Faith and Pierre have not provided an updated newsletter as they have been fixing engines instead of exploring new and exotic places. so till that arrives, here are some short emails from them :
Email from Senta dated 22 January 2006
Hi everyone,
We left Bonbanon eight days ago and clawed our way to windward and against the current to Limasawa at the start of the Surigao Strait, the exit from the Philippines to the Pacific.
It was very tough going. A 12 hour day to do 39 miles. An overnight 36 hour leg of 97 miles and the final one of 16 hours to reach Limasawa Island. During this stage the wind fell light and when we tried to use the motor it petered out, probably fuel starvation. Luckily Deja Vu arrived at Limasawa in daylight, and were able to guide us in by leaving their anchor and other lights on.
The next day Pierre spent five hours replacing fuel filters and cured the engine problem. We were both so exhausted that we were in two minds as to whether to carry on to Palau. We still had to negotiate the rip tides, whirlpools etc of the Surigao Strait, and a 500 mile passage in the Pacific against the wind. We informed Colin and Glyn of Daja Vu of our Dilema, and promised to tell them our final decision later that day.
At 1600 Colin told us that they too wanted to abort the Palau attempt. Although eight years younger than us they were also feeling the pressure. On top of this, the weather fax showed a tropical depression west of Palau heading for the mouth of the Surigao Strait. Straight at us. Both boats decided to 'Get the hell out of there'! When Pierre realised that we would have to go to sea again he wanted to vomit!
Deja Vu opted to go to a marina at Cebu 70 miles away. But this was northwards and paralled the storm track. We chose the safer route away from the storm back to Bonbanon 126 miles away. With the wind and tide now in our favour Senta romped back in 22 hours covering the distance that had previously taken us nearly 70 hours of sailing.
Senta is now safely anchored in a good typhoon shelter and has suffered no damage. She takes these conditions much better than we do. Our plan is now to explore more of the Philippines in company with Deja Vu and return to Kota Kinabalu in April/May
Tons of love to you all, Faith and Pierre
Email from Senta dated 7 January 2006
Hi everyone,
After a fantastic Xmas breakfast of bacon and eggs made for us by Cissie, we set about getting Senta ready to try for Bonbanon again.
We located new bearings for the generator in the town of Puerto Princessa and Pierre spent a whole day repairing it, a massive job. But well done as it has been going great guns ever since. I wore out my fingers sewing up the damage in the pram hood and dodgers. Numerous other tasks kept us busy for about ten days and then on 2 January we set out again.
The wind was now a consistent north easter varying in strength from 15 knots to 35 at some times, but mainly in the 20 to 25 knot range. We had rigged Senta as a cutter, setting up her baby inner stay and hanking on our tried and tested small working jib. This sail is now 27 years old!, but still sets as well as it did on its first day.
It did a wonderful job, as together with a reefed main and our wind steerer helped Senta to slowly close the gap between us and Bonbanon. When we had turned back on our first attempt and made for Puerto Princessa We had been 130 miles from BB. The distance from PP to BB was 264 miles, so we had to win back slow mile by slow mile those 134 miles we had given away. The wind was helping, but the square sharp seas were a real pain and we both got pretty seasick, the first time in ages. Not nice!
In the worst of the strong winds and bumpy seas, the engine's water pump stopped working. Although we didn't need the engine to propel us forward, we sure needed it to keep our fridge full of fresh provisions cool. So Pierre had to spend a ghastly 3 hours lying on his stomach on the port quarter berth twisting sideways with his head in the engine compartment and his belly being pounded on the edge of the berth every time Senta went over a wave, about once every three of four seconds. He found that the impellor was broken and after searching to find all of the missing bits, thus ensuring that there was nothing left behind to gum up the works, he reassembled the pump and all was well. Except for the mal de mer.
I had now been on watch for six hours, but had to stand another watch to let Pierre sleep and try to overcome the queasiness.
Slowly as we approached the large island of Negros the seas smoothed out and the wind backed more to the north. Senta took off and under storm sails we were doing between 6 and 7 knots straight to BB.
It looked as if we would arrive there at 1430 on the 5th January, three and a bit days after leaving PP. But nothing is quite that easy. Firstly we entered the wind shadow of Negros and the wind cut off almost completely for a couple of hours. The dreaded motoring had to be done and we were doing well until we approached within 5 miles of BB when guess what? Right! the NE wind came shrieking at us from round the SE corner of Negros and we were soon beating hard under storm sails again. A forty knot rain squall made things even a little harder. I was beginning to think that, at 67 years of age, we were both getting a bit too old for such larks.
The Pacific current also put in its contribution and we found that unless we went in very close to the reefs off the coast we could make almost no progress against the current. Under motor and mainsail we dodged up the last three miles to the entry waypoint closer to the shore than we ever really like to go.
The waypoints for the very narrow (40 meter) entrance, given us some weeks before by Trish and Fitz on Columbus, were an excellent help as we edged Senta in close to the black cliffs on the starboard side. Nigel, who runs a resort at Bonbanon came up on the VHF radio and talked us in, his instructions matching almost perfectly with the waypoints.
At 1633 we dropped anchor for a wonderful rest. It was great to see our friends, Colin and Glynn on Deja Vu. Now we are scratching our heads and studying charts to find a way to clear the remaining 225 miles of Philippine islands and reefs before we can reach the open Pacific and sail to Palau. We hope to leave here in about a week. Buggers for punishment we are!
Lots of love to you all,
Pierre and Faith
Email from Senta dated 24 November 2005
A little about our planned movements. We are busy with a major engine overhaul, which the local Chinese 'Expert' has made a mess of. So we have taken over and are driving the project ourselves. We have had to order some extra spares from Volspec in the UK to replace some the items 'totalled' by our gorilla mechanic.The service from Volspec is excellent, though pricey, and we have had spares delivered to the marina, via DHL, three days after ordering on e-mail. With any luck we will have the parts by the weekend and can re-assemble the engine next week. We then plan to take some very good Sabah people we have met here, on our first leg to Kudat on the NE coast of Borneo. Actually it is Gilbert, who looked after Senta for us while we were away, and three of his children. It will be quite a squash on Senta, but we will manage for a few days. Thereafter we will sail to Bonbanon on the SW tip of Negros island in the Phillipines where we will meet up with Deja Vu, who have gone on ahead of us because of the delay caused by our engine... .
As this will be in December, the last month of the typhoon season, when typhoons sometimes come fairly far south, we will hole up at Bonbanon, a well known typhoon shelter till January. Then both SA boats will move on to Cebu City on Cebu Island also in the Phillipines for provisioning. After that we venture in to the NW pacific to the westmost of the Carolinas, the Pulau atoll. We will stay there for a month or two and then return to Kota Kinabalu in May via Puerto Galera, on Mindoro Island in the Phillipines. I have not been writing a newsletter since we returned from Germany, as it has been all pretty boring stuff, but will start again when we move on. Weather here is pretty rainy but will clear up in a few weeks when the NE monsoon sets in. It must be getting really cold and dark in Schwarzach. Hope all is well with you and Phillip and the grandchildren. Love, Faith
Email from Senta dated 27 December 2005
We approached Balabac Island on the night of Sunday 18 under double reefed main and small jib, in deteriorating weather, squalls and heavy overcast. At 0600 Monday, we went down to triple reefed main and storm jib as the skies turned black and the wind backed to NE and increased to gale force, probably mid force 8. We were now in among the reefs of Nasubata channel, hard on the wind, and had to tack and tack to keep clear. During the day, the biggest line squall we have ever seen, hit us from the opposite direction (SW) and we ran off in very bad seas. When it was over the gale went back to the NE and we beat, making 120 degree tacks, because of a current on the nose and explosive seas throwing us sideways. We beat for five days, falling heavily off the square waves. The barometer never went below 1010. Some squalls were up to fifty knots and we couldn't look to weather without wearing our underwater masks. The rain was unbelievable. Mostly our leeward deck was in the water and the weather deck was filled with water from the gunwale to the cabin top every time a wave exploded over us, and this river streamed aft into the cockpit and lazarette which now must have half a ton of sea water in it. We even had fish and seaweed in the cockpit and the plankton or sea animals in the weed were stinging us. The forward bilge began taking water and we pumped every hour. We were worried that the incredible pounding by falling off the waves had eased a keel bolt.
Twice we had to heave to, once for three hours and once for six hours, so we could rest, eat, sleep and tidy up down below. Only 130 miles from Bonbanon, Negros, the counter current was so bad, the GPS showed us to be going backwards (The Pacific Equatorial current sweeping through the Philippines.) We were beating to the east but going westward and the tacks were nothing near ninety degrees, more likely 140 degrees. We were being forced downwards towards the Mindanao coast. Because of fatigue, the heavy pounding and the leak, we tacked onto starboard and bore off for Puerto Princessa, Palawan, arriving on Xmas eve. There we were welcomed by John and Cissie who brought us a basket of fruit and wine. We have a lot of work to do to fix up the mess. The leak seems to have been our plasticine seal in the hawser pipe working loose. There is also damage to our canvas dodgers and the bearings in the Rutland wind gererator are shot. We must look for new ones and fit them. Maybe in a week we will try again, going north past Dumaran Island, then over the top of the Cagayan Islands and down to Negros. Right now we are listening to Patricia Eve's sea shanties. Very moving. Deja Vu, did you fare any better? How did you get through? What is the weather like in Bonbanon? Curiously here in PP it is fine. When do you intend leaving Bonbanon?
All of the best, Faith and Pierre
SENTA - 2003 to 2005
Philippines - Circumnavigation of Palawan
Part 1 - February 2005
We didn’t plan to circumnavigate Palawan, but we did, and this is how it happened.
Palawan and the attendant island of Balabac off its southern end is 300 miles long and Balabac is 120 miles from Kota Kinabalu, so this adventure took place over nearly 900 miles of sailing, mainly in dayhops.
We had prepared Senta for a three-month cruise and planned to sail to Palawan, the southern most island of the Philippines, and up its east coast. This would all be directly into the then prevailing northeast monsoon. Our main destination was Puerto Princessa and the beautiful island filled bays to its north. We left our little motorbike in the care of the shop that had sold it to us and everything was ready except for the eternal infernal barnacles on Senta’s bottom. Although the water in Sutera harbor is crystal clear we had not wanted to dive there as we had seen a banded krait and hundreds of box jellyfish, both species deadly to humans.
So our first step, after a happy send off from friends at Sutera Harbor on Friday 3rd February, was at Samporna Bay 15 miles away. The beat there, under reefed main and working jib into a 20 knot NE wind and short sharp seas was a sign of things to come. Samporna was well sheltered from the wind and swell, but a massive building project on the weather shore poured dust down on us until the sun set and the building workers went home. We sent an SMS cell phone message to Déjà vu still in Sutera saying that we had had enough beating into 20-knot winds and breathing dust. We were going to turn around and sail to Singapore instead. Glyn’s one word reply, ‘Vasbyt!’, reminded us that as South Africans we should be made of sterner stuff and our original plan was back on the table.
Next morning we swam under Senta to clean her. There was only good news - excellent visibility, no box jellyfish or snakes, no waves or swell and very few barnacles. The next day was spent washing the building dust off our newly painted decks and planning our next few days’ passage making.
Early next morning we left on the 20-mile leg to Usukan Bay in no wind. Motoring and fridge cooling happened until a moderate northerly wind came in at 1100 and gave us an enjoyable sail to anchor at Usukan by mid afternoon. Not a very beautiful place but a good calm protected anchorage, no building dust or mosquitoes. We were now 30 miles closer to the northern tip of Borneo, still another 60 to go.
We declared another lay day for some chores and maintenance.
The switch on the main distribution board for the anchor light had stopped working. We ‘sort of’ fixed it but it was still very stiff, so we swapped it with the switch for the steaming light, which we very seldom use.
The engine would not go into reverse. Inspection of the Morse controls to the gear lever in the cockpit showed no problem and a study of the sail drive workshop manual left us none the wiser. We eventually got the reverse gear to work by running the engine and manipulating the controls at the sail drive itself. Something must have got stuck and then unstuck itself – a very scientific diagnosis!
Our last job for the day was to determine the latitude and longitude errors on our current chart by establishing our position from hand held compass bearings and then comparing this position with that given by the GPS. We always do this for each new chart when coastal cruising as some of the errors can be significant. And it is not only paper charts that have errors. The electronic Sea Mate charts for the Philippines are seven tenths of a mile out! Our paper charts error was only two tenths of a mile.
An early morning start motoring out past Usukan Island gave us a wonderful view of Mount Kinabalu. This shy secretive mountain is shrouded in clouds from 0900 each day so can only be seen by early birds. Those energetic enough to climb Mount Kinabalu leave the base hut at 0300 to climb to the summit in time to see the sun rise at 0600. Twenty minutes later they have to set off down again to make sure they are below the cloud level before 0900.
Our next destination was the Garu River mouth some 45 miles away to the northeast, dead up wind again. We sailed on starboard tack in an 18-knot wind past Alert Rock towards the Mantanani Islands, 15 miles offshore. In spite of the good wind, progress was slow due to the adverse incoming tide and short sharp waves, two or three of which coming close together could virtually stop Senta in her tracks.
Just after midday we tacked to port to close again with the Borneo shore. Progress was better as the waves were not coming straight at us but wider off the port bow. We should have tacked sooner. By 1400 we still had 12 miles to go. We had made 33 miles to weather in 7 hours and were not sure we were going to reach our anchorage by sunset. So we ran the engine to help Senta through the waves. Soon the wind veered more to the east and then southeast allowing us to tack onto starboard. In the calmer seas nearer the coast we made better progress to reach Garu River, a beautiful secure anchorage well before sunset. Some pretty fishing boats were the only sign of life in the bay. Tired and hungry after our hard ten hour beat we cooked and ate a large pasta dinner and were soon in our berths asleep while the wind blew hard outside and Senta watched over us.
Sunset saw us drinking tea and Milo in the cockpit as we admired the scene; green grassy sloping hillsides, turquoise water over the reefs, many fir trees, a few coconut palms and the small blue fishing boats going about their business. The fresh east wind was still blowing strongly, now less affected by the land, which had become narrower as we approached the north of Borneo. Also we had sailed north of the end of the mountain ranges.
After an enjoyable lay day and another good night’s rest we set off on the final lap to the north tip of Borneo. At 0640 we motored out past the reef and Batumandi Rock where we were met again by the northeast wind, which although useful, varied in strength to give us plenty of practice in reefing and unreefing.
By 1115 we were anchored in the bay to the south west of Tanjung Sempang Mangayau, the Northern tip of Borneo. (Tanjung is Cape in Malay). We had good protection from the wind but not from the swell as the bay is not much indented. The rest of the day was spent watching the many tourists visiting the cape, reading, resting and planning our next hop, a 25-mile beat to Banggi Island
At 0630 on Thursday 10th February, one week after leaving Kota Kinabalu, we upped anchor and beat towards the north on starboard tack in an 18 knot NE wind under reefed main and working jib. Seemed like déjà vu!. The wind slowly abated to ten knots and we tacked to port and shook out the reefs. Progress was better as, again, the seas were less troublesome on port tack. The wind veered towards the east so we tacked to starboard again and slowly closed with Balambangan Island. Once we reached it we went onto port tack again and sailed south eastwards into the channel between Banggi and Balambangan Islands. We then beat up the channel towards our planned anchorage at the foot of Banggi Peak, in a NE wind now blowing over 20 knots. More reefing practice! From afar the Banggi Peak anchorage seemed untenable but was actually quite good; to the south of a small cape in 11.5 meters on sand, protected from the wind and with a minimum amount of rolling. We had now reached the jumping off point for a crossing of the Balabac Strait, which separates Malaysian Borneo from the Philippines.
Another lay day and then we set off at 0630 under motor to clear the reefs around Tiga Island and Rifleman Rock off NW Banggi Island. The 18-knot ENE wind gave us a robust fetch across the strait under full main and furler reduced to Yankee size then to working jib. The seas were exceptionally short and choppy and we took lots of solid water on board. But Senta revels in scooting her way to windward, almost sailing herself. The current set us to the west all day, so the fetch was finer then it might have been. Nearing Balabac Island we almost ran over a giant turtle, so large in fact that I thought he was an uncharted rock.
