought a walking stick it looked so good, but I don’t expect it to be much use on the boat.

Above is the view from the cockpit of Mount Santubong with a bit of weather moving in.

We zoomed off in the car to visit the cultural village which is just ten minutes down the road, situated in the rain forest at the location of the festival we are off to on Friday. I don’t normally like these recreations of the past, but they had built old ‘long houses’ out of Billian and they were quite amazing.

Up to 60 families might live in these houses, most of which have gone now

The Malay houses were of a high quality compared to the more indigenous groups

And as my mum might have said ‘A  lovely show to round off the trip’ which involved blow pipes and audience participation, which had Kathy worried.

One day we headed off to see the Orangutans at Semenggoh, this is a national park area where the forest is protected and the Orangutans live there in the wild, they have got used to humans, and where they might normally be scared of us and hide, they can be quite forthcoming, even aggressive.

We also visited the Sarawak museum, I loved this place as it should have been in a museum itself, the exhibits were all in cabinets from the 19th Century, I don’t think the museum had anything new, including the staff, for many many decades. Lots of stuffed creatures. I took the picture below, because it had an uncanny resemblance to a typical drug crazed scouser, you might meet when out clubbing at a weekend, or find hanging outside the parole office 😉

On Saturday we headed off to the ‘Fairy cave’ A huge cave set up high in the hillside, it went very deep into the hill, and was very impressive. The pictures don’t do it justice, but look at the steps inside the caves to get an idea of the scale.

The modern entrance to the caves.

Above you can see the start of the original steps to the caves, that cling to the rock face

The fairy himself, no idea what that’s all about, maybe Kathy will know

A hut outside the caves.

After the caves we headed down to the border market, this is on the border with Kalimantan in Indonesia, it’s a mile long either side of the main road, we bought some fabric but mostly we bought fruit and Veg at the street market below, we bought a bag of Archidendron Jiringa seeds which we haven’t got a clue what to do with, they look like horse chestnuts, but flatter, I hope we try them before they go the same way as the Durian.It caused much amusement with the locals when we bought them, and we wondered if perhaps they were a cure for impotence or some other embarrassing ailment

Last night we did a bit more shopping at the street markets, sadly we were too late for both of them, so we popped over to an Indian restaurant we found via google maps/trip advisor and had a lovely curry served on a banana leaf.

 

Today we returned the car, so we are back to being boat bound for a few days, Rain Forest World Music festival on Friday, then we up anchor and head NE towards Miri, where we leave the boat and fly home.

Paul Collister.

Not a lot to report, I acquired 150 litres of fuel today and lugged it onto the boat in 8 jerry cans, transferred in two trips in the dinghy. The dinghy wouldn’t start yesterday, and I’m now working with the chant, “It’s always a fuel problem” and sure enough the problem was water in the fuel tank and carb, I don’t know how it got there, but I expect the very heavy rain a few nights earlier might be the problem. I now cover it with a bag when it’s not in use.
This afternoon we went ashore for a walk around the village of Santubong, just next to where we are anchored. It had a lovely long prom, and the tide was out so there was a huge expanse of beach, we could see now why we had to be so careful to follow the route in. Again, a lot of properties built on stilts, as the tide comes in a long way here.
Tomorrow we hope to hire a car and do some exploring of the island.