Our destination on Balabac Island was Clarendon Bay to the north east of Cape Melville on the southeast corner of Balabac. It was an anxious approach as the wind (18 knots as usual) was from behind us, the gap between the reefs at the entrance was small and our chart not detailed enough. But all went well as we ran slowly in with no headsail and the main sheeted right in, to spill the wind from leach to luff and hence slow us down. Luckily Senta will sail like this. A lot of yachts won’t.
The 31-mile crossing of the Balabac strait had taken us seven and a half hours. Not bad into the wind and seas.
Clarendon Bay is lonely, as we were to find the whole of Palawan. No visible permanent habitation, but we read in the cruising guide that there was a small Muslim village somewhere close. There were a couple of fishing huts on stilts on the reef just off the north headland and Cape Mellville lighthouse was visible over the land to the south west of the bay. Actually there were two lighthouses; an old stone one built by the Spanish and a modern white communications type tower. Two fishing boats were anchored with us.
Although the entrance to the bay is open to the easterly winds the entrance is so narrow that the swell quickly dies as you go further in to the bay. The waxing moon was getting higher in the western sky each evening after sunset and the stars were clearly visible, in spite of the haze during the day.
Clarendon Bay was a perfect pirate’s lair, but there were no pirates there! We would have to continue our search for the legendary pirates of Palawan as we journeyed northwards.
More of that in the next section below...
For those who may sail this way I include with this first Palawan chapter a list of the forty anchorages we stopped at in our 100-day tour around Palawan. Imagine that, winding up the anchor on our manual windlass forty times. No wonder we have such big biceps!
Anchorages Kota Kinabalu, round Palawan anticlockwise and back to Kota Kinabalu again.
BORNEO Latitude (N) Longitude (E) Notes Deg Mins Deg Mins
Samporna Bay 06 05.05 116 06.04 Usukan Bay 22.28 20.39 Agal Bay – Garu River 49.49 38.87 TJ Sempang Mangayau 07 01.92 44.44 Banggi Peak 17.28 117 03.60 Banggi Island
BALABAC ISLAND
Clarendon Bay 07 49.07 117 01.32 Caboan Bay 08 00.90 04.13
PALAWAN EAST COAST
Iglesia Point 08 30.29 117 28.12 James Brooke Point 46.26 49.56 Crawford Cove 09 02.46 118 05.60 Rasa Island 12.83 25.19 Malanao Island 26.45 36.16 Puerto Princessa 45.93 43.81 Meara Island 53.22 46.41 Honda Bay Fondeado Island 56.26 54.96 Fondeado Sand Cay 57.55 55.20 Reinhard Island 10 08.82 119 14.71 North Verde Island 06.85 13.72 Flat Island 16.61 21.03 Dumuran Island 28.78 45.61 Apulit Island 57.31 36.54 Butacan Island 11 08.09 39.12 Flower Isl.
Latitude Longitude Notes Deg Mins Deg Mins
PALAWAN WEST COAST
Malapaco Island 11 06.05 119 24.48 Bacquit Bay Pirates Hold 10 56.81 19.50 Alligator Island 50.63 18.08 Malampaya Sound Imuruan Bay 46.08 18.55 Jib Boom Bay 21.13 00.27 Table Point/Fish Bay 09 59.54 118 38.84 Apuruan Point 37.04 20.04 Nakoda Bay 17.25 117 57.78 Tagbuya Bay 07.10 45.39 Culasian Bay 08 53.03 29.31 Repose Point 29.35 12.52 Clarendon Bay 07 49.07 117 01.32
BORNEO AGAIN
Balambangan Island 07 11.09 116 51.37 Garu River 06 49.51 38.82 Mantanani Besar Is. 42.08 21.80 Mantanani Kecil Is. 42.30 18.70 Usukan Island 23.24 19.92 Mengatal River 05 56.90 02.36 KK Yacht Club
All latitudes are North and all longitudes are East.
Philippines - Circumnavigation of Palawan (continued)
Part 2 - Mid February 2005
After a lay day at Clarendon Bay on Sunday 13 February we were ready to resume our passage up the east side of Palawan Island in the Philippines.
Our first stage would be a short 12 mile hop north to Caboan Bay, from which the next leg to Iglesia Point on Palawan Island itself would be possible to do in a single day sail of 45 miles.
We beat out through the narrow pass between the reefs at 0700 on port tack and, once we were a mile off the shore, changed onto starboard for a good northerly tack in a NE wind starting at 12 knots and increasing to 18 knots as the sun rose higher in the sky. Two further tacks out to sea followed by tacks up the shore brought us to the entrance to Caboan Bay three and a half hours after leaving Clarendon. A short but enjoyable sail.
We ran in through the entrance between the reefs to anchor in 13 meters of water in the northwest corner of the bay to weather of a reef that runs down the middle of the bay. The wind was blowing straight in through the entrance so Senta lay with her nose into the small swell that was able to enter the bay. We were very comfortable. There was a boat building operation on the shore to the north of us and three dhow type boats were being worked on. Otherwise this was another lonely bay. We were both wet and salty from the choppy waves that had come on board and welcomed a fresh water wash from our supply of water in the jerry cans we carry on deck. So far in 10 days we had used only 30 liters of fresh water for personal washes. Try running 30 liters of water into your bath and then imagining what it must be like for two people to keep clean with that amount of water over a period of ten days. That is one of the not so nice parts of cruising. We were going to have to conserve water carefully as we could expect, and in fact got, no rain until we were back in Kota Kinabalu two and a half months later.
On the way to Caboan the fridge cooling system gave problems. The heat exchanger got very hot and water was not flowing through it. We fixed the problem. The water pump impellor was totaled! – Only one blade left. Luckily we have many spare impellors on board so the fridge was soon working again.
Now for the long sail to Iglesia point. The previous day on entering Caboan Bay we had marked the position of the entrance as a waypoint on the hand-held GPS. So our departure at 0300 through the reefs by starlight was relatively simple but still a bit scary with quite big waves coming in over the bar at the entrance. Getting the anchor up we brought loads of sticky black mud on board. We couldn’t see it, but we sure could feel it – ughh!!
The wind was a feeble 8 knots so we motor sailed on starboard tack under main and genoa directly up the rhumb line. We had a long distance to go and needed to keep speed up to ensure that we would enter the next anchorage in daylight. We needed to cross the North Balabac strait between Balabac and Palawan Islands and to clear to the east of Bugsuk Island and its myriad attendant wide submerged reefs before we could turn northwards and head for Iglesia Point. At 0630 as the sun rose we put in a short tack to port and were soon back in the middle of the strait with possible tides and currents. Two more hour long tacks brought us, at 0930, clear of Bugsuk’s reefs and on line for a 20 mile starboard tack past the horrors and delights of Coral Bay, which is shown on our chart as a large area of white with no information on it. The cruising guide says it is a place for adventuresome coral reef experts. We gave it a wide berth.
Bugsuk Island had stayed with us forever as if reaching out invisible hands to pull Senta back. With the wind now favorable from the east we made good progress and by 1400 reached the entrance to the area of reefs surrounding Iglesia. A ship came out through the channel and passed just 100 meters in front of us, so we now had a good visual indication of where the channel was. With Pierre’s hand on the tiller, his eyes on the depth sounder and me navigating below with GPS, pencil, Breton plotter and chart we slowly motored in. We spotted a red channel marker, the only one of four or five shown on our chart, and steered to take it to port. But the nearer we came to the buoy the more my plot showed us to be getting closer to a reef. With this conflict of data we stopped and turned back. All of a sudden Pierre said, ‘Pacific Buoyage’! Yes the Philippines uses the IALA B system where port buoys are taken to starboard when entering a harbor and to port when leaving. Hence the memory jogger for American sailors, ‘Red Right Returning”. We had previously only sailed in ‘civilized’ parts of the world that use the IALA A system.
With the mystery of the buoy being on the ‘wrong’ side of the reef sorted out we returned to it and safely passed it to starboard. We then inched our way through the reefs, which we could not see in the cloudy water, to anchor off the north shore of the bay, well inside Iglesia Point with its extensive southeast reaching reefs. Twelve and a half hours after leaving Caboan we gratefully dropped anchor and slept and slept.
Next day was obviously a lay day. We saw, anchored on the shore near us, our first Philippines banca. Palawan is mountainous with very few roads so most of the transportation is by sea, mainly in bancas. These boats come in all sizes from three or four meters long to well over fifteen meters. Bamboo outriggers on either side, attached to the main hull by thin arched bamboo struts, stabilize their very narrow hulls. The central hull has three masts one in the middle and the other two towards the ends. They look a bit like preying mantis insects. Beautifully decorated in multi colors, each with its special name, usually in English (American influence I guess), they are unfortunately often powered by engines, whereas they could very easily be sailed.
The wind blew twenty knots from the northeast all day but there was not much rolling as the wind held us nose in to the swell. We were able to check that we were not dragging our anchor by looking at a spindly bamboo fishing platform built on a nearby reef. After our usual exercise of determining the GPS/chart correction factor we spent some time setting up and checking waypoints to get us out of this frightening maze of invisible reefs.
The plan worked well as at 0630 next morning we slowly motored from waypoint to waypoint. Once in the shipping channel we set sail and beat eastwards into particularly rough seas. We had reefs off Iglesia Point and in San Antonio Bay to clear to port, so made two port tacks to the southeast until at 1100 with 22 miles still to go eventually tacked to starboard on line for James Brooke Point. The wind was northeasterly at about twelve knots, the seas soon smoothed out, we were in blue clean water and the sailing was grand. We noticed that the Philippines has the same ‘National Fish’ as Malaysia, the ubiquitous plastic bag!
By mid afternoon a backing wind made us close with the shore into 9 meters of clear blue water near St James’ Point. A two-mile tack out to sea again set us on the lay line to James Brooke and slowly the communications towers, small buildings and the breakwater emerged from the haze. This haze was to be a curse of the cruise. Slash and burn type of soil preparation for crop growing is the standard practice. We had ash landing on Senta and the magnificent scenery of Palawan was often so faint as to be indistinguishable. Not until early next morning, from our anchorage behind the breakwater, could we see the magnificent backdrop of rugged mountains. These are described on our circa 1800 AD charts as ‘heavily wooded’. Alas no longer so, they have been almost completely denuded by indiscriminate logging.
We spent a good part of the next day watching life at James Brooke point from the cockpit. Children played in the mud at the water’s edge in brightly colored clothes, which were soon mud colored. Hoards of swallows sat on the rungs of ladders leading up to the lights on either end of the breakwater. Evening meals were cooked on open fires on the brown beach outside the huts. Most of the buildings are run-down wood and grass shacks except for the Catholic Church and the customs/coast guard offices at the jetty. Some pigs on the shore raised our hopes of being able to buy ham and bacon again, something sadly missed in Muslim Malaysia. The chief religion in Philippines is Roman Catholic so we no longer heard the moaning muezzins. Instead we heard beautiful hymn singing from the church in the evening.
The seamanship displayed by all the boats we saw in Philippines was epitomized by the handling of a ferry and a small coaster, which came in to the quayside inside the breakwater. With not much space around Senta they didn’t raise our heartbeats by even a little bit as they skillfully maneuvered their vessels past us.
Next day we set off for Nariz Point, 15 miles away, leaving at 0730 in the light northwest wind that was falling off the mountains. The breeze each night coming from the mountain peaks made it nice and chilly while we slept cuddled up under blankets for a change. The NW soon died and we motor sailed up the rhumb line until 0930 when a good ENE wind arrived. Some wonderful sailing brought us to Nariz Point by lunchtime. It was a bit early to stop so we carried on to anchor at Crawford Cove, not really a recognized safe place, but said to be’ reasonable in settled weather’ by the cruising guide. It was beautiful and the weather stayed settled, but we were unsettled, anchoring on the edge of a nightmare of reef fields. We had a NNE wind coming to us over the reefs to weather and we were constantly on edge watching for a wind change, which luckily never came.
Next day, Sunday 20th February, we were on the move again this time to Rasa Island. This was turning out to be a very unique passage for us with many stops, short hops and only day sailing. But it suited our purpose of exploring Palawan, we didn’t need to get anywhere fast. There was very little wind that day and not much excitement other than negotiating the reef to the south of Gardner Island. A mixture of drifting, motoring and motor sailing took us to anchor in the lee of Rasa island in the heat of the mid afternoon sun. At teatime Bonzai 2, a large fishing banca carrying a crowd of family and friends of the fishermen on a Sunday afternoon outing, joined us. Much singing and laughter came from Bonzai 2 as they ate their picnic supper. After dark all was quiet and they slipped away sometime during the night without making any sound and luckily with none of our gear on their boat. Still no pirates! Only happy smiling people.
After a lay day we set off for Malanao Island. We were now only 40 miles from Puerto Princessa, the capital of Palawan. We motored round the south end of Rasa Island to be met by a wonderful 15 to 20 knot wind and some fantastic sailing to anchor at Malanao just after lunch.
We stayed for three days in this beautiful quiet place, frequented from time to time by a few bancas. Then on to Puerto Princessa (PP from now on), which we reached only after a long hot day of drifting and motoring. After passing the main port we arrived at the ‘Yacht Club’, actually the Island Boating and Maintenance Center (IBMC from now on). We found two other cruising boats there; Meridian Passage with Merv and Jeannie on board; and Tom on Perky Puffin. We had become friendly with these people at Sutera Harbor in Kota Kinabalu and were pleased to see them again.
John Lind the husband of the owner of IBMC, Cissie, came out in a dinghy to show us where to anchor and to invite us ashore for a drink. John embarrassed us with his praise for our seamanship in bringing Senta in and laying the anchor under sail, including digging the anchor in by back winding the mainsail and making Senta sail backwards. Apparently no one does that in PP, but it is our usual practice, so we were taken back by all the good words.
Our two-week stay at PP thus began with a sunset drink, cokes for us, and dinner at the waterside restaurant of IBMC where we made new friends and renewed old friendships.
More about PP and places north on Palawan, especially our close brush with a typhoon in part three !
Now that we were in the capital city of Palawan, Puerto Princessa, we decided that it was time to check into the Philippines. Up to now we had been cruising their shores as illegal immigrants.
So on Monday 28 February we set off to town from the yacht club. Our taxi ride was in the tricycle conveyance, which seems to be almost the only type of vehicle in PP (similar to the one on the right).
Although incredibly dusty, PP is litter free. The mayor of PP, a sort of warlord, has a zero tolerance policy towards littering with enormous fines for throwing the smallest bit of garbage onto the streets.
Immigration clearance was no problem. Five hundred Philippino Pesos (about fifty rand) bought us a 21-day visa. But customs clearance was a different matter. Here we met the first and only pirate we were to see in Palawan, the customs officer. He demanded fifteen hundred pesos and the same again when we checked out. We understand the fee should have been much less if anything at all.
Walking through the streets of PP we first heard the greeting, ‘Hello Joe’, which the young Filipinos give to most western foreigners. We guessed that this came from the American ‘GI Joes’. We were to hear it many more times, often from the fishing boats and small bancas we encountered in later sailing.
The Amicable Bank where we went to draw some pesos on our credit cards was a lesson in patience. The queue was so long that we had to wait for four and a half hours to conduct a transaction, which took only ten minutes. A brief e-mail session, a visit to the only supermarket in town for fresh fruit and vegetables and we beat a hasty retreat from the hot dusty hustle and bustle of PP back to Senta.
A small irritation over my right eye, which had started a few days before, was now so swollen that you almost couldn’t see that I had an eye there. Jeannie of Meridian Passage, jokingly, took to calling me ‘Elephant Eye’. I suspected a spider bite, but a study of our medical books showed that it could have been an infection, St Anthony’s fire, common in the tropics. I started a course of erythromycin and Pierre visited the pharmacist in town the next day to get some antihistamine pills and a lotion to soothe the incredible itch. It was some days before my face looked anything like normal and the itch went away. Two small crater-like sores were left behind and the scars are still visible, if you look hard. I still don’t know what it was, but I never want it to come back again!
One chore I managed to do while I was confined to Senta recovering was to wash all of the accumulated salt off Senta’s deck with a half a bucket of fresh water. We were happily able to fill up our jerry cans and tanks with fresh water from IBMC.
Life in PP now centered on the sailing and other activities at IBMC with a few trips in to town for provisions.
A regatta was held a few days after our arrival. John and Cissie asked the three cruising boats to dress up in their flags for the occasion. We all did, making a splendid sight together with some of the local boats similarly dressed, and earning us each a bottle of wine as the Best Dressed South African (New Zealand and Welsh) yacht in the 2nd IBMC regatta. A special paddling race was held for the local children. Their boats had to be made of grain sacks filled with pieces of polystyrene scavenged from hiding places in the nearby mangroves. An excellent idea, as it was very popular with the children and helped clear an eyesore on the shore. Oops ‘eyesore’ was a forbidden word on Senta at that time! Senta was the outer mark for the races so we got to see some of the action. There were races for single and double handed canoes, the children’s’ polystyrene boats and some sailing dinghies.
There were Hobies and monosail dinghies, all of which had been built by Cissie, John’s Philippino wife. She is a very energetic, likeable person who drives the sailing activities and is the leader of the women’s unit of the coast guard in PP.
John and Cissie own half of Alligator Island on the west side of Palawan in Malampaya Sound. They gave us a letter of introduction to their caretaker and asked us to make use of the facilities there. We planned to do so.
The day after the regatta a 25 to 30 knot wind blew through the anchorage. We let out more chain and sat watching to make sure all was well. A large fishing banca, Axo 2, carrying 12 fishing canoes on board, was to weather of us and the smell of rotting fish was almost overpowering. Next day the wind came back from the NE blowing hard. Axo 2 dragged down onto a newly arrived classic ketch from Montreal, and Meridian Passage decided to pick up her anchor after having been safely in the same spot for three weeks. She dragged down between Senta and Perky Puffin, miraculously not getting near either boat. John Lind rescued the Canadian ketch from Axo 2 and Merv and Jeannie re-anchored Meridian Passage. Senta sat serenely watching all of the drama as if to say, ‘What is all of the fuss about? It is only a little blow.’
Soon my eye was really on the mend and the itch moved to our feet. A couple of trips into town brought loads of fruit, vegetables, bread, ham and other cold meats to sustain us in our further wanderings.
While shopping in the excellent fresh produce market I had an awful experience. When the lady running the stall where I had bought a lot of goods went off to find change, a beautiful young woman approached me smiling. She then looked down at her arm and showed me that there were deep bleeding cuts on the underside of her fore arm. As I moved towards her to see if I could help she held up a razor blade and showed me that she had inflicted the wounds herself. I backed away and she came towards me again, almost menacingly, and I was afraid that she might attack me. Thoughts of AIDS immediately came to mind. Luckily the stall attendant appeared at that moment and the young lady melted away into the crowd. Security staff were called but they could not find her. I was told that she was frequently in the market. She had been sexually abused by her stepfather and had given birth to her first baby at the age of thirteen. Now aged 18 she had four children, all of whom were looked after by her mother. She was now mentally disturbed and this form of self-mutilation as a symptom of her problem. A very sad and disturbing experience. One that I hope to forget soon, but doubt if I will.
Two weeks after arriving at PP we left again under sail in a very light to almost non-existent wind. As we tacked away from the harbor entrance Jeannie came by in their dinghy to say that we were going the wrong way! We replied that we were taking a short cut over the land. Our destination, Meara Island in Honda Bay was 7 miles as the crow flies over land, but 15 to 20 by water, around and out of PP Bay and in to Honda Bay. So a short cut would have been a great idea, but unfortunately impossible. Cissie came out in her dinghy to say goodbye and to take a photo of Senta under sail. Pretty soon we had to start the motor, to be accused by Meridian Passage via VHF of cheating!
A good ESE wind let us sail towards Meara Island, and bright sunlight and clear water let us navigate in past the reefs to anchor behind the island by lunch time. We were very happy to be there. The anchorage was well protected from wind and swell, a cool breeze blew through the cabin, there were no mosquitoes or dust, only a few bancas. It was very good to be away from civilization
Next morning we made a breakfast of some of our huge load of fruit. We were eating it as fast as we could before it went off. Then we set sail in a moderate south easter which soon became the usual 18 knot north easter.
Under reefed main and working jib we sailed to Fondeado where Perky Puffin joined us in the mid afternoon. Tom called on the VHF to say that his chef had just informed him that there was plenty of dinner for everybody and would we care to dine on Perky Puffin. As Tom is a single-handed sailor we knew that he would cook the meal himself, and a jolly good tuna pasta it was.
Sunday 13 March was supposed to be a lay day and it was, until at lunchtime,a fresh westerly wind blew us straight back towards the reef. We had to move and raised the anchor pretty smartly. Senta then sailed into deep water outside the reefs, heading northwards and, while we were deciding what to do, the wind died. So we sailed back towards Fondeado again where we anchored to the south of some nearby sand cays for a peaceful night.
Monday morning saw us motoring away from Fondeado for an hour before the east wind started up and soon became a 25 knot north easter. We had a wonderful sail beating towards Reinhart island with Senta doing 6,5 knots to windward under reefed main and jib. We were joined by Perky Puffin and Meridian Passage during the course of the afternoon. The three cruising boats from PP were together again.
Next morning, Tuesday 15th, Jeannie informed us via the VHF radio that her weather fax showed a tropical revolving storm (TRS) at 136 degrees east. We were at 119 degrees east. At 60 miles to a degree this put it 1380 miles away. But it was tracking westwards between latitudes 11 and 12 north at about 20 knots. We were at 10 degrees north. The TRS was expected to reach the Philippines during the night of the 17th and could pass 180 miles to the north of us, much too close for comfort. This forecast was from the American weather center in Guam. A forecast from the Japanese weather bureau showed the TRS would pass to the south of us.
We had to do something. We were sitting ducks. No month of the year in the Philippines is free of typhoons, but March is one of the months with the lowest probable frequency, so it looked as if we were going to be unlucky. Fortunately there is a ‘typhoon shelter’ behind North Verde island about 2 miles to the south of us. A narrow strip of water, Pascoe channel, between North Verde Island and the Palawan shore affords good protection with mangrove swamps to east and west and narrow entrances to north and south. All three boats decided that, if the next morning’s forecasts showed that the TRS was still on track towards us, we would move into the anchorage between North Verde Island and the shore of Palawan.
The entrance to the typhoon shelter is through a very narrow pass just a stone’s throw away from the north coast of North Verde Island and another stone’s throw away from an off-lying reef. We were not looking forward to having to use that pass.
Next morning the TRS had been upgraded to a typhoon named Roke and was still on track for us. After much careful planning, waypoint plotting and waiting till the sun was just right for seeing the reefs all three boats moved safely into Pascoe Channel. Senta led the way with Pierre up on the spinnaker boom which was lashed to the shrouds and from which he could clearly see the reefs. Perky Puffin followed and a little while later Meridian Passage made the run. Referring to the narrow pass we had all just been through, Pierre asked Merv if he had leaned out and plucked a reed from the prominent fish trap on the reef as they went by.
Now to prepare the boats. We had never prepared a yacht to sit out a TRS and had hoped that we would never have to, but we had read a tremendous amount about it. The work took a lot of time and effort.
We laid two anchors in tandem; a 35lb CQR on 12 meters of chain attached to a 45 lb CQR on 50 meters of chain. A third anchor, a 65lb CQR on 80 meters of chain was prepared ready to deploy if necessary.
We stripped Senta bare.
The genoa was removed from the head stay foil and packed down below. The mainsail was similarly removed and stored below. The canvas dodgers and life buoys were stowed below. The dinghy was lowered to the deck from its nose-up wind-scooping position and strapped down. The shade net and sun covers were removed and stowed. The solar panel was removed from the top of the bimini and the bimini rolled up and securely tied. All of the halyards were securely frapped.
We prepared grab bags and life jackets in case we had to leave Senta. Sandals were put ready for possible reef walking! All loose hatch covers were taken off.
Our exact position was determined and logged for future use in checking for dragging.
We were joined in this typhoon hide away hole by a small coaster and several fishing boats.
That first night in Pascoe Channel the crews of the three boats met on Senta for drinks, a pasta dinner and much chatting. It was the first time for all us to be sitting in a typhoon shelter and waiting for a big whirly to go by.
Latest news was that, if Roke was not deflected when passing over the eastern Philippines islands of Samos, Leyte, Cebu, Negros and Panjay, it would pass to the north of us. We would then be in the favorable southern semicircle. Here the 25-knot forward motion of the typhoon would counteract the anti-clockwise 65 to 85 knot westerly winds of the typhoon itself. These would start from the NW and back through W, SW and S as it passed over. We were expecting sustained winds reduced to 35 to 40 knots with higher gusts. If however the Japanese were right, and Roke passed to the south of us, it would be another story, with 25 knots added to 65 to 80 knots giving speeds we didn’t even want to think of. We had thus made Senta as low profile as possible and a clean target for the wind. We were also hoping for lots of rain to wash away our mountains of salt.
The early morning sky next day was clear overhead, but there were signs of cirrus and other wind clouds low in the ENE.
Forecasts of Roke’s path were still contradictory, some said it would pass north of us and some said south. But the good news was that it had been down graded from a typhoon to a TRS.
Eventually the storm passed 100 miles to the north of us at 1800 that evening with maximum winds of only 30 knots and no rain. As is usual with TRSs in this area it had curved northwards and weakened after having the stuffing taken out of it by the easterly Philippine islands.
We were all relieved when the waiting was over and the storm was well to the north west of us, and agreed that although there was no real danger, we were pleased to have gone through the exercise of preparing for a TRS.
Next newsletter. Undoing all of the typhoon preparations and moving on northwards coming to a PC near you soon.
Regards, Pierre and Faith
Philippines - Circumnavigation of Palawan (Continued)
Part 4 - March to April 2005
On Friday 18 March we were up early to undo all of the previous days’ typhoon preparations. By 1130 the sails were back in place, the anchors retrieved and stowed and Senta was ready to move on.
We slowly negotiated the narrow passage we had entered two days previously and were soon close reaching in a brisk ENE wind towards Flat Island in Green Island Bay. There we anchored by mid afternoon on sand in clear turquoise water for a well-earned afternoon siesta. We were tired and thought of the often asked question about our cruising life style, ‘What do you do all day? You must get terribly bored.’ Well, I can tell you, a little boredom would be a welcome change!
Meridian Passage joined us in the late afternoon, but Perky Puffin went to nearby Green Island. A banca visited Meridian Passage, tied up behind and chatted for a while. They said they were farming lobsters and some other rare fish species in fish farms in the lee of Flat Island. They grew the fish from just-hatched eggs to large enough to eat, harvested them and sent them to Manila, the Philippines capital, by plane from a small airport nearby.
At sunset thousands of fruit bats winged their way westwards to Palawan Island for a night of searching for fruit to eat. As the sun rose the next day the bats came back, darkening the morning sky and creating a din with their squeals and squeaks as they looked for hanging space in the trees on the island.
VHF radio news from Perky Puffin was that the Green Island anchorage was deep and rocky and the boat was rolling. Tom was on his way north to the Palawan shore to find a better place. There he anchored in an onshore ENE wind and the boat was soon snatching at her anchor chain in the waves. So he set sail again and joined us later in the perfect shelter of Flat Island.
Next morning early we left under sail in a light north wind, which quickly died. Motoring out past the reefs north of Johnson Island the engine’s temperature gauge showed an overheating problem, so we were pleased to welcome the NE wind which came soon. This overheating problem continued to plague us for the rest of the cruise and is still not sorted out. We could detect no undue heat coming from the engine and suspected a faulty gauge, but could not be sure.
Under reefed main and working jib we beat to the southeast in 20-knot winds past the Green Island reefs and into the Sulu Sea, home of Abu Sayef. The wind then settled at 18 knots NE as we beat into it towards Dumuran Islands, 25 miles away to the north. The choppy sea was annoying. One wave jumped over the cabin top and down the middle hatch onto the saloon settee berths. Pierre had to spend some time below rinsing cushions, carpets etc. in fresh water. We were both feeling slightly nauseous from the motion and took Stugeron seasick tablets, which soon solved the problem.
The wind remained NE and showed no signs of veering towards the east until well after noon. Our starboard tack was taking us west of north and we were closing with the Palawan shore. Allowing for one or more port tacks we estimated that, if the wind held in the same direction, we would only arrive at our intended anchorage at Dumuran Island at 1830, much too late.
At 1400 the hoped-for wind shift happened. The seas flattened out in the lee of Dumuran, a large island, and we were able to sail directly towards our goal at five and a half knots. We had to maneuver past the many buoys and rafts of pearl farms to find a suitable place to anchor. We soon found a spot in calm, but murky water in a depth of 16 meters.
It had been eleven hours of hard, hard work. Constant sail handling, steering through the waves and navigating past reefs to take best advantage of the wind had brought us in at 1730, an hour ahead of earlier estimates. After a brief meal of Pastrami sandwiches followed by tinned peaches and cream we dived for our bunks for a glorious rest and sleep.
Perky Puffin, who had anchored on the Palawan shore at Santa Cruz Point, joined us mid morning. Meridian Passage, who had come from Flat Island after spending another day there, arrived later in the afternoon. They had done what they called a ‘Pierre and Faith’, and actually sailed most of the way into the wind, something they hardly ever did previously. They enjoyed it and, pleased with how their boat handled, planned to do more up-wind sailing in the future.
Much to our annoyance fires on Dumuran dropped ash and bits of burnt vegetation onto Senta. In spite of this problem Meridian Passage and Senta stayed another day at Dumuran. Merv and Jeannie launched their rubber dinghy and went to the local village hoping to bring back basket loads of fruit and vegetables. However all they could find were a handful of onions and a small watermelon, which they shared with us.
On Wednesday 25 March we set off northwards again, sailing in a moderate ENE wind in company with (actually racing!) Meridian Passage. Navigating through the many pearl farms between Dumuran and Palawan Islands added a considerable extra challenge. Six hours of beating brought us 30 miles further north to the swanky resort island of Apulit. The water was deep, 40 meters or more and the bottom was coral or rocks with a few isolated sand patches. We eventually found a spot in 26 meters and deployed our deep-water ground tackle of a 35lb CQR anchor on 12 meters of chain and up to 100 meters of warp. We could not use our usual 45lb CQR and fifty meters of chain as we would have been unable to raise that weight again on our hand operated windlass. We feared that we might have anchored on a bommie.
As the sun set a motorboat came out from the shore and the ‘security officer’ on board approached the three yachts asking for a 500 pesos (50 rand) anchoring fee from each. We all complained that we had been there since mid-day and no one had told us there was a fee to pay. Now, when it was too dark to move away through the coral, they came to demand money. We refused to pay; in spite of the explanation that they had to provide security against possible terrorist attacks from Abu Sayef, and vague gestures in the direction of a Philippines navy boat anchored nearby. We said that we would leave the following morning as soon as it was light enough to see.
As promised we prepared to leave early next morning but couldn’t. The anchor was snagged on something. We tried motoring this way and that and backwards and forwards, but nothing worked. Eventually we had to lead the bitter end of the anchor warp back to the cockpit and round our primary genoa winch, before we managed to free the anchor. Then there was no wind so we motored through many more pearl farms to another resort on Butacan Island.
Again we anchored on a bommie, this time in only 14 meters of water. Later in the day Merv dived under Senta and confirmed this, but said that our chain and anchor were not tangled with the coral and should come free easily.
Perky Puffin arrived to join Senta and Meridian Passage in the late afternoon. Tom had detoured to the Palawan town of Tay Tay and brought loads of fresh fruit and vegetables for the three boats.
In the evening we all went ashore for a farewell dinner at the Flower Island Resort. We planned to round the top of Palawan and sail back to Kota Kinabalu down the west side. The other two boats were going to sail to the Calamanian group of Islands and Meridian passage would eventually carry on to Japan after further exploring the Philippines.