I did have an interesting encounter with our fridge tonight, I had been pondering on how well the batteries had held up today, we hadn’t needed to run the engine at all to charge them, and I wondered if the full charge from motoring here plus lots of sunshine was the cause, but just before sunset tonight I got a not very cold coke out fridge and after a few quick checks showed it to be kaput. This was going to be the third fridge to fail on me, two packed in on Stardust, my last boat. The main problem I had to face was whether to eat the two magnum ice creams I had bought yesterday in their by now melty state, or try to fix it and either end up with misshapen, but frozen ice cream lollies, or not fix it and end up with two bags of sticky milk. The gubbins that drive the fridge are buried deep inside the hull under the lazarette at the rear of the boat, to get to it requires a fair bit of emptying out the lockers, and as it was getting dark I decided to press on and see if power was getting to the unit. As I explained to Kathy, my experience has never been that it’s that easy. As I said , if the power is missing, I can fix it, anything else, means we have to eat all the butter, and frozen goods tonight, as I can’t fix refrigeration stuff, it’s all to do with gases and magic, I still don’t really understand how you make things cold with heat. Anyway, I twisted myself into the boat with a multimeter and some long nose pliers, and went in search of the power connection to the fridge compressor unit (it’s a basic danfoss for those in the know). As I grabbed the positive connection to pull it off to measure the voltage, the compressor started up, waggling the connecter started and stopped the unit. I just could not believe my luck. I re-crimped the connector and that fixed it, and within an hour I had one of the misshapen ice creams, which was quite acceptable. I’m very pleased with this outcome, however I do need to go back sometime and redo both connections, which is yet another job on the todo list.

Here’s some pics from our walk.

Paul Collister

 

We checked out of Malaysia on the first of June, adding more colours and inky shapes to the growing amount of stamps in our passports. Customs and immigration completed without too much hassle, and our provisions all stowed away, we went ashore in the evening to have a meal with Deb and Bruce and four other people from yachts on The Passage to The East Rally. The popular Chinese restaurant we dined at served beer, and the food was great. The Rally’s next destination would be The Anambas so it was useful to swap tips and info with the participants, and good to know we’ll be meeting them again on some of these Indonesian islands.

Friday 2nd June – Departure from Tioman

It grew very windy in the morning and the weather was set to deteriorate according to the forecast. This cast some doubt on the time we needed to leave in order to avoid the worst of it during our second ‘through the night’ sail. The boat was all ready to go by 12 30 and we left half an hour later with the main and head sails propelling us along in a good breeze. Unfortunately it didn’t last long, and we had to resort to motor sailing for most of the way. The watches began after a dinner of falafel wraps with tahini dressing (I know that sounds a bit pretentious but they were delicious). I took the first one, which was 8pm to 12am. The boat veered off course about an hour into the watch when the autohelm stopped working, and I had to call Paul up to sort it out. With Captain Mainwaring duly adjusted we were soon back on course. It was a very mild night and I spent the whole four hours in the cockpit wearing a sleeveless cotton sundress, savouring the coolness. We used the AIS and the Open CPN navigational aids to check for vessels, in addition to physically looking around. Lights at night when at sea can resemble floating lanterns bobbing about when it’s pitch black, by which I mean it’s tricky to gauge distances (well it is for me anyway) so the aids provide both accuracy and reassurance. I passed the time by reading books on my phone when not checking the course, sails, wind direction, engine temperature and looking for other boats. I didn’t, however, check for pirates! When Paul took over at 4am I asked him why the navigation lights weren’t working and he calmly told me that he’d turned them off because we were in ‘stealth mode’.  Apparently there had been a pirate incident in the area the previous week. Pirates mostly target large vessels but Paul felt it was prudent to be careful. It was a possibility, albeit a small one, that boats with no lights at all could appear without warning alongside, and armed robbers would get on board to demand valuables, a bit like highwaymen, except on the water. I think I was glad that I was blissfully unaware of this possibility!

Saturday 3rd June – Indonesia! (Pulau Ajam)

It had been a rocky but thankfully pirate free night and we’d both managed to get a good few hours’ sleep.  I joined Paul for coffee at 10 30 on a gorgeous morning, to get my first look at Indonesia. Paul put up the country’s courtesy flag along with the obligatory yellow quarantine flag which is flown until a boat has been officially cleared. The air felt fresher and I wondered hopefully, if perhaps prematurely, whether there may be less humidity here.  Our first task when we reached Ajam was to find a spot to anchor. It needed to be in between all the coral surrounding us and we managed to find one in 5 metres of water at around 12 30…except it was actually 11 30.  My phone had changed itself to the local time, which is one hour behind Malaysia.  When Paul snorkelled to double check that the anchor was set in sand, he noticed a huge fish nibbling the hull. When he showed me the GoPro footage my first thought was that it was a young shark! Later, when I threw some stale bread out it shot out from underneath and gobbled up every bit. We could see it clearer just under the surface – a huge fish that seems to have taken up residence under us, so I fed it some more scraps. I noticed Paul eyeing it as a potential easy catch for dinner and had to tell him that it would break my heart to see it on his plate.

The beauty and serenity of this anchorage was revealed in all its glory just before sunset.  All around us was azure water, golden beaches and lush green forest. White birds were swooping all around us, fish were jumping so frequently it looked like a sparkling synchronised routine, and colourful (big) butterflies flew in and out of the cockpit.  It was so serene…and quiet…and relaxing. I would think fondly of this state of affairs over the next few days.

Sunday 4th June – To Terempa, the capital of The Anambas

We stood on the bow at 8 30 this morning admiring the surrounding vista before it was time to leave to check in at the main town on the island of Siantan.  A problem with the anchor windlass meant we left an hour or so later than intended while Paul sorted it out.  I steered us out, listening carefully to Paul’s directions…until the depth started falling rapidly and becoming alarmed, I called to him to take over. Too late – we were on 1.4 metres and touching coral – but luckily we managed to reverse over and off it! All the same, it was a heart-stopping start to the passage, the rest of which went really well thankfully.  We had no engine on, just used the power of the main and the head-sail. The wind was just right, it was cool and fresh, the sea was calm and no other boats were around. With Uncle Arthur steering, we could sit back and enjoy the ride. I was thrilled to spot my first sea turtle just before we got to Terempa. On the approach to the bay we got the sails down, took some pictures of the coastline as it got closer and prepared to join the 5 or so other boats at anchor.

We’d done the passage plan together and I had read that this anchorage can be tricky.  Anchors have been fouled (become stuck and tangled so they have to be cut free) and the prevalence of coral means it’s hard to find a sandy spot. I was therefore already a bit apprehensive about anchoring. Maybe it would have been better if I hadn’t had any prior knowledge. Anyway, there began two hours of intense stress, mistakes, heated ‘discussions’ and a seemingly never-ending cruise around the bay while crew from the other boats looked on, sometimes offering advice or warnings about particular areas.  Two attempts failed, which meant pulling the anchor back up, flaking the chain and starting again. It was extremely hot after being out in the cooler open sea, and several fishing boats whizzed past. The noise of their engines made it difficult to hear what Paul was saying, and the wake they created rocked the boat considerably. I kept hoping Paul would say we’d have to go back out to an alternative bay because there was nowhere free here but I should have known he wouldn’t let it beat him. This was a challenge and we would set our anchor here! It seemed an insurmountable task to me.  There were so many factors to get right: we had to be away from the coral, not too near the other boats or in the path of the ferry’s entrance and exit route and in the right amount of water. I expect my defeatist attitude wasn’t much help but we did it eventually at about 6pm, after which we sat in the cockpit gazing at our new surroundings.

The village of Terempa is the capital of The Anambas Group, yet was a lot smaller than I’d expected. The buildings we could see looked like alpine huts dotted in the steep forested hills behind the busy port area. A mosque was visible some way inland and larger structures near the shore were clearly police and port authority buildings. I was hoping to see a commercial area, or the line of stalls and cafes often found on the promenade of coastal towns but nothing was obvious from our viewpoint. The huge fairy-lit car and passenger ferry that arrived as we were anchoring obstructed part of the view opposite us. It also emitted some very loud blasts at random intervals which Paul said made no navigational sense.