We were pleased to visit this beautiful resort; wood, grass mat and thatched huts and buildings set on white sand below coconut trees; paths lined with brilliant orange lilies nodding in the breeze; paved pathways for strolling round the island and a helicopter pad hand-built unobtrusively into a rocky outcrop. To top it all was an excellent dinner and friendly companionship. Tom had us in gales of laughter as he told us of the swimming pig at James Brooke Point. We too had seen pigs there, but none of them swimming. Tom had gone ashore for a stroll and met a man walking with a pig at his side. As they neared the beach the pig ran into the water and the man followed it. There the pig cavorted and squealed like a small child as the man splashed water at it. Tom’s antics trying to show us how the pig acted in the water was what amused us so. The man told Tom that his pig loved swimming and had to be taken to the beach every morning and every evening.
As we walked away from the restaurant towards the dinghies after dinner we were entranced by the wonderful sight of the three yachts lying peacefully in the moonlight waiting for us. We sat for a while on the beach absorbing the scene and imbedding it forever in our memories.
Next morning we used the 25-knot ENE wind to sail the anchor away from the possible snags of the bommie. Accompanied by the other two boats we sailed fast northwards on a fetch, which soon became a reach in the freeing wind. We reached our planned anchorage between Durocatan Island and Palawan at 1030 and decided to carry on and round the northern tip of Palawan. We had identified and marked on our charts a number of possible anchoring spots within an easily reachable distance, on what we considered to be the sheltered leeward side of Palawan.
We said a final goodbye to Meridian Passage and Perky Puffin via VHF radio.
As we sailed further north we noticed a swell coming from the northwest. As Senta romped round the northern cape this swell became bigger and bigger. There was to be no lee side of the island as far as the swell was concerned. All of our possible anchorages, though well protected from the NE wind were completely untenable because of this swell. We sailed 25 miles down the west side of Palawan investigating each anchorage, in big seas and with bullets of wind funneling through the gaps in the mountains.
Eventually ten hours after leaving Butacan Island we found shelter next to Malapacao Island deep into Bacquit Bay. The many high vertical cliffs in this bay make for strong gusts of wind that could have knocked Senta flat, except that we had reefed sails and the wind behind us.
It had been a very hard sail with constant sail trimming and navigation topped by the anxiety about finding an anchorage. After ensuring that Senta was secure we made a meal of sardines and salami on cream crackers, and were in bed and asleep by 2000. The night wind, coming cool off the mountains, made us cover up with blankets, a real novelty for us.
Next day was a well-earned lay day. At 0855 we listened to the South East Asian Mobile Maritime Network for yotties, often called Rowdie’s or Richard’s net. We were keen to hear the weather forecast. Without Meridian Passage and her weather faxes nearby we would have to keep our own weather watch while in typhoon country. Unfortunately the network wasn’t terribly reliable, often omitting their weather slot. We got better information from CNN. We are able to receive the audio portion of their television transmission on our World Space satellite radio.
The remainder of the day we rested, read, baked bread-rolls and cinnamon buns and admired the scenery. Malapacao Island has the usual white beach and palm trees, but these are backed by tall, gray, eroded, vertical cliffs, which reminded us of the Phi Phi Islands in Thailand. But we didn’t have to put up with all of the tourists and the noisy motorboats and longtails.
At night, high up on the cliffs we saw the lights and fires of ‘cavers’ who came to harvest the birds nests that fill the caves.
Slash and burn activities on Palawan continued to be a nuisance and we kept our mosquito nets on Senta’s hatches all day and night to stop the ash from coming below decks.
Two more lay days followed. On the second of these we were visited by a rubber dinghy carrying Hank and Joy of the yacht Maya2 that was anchored at Corong Corong Bay a few miles further north.
CNN news told us of another earthquake close to the site of the December 26 quake that caused the devastating tsunamis, and a powerful cyclone in the southern Indian Ocean, heading for Mauritius and affecting the weather at Chagos with 40-knot winds and a week of rain. We were glad to be in a more peaceful part of the world.
By Tuesday 29 March we were on our way again, this time NW out of Bacquit Bay and then south, through Endeavour Strait into Malampaya Sound where we anchored in a very sheltered bay called Pirates’ Cove.
Endeavour Strait is the home of the largest community we had seen since Puerto Princessa. The people live in stilt houses built out over the water and commute in bancas.
Next day we sailed eight miles further south to anchor opposite John Lind and Cissie’s place at Alligator Island. We were to stay here for seven days before we pulled ourselves away. More of that in the next and final newsletter covering our Palawan adventure.
Kind regards
Faith and Pierre
Philippines - Circumnavigation of Palawan (Continued)
Part 5 - April 2005
Once safely anchored at Alligator Island we launched the dinghy, did a little sailing and got to know some of the local inhabitants.
Bertil, a Norwegian civil engineer, who was circumnavigating when he reached Malampaya sound, met and married Dellia, a Filipino lady. Bertil has built a large chalet on the slopes of a hill and has established many farming operations - poultry, 40 species of fish, vegetables and trees. He and Dellia have two children, David and Ylva.
We were invited to David’s ninth birthday party. This was held on the beach at Pirates Bay, seven miles away to the north. The venue was chosen so that David’s schoolmates from the village nearby could attend. John, a Canadian yottie and his Filipino wife Joy, in their banca, gave us a lift to the party. A choppy sea, fresh winds and John’s heavy foot on the gas got us pretty wet in a short time.
What a party it was! There were over 50 people, mainly children, who spent their time in the clear seawater swimming, laughing, playing and eating. Everyone swam in his or her clothes. There is no money for swimming costumes, or toys for that matter. Playthings were empty 2-liter cold drink bottles as water wings, coconuts as balls, polystyrene icebox lids as surfboards and flip flop sandals as swimming aids. The adults sat on mats on the deeply shaded beach drinking beer, local rum and fruit juice. The birthday food consisted of a spit-roasted pig, many different noodle and rice dishes and a large birthday cake. A lady Born Again Christian missionary with a clear, melodious voice led the prayers and singing to wish David a happy birthday. Bertil, John, Pierre and I were the only ‘foreigners’ there. All of the rest were Filipinos.
At midday we sighted a yacht motoring in to the sound. Bertil, John And I, accompanied by several children went out to the yacht, Moonbay, in Bertil’s motorboat to ask the crew of the yacht to join the party. They were only too pleased to do so . Andrew (English), Lisa (Chinese) and Rene (Filipino) were soon on shore enjoying cold beers, roast pig and birthday cake chatting away to people they had only just met, as if they had known them for years.
After lunch the mothers, now well-oiled with beer and rum, sang and danced while the children gathered round, some of them wide eyed and all of them clapping and singing, to watch their moms let their hair down.
Our second banca ride of the day, even wetter than the first, took us back to the peace and quiet of Senta in time for afternoon tea.
John, a Canadian financial advisor and owner of a Tayana55, Mad Max, had also interrupted his sailing to settle in Malampaya Sound and marry Joy. They have no children and live on their island, Double Cone, where they have built a comfortable home and continue to develop it. They are busy with a project to reforest a large tract of land nearby on Palawan and are hoping to make some money out of it, as well as repair some of the damage done by loggers.
On the day they had invited us for lunch the wind blew so hard that we could not get to their island in the dinghy either under sail power or rowing. As lunchtime approached and we did not appear, Joy guessed what the problem was and send John to fetch us in the dreaded banca – another couple of drenchings there and back!
John and Cissie’s caretaker, Mayong, lives in a rambling barn-like structure on the shore below the main house with his wife and numerous children. He fishes from his banca, ‘The Pink Lady’, which is not pink but a dirty khaki color. He grows hill rice, bananas and other fruit on the island and keeps some pigs for meat. The pigs live in a sty suspended over the beach and seawater on stilts, making it very easy to clean out the sty.
We enjoyed sailing the dinghy, but an unexpected hazard was caused by the giant pink jellyfish that abound in the southern part of the sound. Hitting one with the centerboard made a big noise and gave the dinghy a sharp jerk, which certainly alarmed us the first time it happened. When these jellyfish become so numerous as to be a plague, the locals harvest them and export them to China.
Bertil liked the look of our dinghy so much that he borrowed and copied the plans so that he could build a similar one for his children. They will have a wonderful time sailing it in the sound.
After a week at Alligator Island we felt that we were getting stuck there. So on Wednesday 6 April we collected some fresh water and a hand of bananas from Mayong and sailed north out of Malampaya Sound. We then turned south and 30 miles further on, after a fantastic sail on a port broad reach, we anchored behind Cone Island in Imuruan Bay.
A lay day was declared, as we needed to repair a long section of the mainsail luff that had been badly chaffed by the topping lift.
The following day Senta left Imuruan Bay running slowly goose-winged to the west in 5 knots of wind to round Buoyani Island. We met a Philippines Coast Guard vessel coming out of Port Barton, and called them on the VHF radio to identify ourselves. The Coast Guard thanked us for doing this and then asked us to keep an eye out for a lost fishing boat, the six-ton Emileen, painted yellow. Emileen’s motor had broken down and they were drifting. Having no GPS on board they had no idea where they were. If we should happen to spot them we were asked to tell them their position so that they could radio it to the coast guard on their high frequency radio. Unfortunately we never saw the Emileen, but hoped that they were found soon as the wind and tide were taking them towards the ‘Dangerous Ground’ portion of the South China Sea.
The wind continued light all day and we motored for the last hour into Jib Boom Bay, at the entrance to which we found and enchanting village. Pierre was so taken with it that he said he had found his paradise and would stop there to live as the village parson!
Two days later we tore ourselves away from Jib Boom Bay and headed south in ever decreasing winds past Ulugan Bay and Table Point to anchor on an almost open coastline just north of Fish Bay. The coast was lined with tall cliffs and mountains so we had to sail fairly far offshore to avoid losing the wind.
We were now entering an area full of reefs and rocks and apparently not too many good anchorages, so we would have to be on our toes. We would try to continue to dayhop down to the south end of Palawan, but had planned some escape routes out to the open sea if necessary.
Leaving Fish Bay we motored for two and a half hours until the NE wind appeared at 0945 and blew at ten to fifteen knots all day. This enabled us to run goose-winged to Apuruan Point where we anchored in a small bay just south of Long Point in the middle of the afternoon. The swell miraculously disappeared as we rounded the last part of Long Point, so we anchored there instead of further into the bay opposite the village.
Here, as at all other places on the west coast of Palawan we were struck by the difference to the east coast. There was far more vegetation and no evidence of indiscriminate logging.
Next day we proceeded to Nakado Bay past several dangers to port; a reef off Apuruan Point, a rock awash further on, several reefs and small islands un-named on the chart, as well as Palm Island and Tide Pole Island. No wind or fickle winds eventually settling in the NW caused us to have to motor for five of the eight hour leg. Then as we motored past Triple Cima and Surinao Islands into Nakoda Bay, a rain shower and misjudgment caused us to anchor too far out in the bay for a particularly uncomfortable night in the swell.
We needed another lay day and as soon as sunlight permitted we moved Senta behind Surinao Island out of the swell. We were becoming concerned about diesel consumption with all of the motoring we had done and seemed likely still to do. But an inspection of the diesel tank showed that we had used 140 liters since leaving Kota Kinabalu and still had 160 liters left. So that was not a problem.
We were anchored near the town of Quezon Alfonzo XVIII, so there was much banca traffic all calling out to us, ‘Hello Joe!’
At 0715 on 14 April we left Nakoda Bay in no wind and motored for over three hours before a 10 to 15-knot NNE wind gave us an excellent broad reach to Culasian Bay. We anchored in front of a village of grass mat huts with thatched roofs spread out over a long stretch of pure white beach. There were many bancas anchored near us including ‘Divine Mercy’. Several bancas were being built on the shore. A wind generator was visible above the tops of the coconut trees and there were sounds of power tools being used at the banca building sites. This was obviously a more prosperous village than many of the others we had seen to date.
A large reef off the north head of the bay gave good protection from the swell and a 3500-meter high mountain nearby provided a magnificent backdrop to the scene of fishing village activity.
During the ensuing lay day at Culasian we carefully planned our route to repose Point and entered preset waypoints into the GPS. The large mountain generated enough cloud cover to bring us the first rain we had seen in three months and we were able to collect a bucket and a small jerry can of welcome washing water.
Early next day we set off to Repose, probably our last stop on the Palawan coast, motoring again for the first few hours. A rain shower made our approach to Repose point a bit tricky, as did a fishing boat anchored on our waypoint! We had to anchor further out in the bay in a slight swell. But we enjoyed the rain, collected some more water, showered ourselves and washed the decks.
Next morning to escape the swell we moved about a half a mile in a NNE direction closer up under the reef at the north end of the bay. A fisherman in a canoe came by to sell us a coral trout. He asked 800 pesos (80 rand!) We eventually gave him 300 pesos and a pack of Marlborough cigarettes. No we haven’t taken up smoking, but we kept a supply of packs of ten cigarettes to use for barter. We filleted, cooked and ate the delicious fish for lunch.
On April 19 we left Palawan, sailing first to its southern tip and then southeastwards into the North Balabac Strait. The NE wind was fresher and more consistent than we had experienced for some time as we moved away from the influence of the Palawan mountains. The water in the strait was only slightly disturbed and there was no sign of the tide rips shown on the chart. By lunchtime, after a wonderful sail we completed the circumnavigation of Palawan as we passed the entrance to Caboan Bay on the eastern side of Balabac Island. We had last been there 64 days previously, and had averaged ten miles per day including stops to close the loop. The wind was so good that we carried on a further 13 miles to anchor again in Clarendon Bay almost on top of our previous anchoring spot, courtesy of the GPS. We had traveled 51 miles that day in ten hours, seven of which were under sail, but were not nearly as tired as on prior long hoops, because the wind was behind us and we had made no sail changes. Also, once away from Repose Point we left the many reefs and hazards off the south Palawan coast behind and navigation was much easier.
Next day we were woken early by the NE wind to see a small Freedom ketch enter the bay. Her white hull, twin free standing black masts and wishbone rigged sails looked familiar. It was Ferdinand and family who we had last seen in Langkawi.
The change over from the NE to the SW monsoon season was starting and we were eager to make best use of the NE winds before they faded away. So we left Clarendon Bay early next day. Senta dashed across the Balabac Strait in a 15-knot wind and we were soon approaching Banggi Island. We decided not to stop but continued on to Balambangan Island and down its west coast. Once there we struggled to find a good anchorage, bedeviled by deep water, rocks, reefs and swell coming down both sides of Balambangan and making a washing machine of the water on the SW corner of the island. Eventually we found a small patch of sand to anchor on and the swell settled down as the wind died for the night.
The next leg to the Borneo coast took us to the legendary ‘Land Below the Wind’. Sure enough the wind abated considerably and we had to curtail our planned 40-mile stage to Mantanani Islands and go instead to the Garu River mouth. From there we had to motor most of the way to Mantanani, except for an hour of sailing in a light SW wind.
Our anchorage at Mantanani Besar island was in crystal clear water where we could see the rocks and sand on the bottom in a depth of 14 meters. We were able to maneuver to drop our anchor onto a large sand patch. Soon a young man in a canoe approached us from the village wanting to sell us coconuts. We bought two green ones for a few ringgit and a pack of cigarettes. Later three other canoes arrived also wanting cigarettes. Did they think Senta was a dispensing machine?!
We hadn’t had a lay day since Clarendon Bay so did some boat chores, put away Palawan charts, got out Borneo charts and then swam under Senta to clean her bottom. There were few barnacles so that job was quickly done. More beggars came during the day for cigarettes and booze. We were getting pretty fed up with this. We told them that the cigs were finished and that, as we were Muslims, we didn’t drink! Our noses grew a few millimeters for those two lies, a la Pinocchio. At night we could see flares from the nearby oil fields, which were invisible through the haze during the day. Good SE winds from Borneo kept us cool at night.
Tired of the continuing begging visits from the village we moved three miles westwards to Mantanani Kechil Island. In the Malay language, Besar means big and Kechil means small. The smaller island was very beautiful and peaceful with the same excellent water clarity , beaches, rocks and vegetation, but without the beggars. At least until sunset when a man paddled nearly a mile from fishing boat anchored at he other end of the island to ask for alcohol.
Enough was enough and we planned to move on. But how? There was no wind during the day, but we had noticed that for the past few days there had been a useful SE wind blowing all night. As there would be good moonlight we went to bed early and set the alarm for 0230. We left Mantanani at 0245 in bright moonlight for a pleasant sail to Usukan on the Borneo coast. Progress was good until the rising sun killed the wind and we had to motor the last hour to Usukan Island.
We changed the engine oil as it seemed that in this land below the wind we would be doing a fair amount of motoring. We were concerned about the apparent engine-overheating problem. So we implemented Plan B, rigged the spinnaker and used it to good effect on the next leg to Sapangar Bay.
There we anchored near a noisy, dusty open cast tin mine. Don’t ask us why. We really don’t know. But when the sun set, the mining continued, the wind changed through 180 degrees and blew the mining dust straight towards Senta. So in the moonlight we moved further into the bay to anchor in the mouth of the Mengatal River for a good quiet, undusty night.
We were now only ten miles from Kota Kinabalu, which we reached the next day by beating slowly into a light westerly. The change over season was now well established and we may have left our return a little late as the NE wind had deserted us. On the way in to anchor at the Kota Kinabalu Yacht Club as we passed outside of Gaya Island, a large black shark , at least 12 feet long, surprised us. He swam agitatedly close by the cockpit. He may have been basking in the sun and been disturbed by us creeping up silently under sail. He scared us more than any of the tales of pirates in the areas we had visited.
We had now completed our Palawan adventure and enjoyed every minute of it, well almost every minute! We would definitely go that way again.
Having established that Sutera Harbor Marina still have the same crazy rules about heads (nauticalese for toilets), where you either have a toilet connected to a holding tank, or you have no toilet., we removed our toilet and moved into the marina.
We are now busy doing dozens of small and not so small jobs on Senta and planning a visit to South Africa and Germany during June and July to visit family and friends.
So we will see some of you then,
Kind regards
Faith and Pierre
PREVIOUS NEWSLETTERS
Borneo – Kuching to Kota Kinabalu July 2004 to January 2005
We spent six interesting weeks anchored in the Santubong river near Kuching. A few days after arriving at Santubong Colin unearthed his spare propeller and had a spacer made for it. We all then stood 'croc watch' as Colin dived underneath Deja Vu to fit the propeller. Now the yacht was not so vulnerable to dragging as at least she had an operable motor to help her out of trouble.
About twice a week we took a 30km ride into Kuching at a cost of R3. There we would shop, sightsee, do e-mail etc. These were tiring expeditions; dinghy to shore, cycle half way up a hill to leave the bikes chained to the fence of the police station, walk up the rest of the hill to the bus stop, wait for the bus (sometimes half an hour late or not at all!), bounce along in the bus over the uneven roads, shop , have lunch, shop again and then reverse the whole process to arrive back at Senta just before sunset.
And then the mosquitoes would arrive in their hoards, chasing us down into the cabin. Luckily, Liberty on Wanderlust, another South African boat that had joined us, had a good idea. At her suggestion we purchased a large mosquito net designed to hang from the ceiling over a double bed. This we suspended from the cockpit bimini and tucked the edges under the cockpit cushions and around the main hatch, making a wonderful mossie proof place in which to spend the evenings.
One of our favorite lunch spots on the visits to town was at a water front cafe where they served 'Sumptuous Joy', a dish of fried soft shelled crabs. Yummy yummy!
One day as Colin and Glyn of Deja Vu were having sundowners they noticed a large log floating nearby. After a while they realized that it wasn't floating out to sea in the ebb tide as it should have been. It was a crocodile! The next day they mentioned this episode to Zam, the caretaker of Datu Linggi's riverside establishment. 'Oh yes', replied Zam, 'He lives on the sandbank just at the next bend in the river. His wife died some months ago and he gets very lonely on his own. So he sometimes comes to visit.' A lonely crocodile indeed! Now I had heard everything.
Zam and the other Sarawak locals working for Datu Linggi were fond of telling us stories of what must have been the most fantastic thing in their lives. To reward them for their loyal service the Datu had flown them to Malta and then they helped him cruise his large yacht eastwards through the Mediterranean. They proudly wore the t-shirts they had bought along the way and told of happy times sailing and living it up in the ports they visited.
The annual Sarawak rain forest musical festival was held over three days. We went to the first evening and although the setting was magnificent in a clearing in the rain forest, the music wasn't really to our taste. Another negative was that we had to sit on the hard ground for four and a half hours. But nevertheless we enjoyed ourselves.
One Sunday we were visited by Jackie and Jeffrey riding their wet bike from the Sarawak Boat Club out to visit one of the nearby islands. They told us that they had recently bought a new Benetau 40 footer and, with no previous sailing experience had sailed it out from the south of France to Singapore. We saluted such bravery and wished them well with their future sailing adventures. Some weeks later they successfully sailed the boat from Singapore to Santubong where they anchored it up the river near the boat club.
We twice visited the boat club for lunch. We were told by the fisherman who lived on floating rafts in the river near the club that they had to move their rafts far out into the river to avoid attacks on their catch by crocodiles who lived on the bank
The final stages of the second cloning of our credit cards were completed as the replacement cards were couriered in to us at Kuching. Thanks once again to Judy Ryder for her most appreciated help in this regard.
We were charmed by the celebration that Kuching makes of its name, which means 'cat' in Malay. Many many cat statues decorate the town and we sent umpteen cat postcards home to friends and family. In fact we got an e-mail from Ingrid's boxer, Tyson, asking us to 'stop sending all those cat things!!' as he didn't like cats. An enjoyable morning was spent by the crews of Deja Vu, Senta and Wanderlust roaming around the Cat museum which sits on a hill overlooking Kuching. Many were the comments, 'Oh you've got to look at this one. Isn't he cute!' etc.
All too soon we had to make preparations to leave. We wanted to get to Kota Kinabalu, near the northern tip of Borneo before the south west monsoon died, and would be stopping in Brunei and at Labuan and Tiga islands on the way. Fresh water was available from Datu Linggi's jetty and Zam fetched diesel for us in the Land Rover, so that part was easy. We were concerned about the barnacles we could see growing on the rudder. But with the crocs around there was nothing we could do about them. During the official check-out process the customs official was horrified when we filled in our departure date as Friday 13th! In fact we delayed our departure until 0945Sunday when we motor sailed out of the Santubong river on the first stage of our journey to Kota Kinabalu, 600 miles away to the north west.
This first stage was only 20 miles to Pulau Lakei off the Baku national Park. There we anchored at 1530 and spent two hours swimming and diving under Senta to attack the barnacles. We managed to clean the rudder and propeller, but only about one quarter of the carpet of barnacles on the rest of the hull, before the swiftly flowing tidal current made further swimming too dangerous. That evening as we sat resting in the cockpit we saw two amazing things. First was a large ray with a 'wing span' of three meters sailing out of the water close by. Secondly we saw some pink dolphins. They were in amongst a school of the usual grey dolphins. But they were bright 'bubble gum pink'. Later we checked on the Internet and learned that they are an endangered species, the Indo Pacific hump backed dolphin. So the Baku Park certainly gave us our share of marine wild life.
At 0700 the next day we set out on a fairly long leg of about 400 miles to Pulau Labuan, the Malaysian duty free island off the coast of Brunei. As we left in a freshening SSE wind we passed several commercial ships and navy craft coming from and going to Kuching. Senta was sailing along at 5 knots in a wind in which she should have been doing closer to 7 knots. So the barnacles were definitely holding her back. The favorable SSE wind blew all day but died just before sunset. We then motored for a few hours until a good ten to twelve knot NW wind joined us for the rest of the night, as we sailed past many many fishing boats and rounded Tanjung (Cape) Sirik.
As the sun rose the next morning the wind backed through the west to SSW. So we gybed onto starboard and sailed on. The wind repeated the previous day's pattern, dying in the late afternoon, when we motored for a few hours, and then picking up from the NW and blowing all night. We passed fewer fishing boats than the previous night and a few small oilfields, all of which were well lit and marked on our charts.
Wednesday morning found us still running goose winged on starboard . At the 0900 sight I discovered that I had made an error in entering into the GPS the co-ordinates of the way point at Labuan. Our required course changed from 051 to 072 degrees, so we gybed onto port tack. Luckily our distance to go to Labuan had shortened from 160 to 130 miles. An error in our favour, but an error nevertheless. A warning to be more careful, and a reinforcement of the need to keep a running track on charts to validate what the GPS is telling you.
A small swallow joined us mid morning and stayed resting on Senta for more than a day before flying off on his travels. We were very happy to provide refuge for him. The wind died in the early evening and we motored all night through the many oilfields that litter the sea just west of Labuan and Brunei. We took sights every hour and navigated very carefully, checking with binoculars in case there were any unlit obstacles. In fact we did see a massive unlit barge. But it was anchored at least a half a mile off our course, so was no danger, but scary nevertheless.
Next morning the sun rise brought some light wind from the south. But it slowly died to nothing at mid day so we resorted to the dreaded motoring. Our distance to Labuan was now less than 50 miles. In the last hours of twilight we reached Karuman Island about nine miles south of Labuan. As we negotiated the reefs and rocks a 25 knot squall struck from the NW. We quickly sailed away from the dangers. The squall was soon over allowing us to anchor for a peaceful night's rest NE of the sand spit at Karuman island.
This anchorage was perfect; no mossies, calm crystal clear water, quiet and beautiful. We seized the opportunity and swam underneath Senta to get rid of the damned barnacles that had made us stick in the sea. We stayed in this lovely place for several days, painting new anti fouling onto the dinghies bottom and starting to make a new cover for our cockpit bimini.
Being close to Labuan we were now able to contact Deja Vu by cell phone. They told us that when they tried to leave Santubong they couldn't raise their anchor. After several hours of motoring this way and that and almost pulling Deja Vu's nose under the water they had to give up. Next day Colin dived into the water, in spite of the possibility of crocodiles. He discovered that the anchor chain had wrapped itself many, many times around what is called a 'river mooring'. This is a large drum filled with concrete, with several long steel pipes thrust through to stop it rolling in the current. Colin had to dive each day for four days for a couple of hours at low tide to unravel the mess. Visibility was almost nil, currents strong and the threat of a croc attack always there. We anxiously followed progress via cellphone SMS messages. At last they were free and on their way to join us.
After a final dive under Senta to check on barnacle growth, of which fantastically there was none, we sailed in a light SE wind to anchor at Labuan, about ten miles away. There we stayed for about two weeks. The island is flat so we were able to take our bikes ashore in a water taxi and explore the town. We found a good market near the water taxi drop off point, cold storage shops selling bacon, ham, New Zealand beef, mutton and cheese, supermarkets, cybercafes, KFC, Pizza Hut and the Port View restaurant where we had several good dinners watching Senta and Deja Vu floating peacefully at anchor.
We visited the now defunct marina opposite a very fancy five star hotel. An on shore storm had damaged the jetties and some boats. All of the jetties had been removed and we would have been allowed to anchor in the marina. But as there was no way of getting from the anchored boats to the shore this was not feasible. We were quite happy anchored between the ferry terminal and the marine police jetty.
This happiness was disturbed a few nights later in an easterly squall which blew straight into the river. Deja Vu caught her anchor retrieval rope round her keel, lifted her own anchor and set off up river directly towards some large barges carrying sand and bricks. Glynn was still awake and shouted for Colin who started the motor. Unfortunately, the retrieval rope, which had now freed itself, caught in the propeller and stopped the motor. They now had to deploy their spare anchor in a hurry and managed to stop the drag in 2 meters of water just inches from the barges. Colin then had to dive with bottles to free the propeller before they could motor back to anchor. Colin and Glyn were both drenched from the rain, covered in mud and exhausted. Senta had not moved an inch. We hoped that Deja Vu's anchoring mishaps were now over. Three times she had gone walk about; once in Penang, once at Pulau Aur and now in Labuan.
After two weeks we tired of harbour life and sailed back to Karuman Island, where we dived under Senta to clean her off. On the second day as Pierre was working on the rudder he glanced upwards and saw a snake. A banded Krait, one of the most deadly poisonous snakes, for which there is no anti venom, had decided to join us. Quietly Pierre told me there was a snake around and to get out of the water. Within 2 seconds I was half way up the boarding ladder on the transom. But as I was climbing in flippers, I couldn't get any further. So Pierre was stuck in the water. He hung onto the back stay and push pit and pulled himself out of harm's way until I could manage to remove the flippers and free the ladder for him. By then his muscles were bursting from the strain! We shouted, wiggled the rudder and struck around in the water with the boat hook. But the snake wouldn't go away. We kept seeing his tail disappearing under Senta. So we upped anchor and motored quickly away doing zig zags and fast turns before re-anchoring in a new spot. Now the snake was gone and Pierre finished the cleaning job. But there was no way I was going back into the water.
After this mini break we had a glorious sail back to Victoria Harbour at Labuan only to learn that our trusty old blue bicycles had been stolen. We had left them chained up to some concrete pillars near the water taxi steps and the temptation had been too much for some one to resist. We had almost considered giving the bikes away to some village children at Santubong so were not so upset that they were gone. But we had just spent several hundred rand having them serviced, so griped a bit about the lawless monsters in Labuan. Pierre said he was glad the bikes were gone and was looking forward to buying new ones in Kota Kinabalu.
We decided to take advantage of Labuan's duty free status and bought Senta a new VHF radio, as her old one was working only intermittently. We paid about R1300 for one which would have cost nearly R3000 in South Africa, so we made up a bit for the stolen bikes.
During the next few days we stocked up on fresh provisions, and took a day long taxi tour of the island's tourist sights – none of them being worth visiting except the bird park. The highlight of this visit was a beautiful white parrot with hints of an apricot hue in its plumage. As we moved closer to its perch, it sidled up to Colin and whispered 'Hellooooo!' in a low sultry seductive voice. We all collapsed laughing. The flock of black swans was our second favorite, as they glided wake less around their pond.
The day before we left for Brunei we watched as a large ship moored herself to the customs wharf, using an anchor to hold her head off the jetty. A very seaman like display. In fact all boat handling at Labuan, including the water taxis is wonderful to watch. Our trip to Brunei was made in two stages. The first to our now familiar haunt of Karuman Island and then the crossing to Muara, Brunei on the mainland. Brunei is ruled by a sultan, reputedly one of the wealthiest men in the world. He refused to let his sultanate be amalgamated into the state of Malaysia, probably afraid to lose all of that oil money. The contrast between Brunei is startling. Malaysia is modern, efficient and tourist friendly. Brunei dirty, backward, hopeless and tourist hostile. The sultan's notorious brother, Jeffrey, now persona non grata there, allegedly wasted $30 billion of the country's money, owned 3000 motor cars, a lot of them from Rolls Royce, and used his position as head of the state owned road construction company to build many roads along which he could race his cars. So at least the roads are good, for a while, until the potholes set in. We were sad to see so much oil money coming in to the state coffers and very little evidence of anything being spent on the people.
We only stayed there two weeks, anchored at the Royal Brunei Yacht Club's Muara beach site. This is an ex-pat hang out. But with no liquor on sale in Brunei, the Brits, Aussies and New Zealanders living there spend a good deal of time visiting Labuan or the neighbouring Malaysian states of Sarawak and Sabah to buy stocks of booze. The highlight of their week was the Thursday night buffet dinner at the yacht club. It was admittedly good and we attended both Thursdays we were there. The swimming pool and library of English novels were a definite attraction.
We launched our dinghy and sailed in company with the club's fleet of lasers, ISO s, Hobies and optimists. The swiftly flowing tide makes sailing difficult. You can't go out unless there at least six knots of breeze, or else you will get swept out to sea or up the river.
After a pizza evening on Deja Vu, during which we entertained some of the yacht club members who had been good to us, and some final washing of clothes, towels, sheets etc in the club's twin tub washing machine we had a final lunch at the yacht club and checked out with the immigration and customs authorities. We had just over 100 miles to go to Kota Kinabalu and planned to do this in day hops. The first of which was a 29 mile leg to the NE tip of Labuan at the 'Chimney', a large brick tower whose use is obscure. The exit from Muara harbour was uncomfortable in a choppy sea with light wind. But a later SE breeze of 12 to 18 knots got us to N Labuan well before sunset.