Those sounds were just part of an overall cacophony of noise in the area.  The engines of the private boats going past sounded like pneumatic drills, but they stopped after a while as they returned home to neighbouring islands after shopping in the town.  The noise from scooters on the road opposite, however was constant. Next came a series of very loud bangs like gunshots which made me jump until I guessed it was the signal that feasting could begin now that the sun had set. Ramadan lasts for a month so isn’t set to finish until June 25th.  The call to prayer was the next sound and I’ve grown to quite like the melodic and melancholy wailing that is projected through several public address systems in the towns. Here, several calls were happening at the same time, creating a kind of ‘descant’ chorus which was soothing, if a bit surreal.  It provided an apt musical background to the twinkling lights of the town and the ferry anyway, especially when the ferry glided slowly away, with its passengers leaning over the rails waving enthusiastically to all of us at anchor.  The next noises weren’t quite as soothing. Maybe because it’s Ramadan, but after the singing came the chanting and the shouting and the very loud recitals of tracts or prayers…this was to go on all night long.  Never mind, the music soon joined in to dilute it a little. It was like the very worst kind of disco music from the 70s, and it, too lasted well into the night.  More noise in the form of barking dogs kicked off in the early hours, and the shouting had become so urgent and angry I was convinced that some drama or disaster had happened in the town. I wondered how Paul was faring in the cockpit where it was bound to be louder, but much to my surprise, he said it hadn’t disturbed him at all.

Monday 5th June – Terempa Town

Raymond, the helpful guy from the Sail Malaysia Rally had stopped by just after we’d anchored to let us know that the immigration building would be open from 8 30 and we were keen to get there to start what could potentially be a long and laborious bureaucratic process, although the presence of the rally at least meant that the authorities would be expecting to process crew from other countries.  There was no obvious dinghy park but some small boats were tethered to the main harbour wall so we headed for that. When we got there, the wall was a lot higher than it had seemed and the only way to get onto the path above was to climb a rudimentary ‘ladder’ that looked like it was made from rotten wood.  Local people on shore watched with interest as we clambered up it. I went first so that Paul could pass the bags up to me. I found myself on a narrow concrete pathway that led to the entrance to the village.  Take it from me, you wouldn’t want to suffer an attack of vertigo on that path or negotiate it after a few drinks. Below me on either side was the murky, oily water typically found in harbours. Halfway along, two people from the other side began walking across. There was no way either of us could make way for access, so it was a relief to discover they had assumed we were rally participants and had come to greet us and to inform us of a better place to tie the dinghy.

They directed us towards the immigration building once we were on wider ground, and I had a chance to take in my surroundings. It was hot, and the air was still and heavy. It was also very busy with people and with the ubiquitous motorbikes.  A lot of the buildings are on stilts above the water, with wooden walkways, similar to those on seaside piers.  People lined them on both sides so our progress was a bit like running a gauntlet. The stares we received were blatant and I knew they weren’t intended to be rude but it felt a bit unnerving nevertheless. I began to feel self-conscious about the thin summer dress I was wearing. I had thought it was respectable enough but looking around I noticed the women were mainly covered up. My concern was confirmed when one lady stopped, looked me up and down and gave me unmistakable ‘evils’. We received lots of friendly greetings too though; smiles and ‘hello, how are you’ ‘where you from?’ from children and adults alike. The streets were delightfully ramshackle, narrow and thronging with people and bikes, making it hard to walk without taking care not to get run over.  The main street, when we reached it was wider, with concrete pathways but it meant we were more exposed to the sun’s rays and it was so very hot, I was drenched in sweat and the humidity felt almost claustrophobic.

The immigration, customs and harbour master process took the best part of two hours, complicated by the fact that we didn’t have a crew list, a boat stamp or a printed visa request form.  Learning that we weren’t part of the rally, the immigration guy bumped us to the front of the queue so that he could take Paul to a computer to fill out the required form. Due to slow internet bandwidth and the increased demand for it, it took ages but the old-fashioned building (1930s or 40s dark wooden post office counter type interior) was at least out of the sun, if not much cooler, and we were able to sit down.

Once it was all done we went for a walk to get more of a feel for the place. More stares, more friendly greetings and smiles and requests for us to buy things: ‘hello, sir/madam, where you from? – you want? …’ and all kinds of produce from pineapples to seaside inflatables were pointed out to us.  The heat enhanced the smells coming from roadside rubbish and the muddy water underneath us, and the crowded streets and noise from the scooters were all beginning to exhaust me. After buying some fruit and vegetables from the market, we dinghied back to the boat, which was just as well because a squall arrived just as we got back.  The anchor held well during the worst of it anyway, which was reassuring. Pictures below show images from our walk on our first day ashore in Terempa.