The anchorage there was so rolly that we moved further south the next morning for a slightly better night's rest. Tiga Island, our next planned stop was 30 miles away. We left Labuan under motor in very little wind and then motor sailed in 4 to 6 knots for four hours. Then a set of rain squalls arrived from the NW. We put a reef in the main and furled down to working jib. But the wind gradually died and we increased sail again. As we approached Tiga we were wary of anchoring there in the unsettled conditions. So we opted to stop at Kuala Penyu on the mainland, where we had a good peaceful, unrolly night. There we stayed for two and a half days before sailing in a good SW wind to anchor on the east side of Tiga island.
Two days at Tiga were enough. One afternoon we visited the sand spit at 'Snake Island', but happily didn't see any snakes. Anchorage there was not an option because of the NW wind. We were now dawdling to delay our re-entry to Malaysia so that our next three month visa would not expire too near the Christmas period..
On Wednesday 13th October, Pierre's birthday, we set off again northwards and motor sailed to anchor at Dinawan Island in a narrow passage between that island and Everett Reef to its east side. There we stayed for three days while the wind blew strongly from the SW, dropping tons of rain on us. Thank goodness we had, quite unplanned, anchored in the almost perfect spot for such a bout of unpleasant weather. It was quite scary though with the reef just 100 meters behind us. But Senta's anchor held well and we were very comfortable. Got a lot of reading done!
On Sunday 17th October we motor sailed to Sutera Harbour Marina at Kota Kinabalu. There we were greeted by Fred of 'Nepenthe' whom we had last seen at Sebana Cove near Johor Bahru on peninsular Malaysia.
The Sutera complex has two 5-star hotels, many swimming pools, including an Olympic sized one, restaurants, a cinema, boutique, gym, sauna, hot showers, jacuzzis, tennis courts, squash courts, badminton courts, a golf course and free air conditioned coach transport into town every hour. All ours for only R1700 per month. Quite pricey on our budget, but excellent value for money. So we have been spoiling ourselves for almost four months. A ferry trip back to Muara, Brunei, renewed our visas which expired in mid January.
We have been busy in KK, as the locals all call Kota Kinabalu. We couldn't find any bicycles to buy, so bought a small Malaysian made motor cycle instead. It is silver all over and goes like a bomb! But we never go faster than 50 KM/h – well almost never!.
Boat and engine maintenance has been done, including the massive job of painting the decks. Pierre has been backwards and forwards to the auto electrician getting the alternators up to scratch. Some varnishing has happened with a lot still to come. New hatch covers have been made and a hundred other small jobs. We are still waiting for our chains and anchors to come back from galvanizing. But this may never happen as the galvanizing bath has sprung a leak and 'Manana' is operating full strength as far as the fixing of the leak is concerned. So if need be we will get our ground tackle back un galvanized, as we sure need it on passage.
One night a water rat came on board with a big crab which he proceeded to murder and eat on the deck. He then came below and ran over me while I was sleeping. That was the b......dy limit. So next day we complained to the marina office who gave us a large trap. Two mornings later we had the rat caught and drowned. And no more rats since although other boats have been 'visited'.
The Muslim month of Ramadan came and went as did the Christmas and new year period. We attended a Carols by Candlelight session where we learned how to shake rattle and roll to the Malaysian style of Christmas carols. Interestingly 40% of the population of KK is Christian. So Christmas is a big thing here. The yotties threw a 'bring something to eat' and try everyone else's' party on the walk on jetties on Christmas Eve. This was great fun. We were persuaded by the other yotties to join them for a traditional turkey and trimmings Christmas lunch at a resort down the coast. The price was an outrageous R120 per head, and not worth even quarter as much. We should have stayed on Senta and had ham and cheese sandwiches!
Boxing Day brought the shocking news of the Tsunami off the coast of Sumatra. We were stunned as we have visited all of the countries affected except India, have until a year ago based much of our cruising in the Phuket and Langkawi area and have many friends there with their yachts. None of our friends were killed or injured, mainly because they were on their boats and, unless in water shallower than 10 meters, the boats felt little or no effect from the 'harbour waves', which is what Tsunami means. Two yachts we know were damaged, one probably beyond fixing, as the owner was ashore in France, the boat broke free from its marina berth and was washed onto a nearby island. Checking our navigation log we noted that in 2001 we sailed within about 170 miles of the epicentre of the earthquake that caused the Tsunami. Telaga Harbour, the marina where we spent Xmas in 2003 was completely devastated. The walk on fingers were lifted clear off their 3 meter poles, and the surging waters made an awful mess of the floating jetty debris and yachts. We were only too thankful to have not been there.
For photos and stories of the experiences of yachts in the tsunami zone, check out www.langkawitsunami.net.
We have been going to the gym every morning for a hour's work out. My knee and Pierre's hip have improved remarkably, so we are busy thinking up ways to duplicate the exercises when we no longer have access to a gym.
We have enjoyed ourselves and made some new friends, as well as re-uniting with Colin and Glyn of Deja Vu and Liberty and Mike on Wanderlust. But Sutera is a marina and KK is a big town, and we are not marina or big town people. So plans are well advanced to leave here in a few weeks and do a short cruise around the southern Philippines island of Palawan. We have bought some boat spares from Westmarine in the USA, filled up on gas and diesel, bought four months provisions and will soon top up our water and fresh fruit, veggie, meat and dairy supplies. Then we will be off to another adventure, hopefully not including any pirates, tsunamis or typhoons, which do happen where we are going!
Note by Ingrid dated 20 August 2004
Senta phoned this morning to say that they have arrived at Labuan after a scary trip from Kuching through oilfields. They have anchored at one of the outlying islands, a typical tropical paradise. They paln to stay there as long as possible, before going in to Labuan port, which is reputed to be industrial, dirty, and full of pirates!
E-mail from Senta dated 09 August 2004
Thanks to some sterling work on Judy Ryder's part we are now in posession of brand new credit cards and can think about moving on.
We will probably check out of Kuching on Thursday or so and leave a little while thereafter. We plan to day hop up the Borneo coast where possible, with our next major stop being Labuan, a duty free island, about twenty miles offshore from Brunei. We need to go in to Brunei so that we leave Malaysian territory before our visas expire on 4 August. We plan to go there by ferry from Labuan for the day and return to Senta the same day.
We will be really sorry to leave this beautiful part of the world, with its ultra friendly people. But I guess there are more delights in store for us around the next corners.
A problem we have before leaving is how to get the barnacles off the rudder parts where they have grown thickly during our long stay. We know there are crocodiles in the river, Glyn of Deja Vu saw one about ten feet from the back of their boat the other evening. So swimming to get at the barnacles is not an option. We will scrape off what we can reach from the safety of the dinghy and then wait till we are in open sea before diving overboard to clear off the rest.
Tioman to Kuching
June to July 2004
Tioman is the location of ‘Bali Hai’ in the film ‘South Pacific’. Much touted in travel brochures and on every tourist's ‘must do’ list, Tioman was a disappointment. All of its anchorages were rolly and we tried most of those tenable in the SW monsoon. A particularly bad one was to the east of Pu Rengis, a popular spot for snorkeling. It was a madhouse full of dive boats and water taxis, called ‘Sea Bus’, that further churned up the rough seas caused by the SW wind against the spring tide. We were continually fending off the dinghy as it surfed into Senta. No one had heard of wake less zones and I was reminded of the slogan on a t-shirt that read ‘He who maketh a wake knoweth not his father.’
Tekek, the main village on the west side of Tioman, has a ferry terminal, customs and immigration offices, airport, bakery, bank, several shops and a cyber café. Our first check on e-mail in three weeks brought the un-welcome news that my Visa credit card had again been cloned and this time R22 000 had been spent on it in London. We were to learn later in Kuching that Pierre’s card had suffered a similar fate, this time the illegal spending was done in Kuala Lumpur. Our friend Judy Ryder, who is looking after our affairs in South Africa, had already started the ball rolling with FNB Visa Card Division and very kindly continued to run with it for us. To prove that I still had the original card in my possession I had to make a photocopy of both sides of the card and fax it to South Africa. Not an easy task on Tioman Island, but we eventually managed.
Continuing westerly winds and rough seas chased us around to the east side of Tioman at Juhara village near the Lagoon Resort. E mail contact was now done using a very old PC situated in a thatched wooden hut owned by a small dive company called ‘Bushmans’. Internet connection was via land line and cleft stick through the jungle and over the mountain to Tekek village and thence via microwave to the Malaysian mainland. One of the e-mail messages we received there was from friends Lena and Len of Serida. From Langkawi last year they had sailed the route we were using and had continued into the Pacific to Australia where they sold Serida. They then returned to Norway, bought a motor home and are now touring Scandinavia. Their comment on Tioman was ‘… all of the anchorages are rolly’. We could only agree.
Moving from place to place around Tioman and earlier on the hop from Pu Babi Besar to Tioman we had towed the dinghy. Each time we did this the dinghy filled up with water through the centerboard casing. This was a dangerous situation and we ran the risk of losing the dinghy and the outboard motor. We half solved the problem by stuffing the casing with foam rubber, but the only safe answer is not to tow the dinghy and rather hoist it on board. As the middle of June arrived we tired of Tioman and started planning the crossing of the South China Sea to Borneo. The first step was a day sail in a SE direction to Pu Aur, a renowned dive site.
In a light wind and choppy sea we motor sailed the forty miles in eleven hours. Slow, uncomfortable, tiresome progress, made worse by tide rips in the lee of Pemangin Island. Pu Aur was enchanting with its amazing rock formations. Anchorage in the channels between Pu Aur and its neighbor to the north, Pu Dayang, was safe and comfortable. During the week it was peaceful and quiet, but at the weekend we had to share it with fifteen or more dive boats and hundreds of divers and snorkellers. During the first two days Pierre was cabin bound with a strep throat and I amused myself by reading ‘Moby Dick’. Déjà vu joined us a few days later after seeing their friends, Faye and Johan off on the ferry from Tioman to Mersing on the first leg of their return journey to South Africa. Glyn and Colin complained of the same awful conditions we had encountered on our crossing from Tioman. Anchoring at Aur, though in sheltered water was fairly tricky. The channel between Aur and Dayang is very deep and, at the edges, water shallow enough to anchor in, is usually too close to the coral reefs. One night in a blow Déjà vu dragged onto some coral. Glyn was still awake and sounded the alarm. They were able to motor away and lay the anchor again in deeper water. Under water inspection revealed minor paint damage too one of her twin rudders. Colin covered the scratch marks with grease to protect the aluminium from corrosion.
Our next move was to be a two or three day sail across the S China Sea to Sarawak, Borneo. The full moon with its attendant spring tides was approaching. We were eager to round the NW tip of Borneo, Tanjung Datu, and enter the river anchorage of Sungai Santubong before the full force of the spring tide.
So on Monday 28 June, a day after our 45th wedding anniversary, we set off from Pu Aur at 0800 bound for Borneo in a fresh SW wind. The seas were rough and we began taking water over the foredeck and down the anchor chain hawser pipe. We had to pump the forward bilge every hour, reminding us of our passage round the north of Madagascar to Seychelles. Then too we had not adequately sealed the opening to the hawser pipe – we should learn our lessons better! During the late morning and early afternoon we crossed the Singapore to Hong Kong shipping lane. We saw many ships and had to warn one off on the VHF radio, as it was maintaining a collision course. The wind continued fifteen to eighteen knots backing to the south in the afternoon and night. The moon kept us company for a large part of the night, setting at the 0300 change of watch.
The good south wind continued all the next day and night. The seas slowly smoothed out but not enough to let us open the hatches, making it quite stuffy below decks. Two days from Pu Aur we had covered 275 miles, at an average speed of 5,7 knots. Very satisfactory and no motoring. At lunchtime on the third day we rounded Tanjung Datu, and then motored down the east side of the cape to anchor in a bay just north of Tanjung Serabong, where we found shelter from the swell.
The next day, 1 July, we made a late start at 1030 in a light ESE wind and lazily sailed to Tolong Tolong Besar and Tolong Tolong Kechil, two turtle sanctuary islands. They were so beautiful we were tempted to stop for the night, but as it was only 1400 we pressed on towards Santubong, planning to stop and anchor somewhere on the coast in the late afternoon.
This would have been a good plan if the wind had remained in the south or south west as it should have done. But at 1430 two innocent looking rain cells developed into a full-blown gale from the northwest. We reefed the main, first two reefs and then three, both too late! The headsail was furled to jib size and then completely closed as we ran before the gale. We hand steered in the overtaking short, sharp, steep, breaking waves kicked up by the wind in the shallow water. From 1700 the wind abated and we found shelter to the SE of Pu Satang, about ten miles from Santubong. After supper the NW wind died and was replaced by a moderate SE wind putting us on a lee shore again. But the wind did not increase in strength so we stayed where we were for a reasonably comfortable night.
We left Pu Satang at 0900 in a light SSE wind and sailed towards the small mountain Gunung Santubong. We learned later at one of the many museums in Kuching that Santubong means ‘mountain that can be seen from afar’. At 1100 we furled our sails and motored across the bar and in to the Santubong river through an unmarked passage over the mud banks using a hand drawn chart given to us by Fred of Nepenthe when we were at Sebana Cove. By lunchtime we were safely anchored and were joined a few hours later by Déjà vu. They had sailed straight from Pu Aur in just over two days and had not stopped twice as we had done this side of Tanjung Datu. They too had met the NW gale the previous day about 150 miles from Tg Datu. So it was obviously an extensive fast moving frontal system and not the local phenomenon we thought it might be. After Déjà vu had dropped her anchor she, as usual, put her engine into reverse to dig the anchor in. The boat did not move backwards. The propeller had fallen off into 14 meters of murky green water over a soft muddy bottom. And there were crocodiles in the river; so diving for the propeller was not an option. We visited Colin and Glyn for tea and received the bad news. Déjà vu carried a spare large three bladed fixed propeller, so the afternoon was spent discussing plans to fit it temporarily and obtain a replacement two bladed folding propeller.
The full moon rose over Sungai Santubong as, tired and upset at Déjà vu’s bad luck, the crews of both boats slept and woke to a truly amazing day. Unbeknown to us, during the night two small log carrying ships had come to grief. One had sunk on a sandbank just inshore of another and us had run aground in the river about a kilometer behind us. As we sat in the cockpit watching the refloating activities on both of these maritime disasters we had a visitor. Jacky came by on a wet ski he was delivering to Datu Lingi, who owned the jetty nearby. Jacky confirmed that here are crocodiles in the river. They had not been known to attack people, but he had seen some sunning themselves on a nearby sandbank. Jacky offered to help with Déjà vu’s propeller problem, including riding up and down on his wet ski to chase away the crocs while Colin dived. He told us that fresh water was available from the jetty and that, if we asked for permission we could use the jetty for our dinghies when we went ashore. This was good news as the tidal range is large, leaving expanses of soft mud at the edges of the river. To call it a jetty is an understatement. It is more like a mini marina. Later that morning Datu Lingi invited us ashore to his river side stilt bungalows for a drink He asked us to make ourselves at home, use the jetty, take fresh water and told us that he was the honorary South African Consul. What a coincidence. He took us to lunch at a local seafood restaurant, where we had a fantastic multi course meal including prawns, crab, pomfriet and squid. Reportedly one of the richest men in Sarawak, Datu Lingi is a charming, unassuming and intelligent man. He kept us amused through lunch with background information on Sarawak and stories of his family and dogs; a Jack Russell and a Chihuahua called Attila! He made us feel very welcome, said we could ask for his help at any time and told his staff who look after his beautifully kept riverside property to look after us, including taking us to town in the Land rover if necessary.
After lunch Jacky, the wet bike dealer, drove us to Kuching and back, mainly to look for or have made a spacer for Déjà vu’s spare propeller. We had our first encounter with the capital of Sarawak, with its pretty houses and striking modern buildings set in beautiful gardens decorated with statues of cats, honoring the name of Kuching which means Cat in Malay. We were particularly struck with the cleanliness of the city and the thirty-one kilometers of countryside separating it from Santubong.
That evening as we relaxed back on the boats we enjoyed watching the dolphins in the river, the malachite kingfishers in the trees and tugs, barges and other river craft come and go on the river. Santubong Mountain with its cloud covered peak provided a perfect backdrop.
Our initial favorable impression of Kuching was to be strengthened in the weeks that followed. The beauty of the surroundings was more than matched by the friendliness of the people. Everywhere we went people stopped us to chat, ask where we came from, how old we were and, most important to them, did we like Sarawak? The answer was a resounding ‘YES!’
Now, three weeks into our stay at Santubong and Kuching we are still delighted and enthralled. We have started interspersing our usual boat cleaning and maintenance and shopping with tourist type activities; visits to museums, including the famous Cat Museum, the Rain Forest Music Festival, a trip up the river in the dinghies to have lunch at the Sarawak Boat Club and bicycle rides in the surrounding countryside. More about these and future adventures in Sarawak and later Brunei and Sabah in future newsletters.
Kind regards Faith and Pierre
More anchoring spots
East of Tg Datu, N of Tg Serabong
02
06.61
109
39.61
Pu Satang
01
47.03
110
10.26
Sungai Santubong
01
42.80
110
19.19
Singapore to Tioman Island
April to June 2004
Saturday 17 April brought the long anticipated rounding of Singapore. The evening before, we had entered into the GPS, and checked several times, waypoints given to us in 1998 by Connie and Ralph of Arjemand.
Our plan was, after completing the rounding, to go to the Sebana Cove marina. This is situated about five miles up the Santi River that leads off into Malaysian territory from the east entrance to the Johor Strait. Déjà vu was not sure of being able to fit her tall mast under a power line over the river, so planned to continue back westwards up Johor Strait to anchor near the causeway linking Singapore and Johor Bahru. We would join them there later.
The first of our waypoints, near Sultan Shoal, proved to be surrounded by land, newly reclaimed Singapore territory. We had to go three miles further south than the waypoint before we could turn eastwards again. We were now south of Sinki Fairway, so skipped out our second waypoint to the north of the fairway. After that we could follow the preset waypoints. There were many, many ships, more anchored than underway, but we managed to miss them all. The moving vessels were controlled by pilots who knew exactly what they were about and expected us to do the same. Being less than twenty meters we had no rights whatsoever and had to keep clear of everyone.
One anxious moment was at a T-junction off a major fuel supply island in the fairway leading to the container port. Three ships were overtaking on our starboard side, one overtaking to port and turning into the terminal, one approaching on our port side from the container terminal and a tug pushing a barge converging with us from starboard. All were signaling their intentions with loud blasts from their whistles or horns; one blast for turning to starboard, two for turning to port, three for engines in reverse and five or more meaning ‘What the hell do you think you are doing!’ Six vessels in a big noisy jumble as Senta tried to cross both fairways towards the north. Everybody obeyed the ‘collision avoidance’ rules and all was well.
A second nail biting time was going through the Buron channel south of Sentosa Island. There is a patch of coral and rocks in the middle of the channel. It is not shown on our charts, except an ancient French one, but is well marked, almost confusingly so with many buoys. High speed ferries and motor launches added too the confusion and shook Senta around in their wakes.
The rest of the rounding was easy going and we even managed to sail in a moderate easterly wind for the last couple of hours. We then parted company with Déjà vu. They continued on to Johor Bahru as we motored towards the entrance to Sungai Santi. In trying to cross the bar into the river we encountered shallow water, (2.1 meters) and with a falling tide we were unwilling to chance our luck. So we turned back to deeper water, anchored and spent the late afternoon and evening watching a few ferries and motor launches go in and out of the river as we carefully noted which way they went. We agreed that the anxiously approached, much planned and discussed passage round Singapore had turned out to be far easier than we had imagined.
We were awake and moving early next morning at mid tide, rising, to give Senta more water clearance over the bar. This time the minimum depth encountered was 3.5 meters. Sometime during the five-mile motor through the mangroves the fridge cooling water stopped running. We didn’t know for how long it had been stopped before we noticed and switched off the compressor. So we had possibly more fridge problems in our near future. One wrong turn in the mangrove network had us turning back to eventually find the correct route to Sebana Cove Marina.
There the staff greeted us with friendly smiles and showed us to a good berth in the middle of the main walk-on. After tying up our first activity was to connect our hose to the fresh water supply and wash off the anchoring mud we had accumulated since leaving Langkawi. We could then explore our new surroundings. Stately stone, wood trimmed buildings reminiscent of Sir Herbert Baker’s architecture were set in beautiful gardens and well-mown lawns. There were several restaurants, a gym, sauna, swimming pool, golf course, tennis courts, customs and immigration offices, Internet access and hot showers. This exquisite, well-run facility, which cost us R58 per day to use, must have been losing a packet. Of the eighty berths in the marina only twenty were occupied and the resort hotel had so few guests it was like a ghost inn. We treated ourselves to hot showers and Sunday lunch at the restaurant. After a welcome afternoon snooze, in the cool of the evening, we unloaded our bicycles onto the dock. My troublesome knee had improved a little, but the walk from the boat to the marina buildings was a hurdle easily overcome on the mountain bike.
Next day we caught the free marina mini bus to the local village, Kampung Rengitt, (kampung = village) where we were able to buy fresh bread, fruit, vegetables and eggs. We later rigged the dinghy for a short sail in the river and around the marina. We remained at Sebana Cove for a week during which time we caught up on laundry, filled the water and diesel tanks and repaired the fan belt, which had caused the fridge compressor cooling water stoppage.
Ferries made the one and a half hour trip from Changi in Singapore twice a day bringing a few guests, but more over the weekend. Changi is the location of the famous prison and prisoner of war camp featured in the book and film, ‘King Rat’. Mid week the resort hosted a conference for the Melaka Ministry of Education. Many beautifully robed and scarfed Muslim ladies graced the resort buildings and gardens. They were quite taken aback when Pierre smiled at them and said, ‘Good morning ladies’ – a dreaded white western male accosting them! This was the subject of their worst nightmares and fears brainwashed into them by their religion. But they soon overcame their initial reactions and chatted amiably with us, intrigued by our tales of sailing from South Africa.
We soon decided that Sebana Cove was the best-run marina we had visited in Malaysia. Nothing was broken, all was spotlessly clean, the many garbage bins on the walk-ons were emptied early every morning, hook up to shore power and water had been swift and all of the staff spoke good English.
Pierre took advantage of the smooth water in the marina to go up the mast to repair the spreader light, put more anti-chafe tape on the spreader tips and to check all fittings, swages, lights etc. in preparation for our upcoming open sea passage up the east coast of Malaysia and across the South China Sea to Borneo.
During our stay at Sebana Cove friends Butch and Fred on ‘Nepenthe’ joined us. They are on their way eastwards to Borneo, Philippines, Solomon Islands, Australia, New Zealand and then back to their home territory of California. An ambitious project, especially sailing east about, and we wished them well. We also met another old friend, Captain Ahmad, who was the manager of Rebak Marina when we stayed there in 1997/8. He has now set up a consultancy business dealing with the construction and management of marinas in Malaysia. He is currently working on four new projects, three of which are at Penang, Johor Bahru and Miri.
After a week of boat cleaning and maintenance, interspersed with leisure periods of dinghy sailing and meals at the marina, we topped up the diesel and water tanks and left for Johor Bahru. The first stage was an afternoon motor down the river and a night at anchor near the customs jetty at Tanjung Pengileh (tanjung = cape). The following day we motored for a while and then sailed westwards for twenty-five miles up Johor Strait to the causeway at Johor Bahru. On the way ugly, dirty, polluted, heavily industrialized areas made us fear the worst. We were pleasantly surprised by the anchorage at the causeway with lawns, gardens and trees on the Malaysian side to the north, a wild life sanctuary in Singapore to the south, wind surfers with their colorful sails making use of the afternoon breeze and Déjà Vu waiting for us.
The customs officials at the jetty nearby were very friendly, like most of the people we met in JB. They happily let us use the jetty for our dinghy, ride our bicycles down the long jetty to the shore and store them in their yard and take fresh water from the taps on the jetty. They also kept a watchful eye on Déjà vu and Senta when we went ashore for the day.
One of our first stops in JB was at ‘Deli France’, a coffee shop and confectionery outlet in Eden Gardens, a large Duty Free shopping mall connected to the international jetty nearby our anchorage. I said to the young Malaysian man behind the counter, dressed like a French waiter complete with beret, ‘Nous desirons les gateaux’ (we wish to have some cakes). He looked horrified and rushed away to find his boss. On subsequent visits he grinned sheepishly at us and I refrained from using my school French.
Most of our time in JB was spent shopping. We needed to provision Senta for at least three months and the bookstores with English language books and international news magazines were irresistible. We split our provisioning between Eden Gardens, an easy bike ride down the waterfront road, and Giant supermarket in Pelangi, which we reached by taxi. We were able to buy everything we needed. Giant was well stocked with an enormous fresh food section. We learned from an attendant in the butchery department that Giant’s ‘big boss’ was a South African and the place certainly reminded us of the large Pick ‘n Pay outlets.
As our credit cards were due to expire in June and July we made several visits to Maybank to draw enough money for the three or four months before we could have new cards delivered to us in Kuching, Sarawak, Borneo. More of this later.
We narrowly averted a disaster when topping up Senta’s diesel tank. We went to a service station with two jerry cans for diesel and one can for petrol. Somehow the attendants managed to fill one can with diesel, one can with petrol and the third with a mixture of 75% diesel and 25% petrol. Before transferring the diesel to Senta’s tank we noticed an escape of gas and a peculiar smell from the tainted jerry can. A lucky escape!
After three weeks of shopping, ferrying the purchases along the jetty on our bicycles and from there to Senta in the dinghy we were ready to move on. We were pleased to be leaving the highly polluted seawater and air of JB. Senta and the dinghy were black all over from the oily soot deposited by the rain. One last task was to cross the causeway to Singapore and return to JB, thus renewing our Malaysian visas for a further three months. We knew from our previous visit to Singapore by bus from Langkawi, that we didn’t really like the place. It is beautifully clean, but has the atmosphere of a prison, or gold fish bowl. The people living there are like birds in a ‘gilded cage’. Well this time we must have broken the record for the shortest visit to Singapore by a foreigner. Ten minutes after getting off the bus from JB we were on another bus going back!
On Saturday 15 May at 0815 we left JB an hour before high tide, leaving Déjà vu behind. They were waiting for friends to join them from South Africa and we had itchy feet. Helped by the ebb tide and some wind we sailed most of the way down the Johor Strait to anchor at Tanjung Pengileh at 1500.
We were on our way again early next morning to catch a nine-hour ebb tide going our way. It would be followed by a fifteen-hour adverse tide so we were eager to make the best of it. In a good easterly wind we sailed round the SE tip of Malaysia, through Lima Passage with its hazards of rocks, coral reefs and sand banks, and then thirty five miles north up the Malaysian coast to anchor after sunset in Jason Bay. This is a long slight indentation in the coast and wide open to the South China Sea. We feared the anchorage would be rolly, but it was so good we spent a further night there.
Pulau Sibu, our next stop was a fifteen-mile afternoon sail away in a moderate easterly wind. There we anchored on the NW side between two kelongs, large stilt buildings several hundred meters from the shore, which we think are anchovy fishing platforms, but could be restaurants for tourists. We stayed there for two days, but the SW monsoon was making an effort to come through and the anchorage became rough. So we motored around to the north of Sibu to anchor opposite Rimba Resort. Two South Africans, Joanne and Malcolm run this quiet island getaway for stressed out Singaporeans. Before going ashore to visit them we antifouled the bottom of the dinghy and in doing so left it untied on Senta’s fore deck. A few hours later a wind squall lifted the dinghy off the deck and blew it into the rigging. A stanchion damaged the dinghy topsides and would have punched a hole right through, except that it hit just where a stringer supporting the seat was glued. Thank goodness we built a strong dinghy.
After repairs we rowed ashore to meet Joanne, Malcolm and their three dogs, Mowgli, Henry and Lucky. Rimba Resort, with its simple, thatched, rondavel, African inspired design is delightful and made us feel quite home sick. A lazy five days were spent there relaxing, sailing the dinghy, swimming and doing small maintenance jobs as we waited for Déjà vu. When they arrived with their friends, Faye and Johan, the six of us celebrated with a dinner at Rimba. We had asked Joanne and Malcolm to join us. But Joanne had to cook (chef’s night off), and Malcolm had to serve as their recently arrived Australian waitress was ill. After dinner, with a rapidly falling tide we carefully negotiated the narrow, shallow path through the reef back to the yachts patiently waiting for us in the moonlight.
After four more days of dinghy sailing, island exploring, swimming and snorkeling we were on our way again, destination Pulau Babi Besar, fifteen miles further north. Our first anchorage on the NW corner of the island was very rolly, so the next day we moved a few miles to a small bay on the NE corner of Pu Babi Kechil South. We noticed what looked like a group of back packers camped on the shore, but they turned out to be the contestants and camera crew of a ‘Survivor’ series. They soon asked us politely to move on, as Senta kept getting into their camera shots, thus destroying the illusion of an isolated, remote island. So we joined Déjà vu on the NE corner of Pu Babi Besar opposite one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen. The granite rocky outcrops, pure white, soft sand and multi shaped and hued vegetation were reminiscent of the Seychelles, but much more breath taking. But there is evil in paradise. On a long beach walk Faye and Glyn were badly bitten by sand flies and I got one or two bites during our short stay on the beach to burn our garbage. These bites are extremely itchy and the discomfort lasts at least a week. Malcolm at Rimba had told us that many of the resorts in the area, especially at Pu Tinggi, had closed because of the sand fly menace.
The famous Tioman Island thirty miles away beckoned. Maybe there were no sand flies there. So we took our leave of Pu Babi Besar and headed north.
Read about the delights (??) of Tioman in the next newsletter.
Regards Faith and Pierre
More anchoring spots
Entrance to Sungai Santi
01
23.59
104
05.88
Sebana Cove
01
23.14
104
09.65
Tg Pengileh near jetty
01
23.14
104
05.75
Causeway Johor Bahru
01
27.79
103
46.66
Jason Bay
01
52.39
104
08.54
NW Pu Sibu
02
12.46
104
03.30
Sibu Rimba Resort
02
14.05
104
03.51
PU Babi Besar NW side
02
26.92
104
58.11
Pu Babi Kechil South
02
28.96
104
57.67
Pu Babi Besar NE side
02
27.34
104
58.90
Langkawi - Peninsular Malaysia
August 2003 to March 2004
Our last newsletter said not to expect any more soon, and almost a year has gone by. Most of the elapsed time was spent in Langkawi before setting off southwards in the Malacca Straits to explore Singapore, Eastern Malaysia and Borneo.
We had a long list of things to repair. ‘Not again!’, I hear you say, and that is exactly how we felt. To make it easier to get ashore and move around the town of Kuah we booked in to the Royal Langkawi Yacht Club marina. We also hired a 125cc motorbike. But at 35 Ringitt per day (about R60) this proved a little harsh on our budget. So after a week we bought two second hand mountain bikes from Martin and Ruth of S/Y ‘Enigma’. They had upgraded to a Taiwanese 125cc motorbike at a cost of 5000 Ringitt and were very happy with it. Our twin blue mountain bikes let us zip from place to place creating our own breeze as we pedaled along. We soon became expert at carrying stuff around on the bikes; groceries, loads of fruit and vegetables, boat parts for repair, jerry cans of petrol and even 12kg PLG gas tanks. At times the bikes needed repairs and new parts. We took them to a young Malaysian cyclist who ran his own bicycle shop, which we called; The Bike Hospital’. He did what was needed quickly, often while we waited and at very reasonable cost. We also made use of his free tyre pumping and bike lubrication service.
At the yacht club we met several cruising friends including Noel and Ree of ‘Southern Voyager, Pam and John of ‘Nom De Plume’, Carolyn and Patrick of ‘Cockaigne’ and Glen and Arya of ‘Akku Anka’. Some late afternoons and evenings were spent reminiscing with them or attending ‘Yottie’ BBQ functions run by the marina. A welcome break from work.
Against a background of many small tasks the following major projects stand out.
Fridge System
The heat exchanger appeared to be blocked and we burned out several pumps trying to force the cooling water through it. We could only run the fridge by gravity feeding water through the system via a funnel and hose from the cockpit. There were some gas leaks and the magnetic clutch on the compressor had been broken since 2000.
We were really fed up with the fridge having spent about R10 000 on it since we recommissioned it in 1995. We seriously considered not fixing it and using the insulated compartment as an icebox when we could get ice. A fridge is not an essential. Cheese can be stored for ages in bottles of cooking oil (olive is best), most margarine sold in the tropics does not need refrigeration, we eat very little meat and use powdered milk. But we would miss cold drinks and our fresh fruit and vegetables would not keep as long. So we decided to go ahead with repairs.
We were glad to learn the Rolf on ‘Schnuckleputz’ in the marina was a refrigeration expert. So we arranged to buy some of his time for the tricky bits, but do a lot of the work ourselves.
The first step was to have the magnetic clutch replaced. We simultaneously had to see to the main engine’s alternators and starter motor, as without a working engine we could not run the fridge compressor. After a tough couple of days disconnecting the alternators and starter motor we set off with our heavy load to visit Mr. Sim, the automotive electrical man and Mr. Leong who specializes in air-conditioning and refrigeration. The two workshops are next door to each other but they might have been on different planets.
Mr. Leong’s shop was immaculately clean and tidy. Everything was neatly in place, including a piano for his daughter to practice on after school and his favorite toy, a 1400 cc Kawasaki touring motorbike, complete with stereo system. His service matched the surroundings. Within two days we had the compressor back, serviced and with a new clutch.
Mr. Sim was different. It was almost impossible to enter his shop around the sides of a massive heap of stuff; wires, old alternators, oily cleaning rags, discarded cold drink cans, polystyrene take away food trays and various unidentifiable electrical junk. Again the service matched its origins. After thirteen follow up and progress chasing visits we eventually got the two alternators and the starter motor back from Mr. Sim. Admittedly he did go to considerable trouble to locate a spare pinion gear for the starter motor in Singapore. As our engine is a 1979 Volvo we could only be grateful that someone had kept the spare for 24 years in the hope of selling it. The price of R1300 was much less that he R7000 we had been quoted by Volspec in the UK for a reconditioned starter motor. Mr. Sim also hunted down and found in Alor Setar on the mainland, diodes for our ancient alternator.
Installing the alternators we made a wiring error and blew the diodes in both alternators, and had to take them back to Mr. Sim! Ultimate despair!
Rolf, in the meantime fitted a water pump to the front of the compressor so that the cooling system could be driven mechanically off the compressor and not electrically with its attendant problems. One alternator was ready long before the second one with the rare diodes. So, at Rolf’s suggestion we changed the system to use only one alternator and would keep the second one, if and when it was repaired, as a spare.
We tried to clear out the heat exchanger with vinegar and HCL, not together of course. In the end the blockage was cleared when we forced water under pressure from the marina dock outlets backwards through the pipes and blew out some impellor bits and pieces.
Everything was reassembled together with a new drier, the system vacuumed and filled with gas, several gas leaks located and fixed and, nearly a month after starting the project the fridge was working again – Hurrah! But at a cost of R4000, bringing the total spent on the system since 1996 to R14 000.
Rutland Wind Charger
This had stopped in Chagos. After many attempts to fix it we had dismantled it and its supporting pole and packed them away under the berths for the1800 mile voyage to Langkawi.
A request to the supplier Marlec Engineering in the UK brought an e-mailed trouble-shooting manual. So we unpacked the bits and pieces, ran the various tests and diagnosed a faulty stator.
A newly ordered one was flown in but was delayed for about a week, because the shipping agent, TNT had paid customs duty and wanted to be recompensed before they would deliver the parcel to us. It took several more and more irate phone calls to TNT’s offices in Kuala Lumpur to explain that Langkawi is a duty free port, Senta is a yacht in transit and that on both of these counts duty was not payable. You would think that a shipping agent would know these things. But we learned that when bringing in parts we needed to instruct the supplier to clearly mark the parcel, ‘Yacht in Transit’ and ‘Duty Free’ to avoid customs problems.
After reassembly and mounting, a tricky process, we had to take the whole thing down and do it all again. We had installed one of the new bearings slightly out of alignment. Several more iterations of this process and water papering of the surfaces of the stator to cut down on friction eventually enabled the charger to run freely and we could cross this job off our ‘List’.
Honda Outboard
This had died while motoring to the shore in Kuah. We took it in to the agent, Multi Quip, who opened it up, serviced it, found a rusted tappet cover and ordered a new one from Singapore. After two months the replacement part had not arrived. We had not been chasing progress as we didn’t need the motor while in the marina, but once we could see the end of our major projects we started nagging. Multi Quip got an answer form the Singapore agent that a part was not available and would take four more months to come from Japan. When she saw my face the lady at Multi Quip said ‘Never mind. I told them that my customer couldn’t wait so long. They must take a part off a new motor and send it’. So that is what happened and since then we have had no more problems with the motor.
Towards the end of September we took a small break and went to Penang Island by ferry. There we visited Dr Khoo, a beautiful Chinese skin specialist, who froze off our skin cancer spots with liquid nitrogen. This is an almost painless process – just a small stinging tickle. But the frozen spots turn brown and black so we looked like ugly spotted toads for two weeks until the skin underneath grew and the brown bits fell off. Imagine that, suffering from frostbite in the tropics.
We treated ourselves to a new toy, a World Space Radio. This is a digital satellite receiver on which we get crystal clear interference free reception. Among the programs that we listen to most are Maestro, a 24 hour a day classical music channel, BBC with its gloom and doom anti Tony Blair news and CNN (voice part only) with its slightly different slant on the news. There is also Upcountry, with country and western music and The Hop broadcasting all of the old 60’s and 70’s hits.
Visits to town usually included stops at ‘The Pier’, a restaurant frequented by yotties for a cold drink, a bite to eat and an update on cruising news.
During our visit to Chagos in early 2003 we had seen a sailing dinghy belonging to S/Y ‘Aramia’. Both Colin and Glyn and we were keen to build similar dinghies. We explored the web site of the designer, Graham Byrnes, www.bandbyachtdesigns.com and ordered plans, a 10ft dinghy for Déjà vu and an 11ft one for Senta. We looked for and found a place to build the dinghies at a new marina at Telaga Harbor, Pantai Kok. The marina is run by Datu Azhar, the first Malaysian to sail single-handed round the world, including a dismasting off the Farquhar islands in the south Atlantic. Being a sailor he understands the cruising yachtsman’s needs and the plans for the marina included lock up workshops opening out onto a shaded working area, with power, good lighting and overhead fans. A perfect place to work. We could use the facility as long as we kept our boats at the marina. A possible problem was that Telaga is 25km from Kuah, where we would get our supplies. So we had to make sure that we went well prepared to cut down on trips to town and prevent work stoppage because of missing tools or materials.
Our first task was to locate marine quality plywood, BS1088 international standard. We had been told that such plywood was not obtainable in Langkawi, or even in Malaysia, and that the best we could do was to sail to Phuket in Thailand and buy Elephant brand external quality plywood. But this was only available in thickness of 5mm or 7mm and we needed 6mm. So we enlisted the help of Mr. Yong of Multi Quip. He managed to source the plywood (ten sheets of it) from Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia. We learned that Malaysia makes excellent BS1088 plywood, but mainly for export. We paid our money and the ply was sent by ferry from KL to Langkawi where it was to be picked up by Multi Quip and delivered to Telaga.
In the meantime we bought glues, epoxy resin, fiberglass cloth, brushes, tools, plastic drop sheets, plastic buckets and stools to make work benches, mixing sticks and cups, vinegar to clean up uncured epoxy, a broom to sweep up after us and many other things. During one trip back to Senta with our bikes loaded with the broom, buckets, stools etc we stopped at KFC for a cold drink. There a Chinese man and his family spoke to us and wished us a pleasant tour round Langkawi on our bicycles. We don’t know why he thought we needed all of the strange things we had strapped to our bikes for a cycling tour.
Colin and Glyn returned to South Africa to see their family over Christmas. So we were left to dog sit Muffie, their Maltese poodle, and to trail blaze the dinghy building. On the day Muffie moved on board Senta she became more and more anxious as the sun set and Colin and Glyn did not come to fetch her. It got darker and darker and Muffie tried to howl her despair. She pursed her lips and started a small squeaky howl. But when she put her head back and lifted her snout to the heavens, she constricted her larynx and no sound came out. She looked so funny and we laughed so much that she looked sheepish and gave up. After that first sad night it was all uphill and we and Muffie enjoyed her month-long stay on Senta. Her Christmas present from us was a box of chicken nuggets from KFC. Muslim children visiting Telaga Harbor were intrigued with her. They are not allowed to have dogs as pets and could not believe how pretty and well behaved she was. Their stock phrase was ‘Oh! She is so cute. Looks just like a sheep.’ We used to take Muffie for a walk each morning. Actually she walked and we rode our bikes. On several days this outing was made unpleasant by a rogue monkey, apparently thrown out of the troupe in the forest nearby, who tried to attack Muffie and approached us menacingly. The security staff noticed what was happening and chased the monkey away with sticks. A week or so later the monkey was gone, supposedly ‘removed’ by the authorities.
Telaga is a beautiful clean marina set in a calm bay with a backdrop of mountains and rain forest. Two highlights are the giant hornbills that nest nearby and the large selection of ice cream available from the convenience store attached to the service station. Those ice creams kept us going through the many hot days of work to come.
After a long wait the plywood arrived and we started work on 15 December. Fifty ten-hour days later on 3 February the dinghy was finished. It had been hard, unrelenting work with many obstacles and pitfalls. But the final product looked good. We were visited each day by interested onlookers, many of whom asked if the dinghy was for sale. We just laughed and said that no, it was for our own use.
We had some breaks. One for the marina Christmas party where we tasted soft-shelled crabs for the first time. Another was when an old friend, Jonathon Guyer unexpectedly visited Langkawi from Dubai and was surprised to find us there laboring in a boatyard. After three weeks work on the dinghy my arthritic left knee began to become very painful. Things got worse each day until by the time the work was done I could only walk with the help of crutches.
Colin and Glyn returned from South Africa on 9 January and were soon busy dinghy building. A friend Arya, of ‘Akku Anka’ made the sails for the two dinghies. Aluminium tubing for the mast caused a problem. Colin, with a smaller dinghy was able to make use of the thinner walled tubing available. We however utilized the Mirror dinghy spars that we had used for our old dinghy, to build a new mast and boom. As we sanded away the old paint and varnish we smelled a familiar long forgotten aroma. It was Oregon pine, an excellent wood for spars.
During the Senta repairs and dinghy building we had to cope with and sort out several problems with our credit cards. Both of our Visa cards had been cloned sometime between our arrival in Langkawi and mid October. At that time in Hong Kong and Taiwan purchases were made on the cloned cards which completely wiped out the credit balances. We liaised with First National Bank card division and had help from our friend and representative in South Africa, Judy Ryder, to dispute the invalid transactions, have them reversed and replacement cards delivered to us in Langkawi. Luckily we had a fairly large reserve of cash onboard as well as travelers cheques and US dollars, so we did not have a cash flow problem. While we had no operational Visa credit cards I used my Master card to draw cash. This card’s magnetic stripe was damaged so the bank had to do manual authorizations. Somehow the procedures for doing this had got rusty once computers took over, because two of the four withdrawals were debited to my account twice thus over billing me to the tune of R2500. I complained to the cash advancing bank, Maybank in Malaysia, and to the billing bank, Nedbank in South Africa. Neither wanted to know my problems. I phoned Master Card International help line and they confirmed that the two banks should get together to sort out the problem. But they still weren’t interested. I decided to take matters into my own hands and visited the bank manager of Maybank in Kuah. I told him that I was not going to leave his bank until he gave me back my money. I persuaded him to show me all of their paper work and daily balance reconciliations from which I was able to assure myself that the local Maybank had not made the error. I asked the manager to give me a letter confirming our findings which I then passed on to Nedbank. Within a few days I had an e-mail from Nedbank apologizing and the double debits were reversed. I have to date not had a reply to my request for an explanation of how the error occurred. Oh well, at least I got my money back.
With the dinghy built and sailed a few times and credit cards now operational we began preparations for our next voyage. First on the agenda was a haul out at Rebak marina for bottom cleaning and antifouling and a general check of Senta’s underwater parts. My knee was still very bad and the ladder climbing, sanding and painting only made it worse. Try painting the underneath of a boat while hobbling round on crutches. Not easy I tell you.
Then we had to ask Rolf of ‘Schnuckleputz’ for more help with the fridge. Our own fault. One day while working on the dinghy we had left the engine running to cool the fridge. Something, we don’t know what, happened with the compressor cooling system and the compressor had seized. We had to buy a new compressor from Mr. Leong and Rolf installed it for us, so we had cold drinks again.
We ordered and had delivered essential engine spares from Volspec in the UK and some pumps, spares and rope from Wesmarine in the US.
The final items, other than topping Senta up with food, water and diesel was to have some repairs done to the stainless steel parts of our wind steerer, and to buy some charts of the Philippines and Eastern Malaysia.
By 21 March we were ready to leave. Our stay in Langkawi had been interesting and busy, but we were ready for a change of scene. So we stored our old dinghy on shore, hoping to sell it by remote control, loaded the new one and our bicycles, checked out, upped anchor and sailed to the south entrance to Bass Harbour. There, in company with Déjà vu, we anchored for the night to await the south going equinoctial spring flood tide which would give us a kick start on our passage down the Malacca Straits to Singapore and places east.
More about tides, Singapore etc in the next newsletter coming soon.
We had prepared Senta for a three-month cruise and planned to sail to Palawan, the southern most island of the Philippines, and up its east coast. This would all be directly into the then prevailing northeast monsoon. Our main destination was Puerto Princessa and the beautiful island filled bays to its north. We left our little motorbike in the care of the shop that had sold it to us and everything was ready except for the eternal infernal barnacles on Senta’s bottom. Although the water in Sutera harbor is crystal clear we had not wanted to dive there as we had seen a banded krait and hundreds of box jellyfish, both species deadly to humans.
An early morning start motoring out past Usukan Island gave us a wonderful view of Mount Kinabalu. This shy secretive mountain is shrouded in clouds from 0900 each day so can only be seen by early birds. Those energetic enough to climb Mount Kinabalu leave the base hut at 0300 to climb to the summit in time to see the sun rise at 0600. Twenty minutes later they have to set off down again to make sure they are below the cloud level before 0900.
Just after midday we tacked to port to close again with the Borneo shore. Progress was better as the waves were not coming straight at us but wider off the port bow. We should have tacked sooner. By 1400 we still had 12 miles to go. We had made 33 miles to weather in 7 hours and were not sure we were going to reach our anchorage by sunset. So we ran the engine to help Senta through the waves. Soon the wind veered more to the east and then southeast allowing us to tack onto starboard. In the calmer seas nearer the coast we made better progress to reach Garu River, a beautiful secure anchorage well before sunset. Some pretty fishing boats were the only sign of life in the bay. Tired and hungry after our hard ten hour beat we cooked and ate a large pasta dinner and were soon in our berths asleep while the wind blew hard outside and Senta watched over us.
At 0630 on Thursday 10th February, one week after leaving Kota Kinabalu, we upped anchor and beat towards the north on starboard tack in an 18 knot NE wind under reefed main and working jib. Seemed like déjà vu!. The wind slowly abated to ten knots and we tacked to port and shook out the reefs. Progress was better as, again, the seas were less troublesome on port tack. The wind veered towards the east so we tacked to starboard again and slowly closed with Balambangan Island. Once we reached it we went onto port tack again and sailed south eastwards into the channel between Banggi and Balambangan Islands. We then beat up the channel towards our planned anchorage at the foot of Banggi Peak, in a NE wind now blowing over 20 knots. More reefing practice! From afar the Banggi Peak anchorage seemed untenable but was actually quite good; to the south of a small cape in 11.5 meters on sand, protected from the wind and with a minimum amount of rolling. We had now reached the jumping off point for a crossing of the Balabac Strait, which separates Malaysian Borneo from the Philippines.
Next day was obviously a lay day. We saw, anchored on the shore near us, our first Philippines banca. Palawan is mountainous with very few roads so most of the transportation is by sea, mainly in bancas. These boats come in all sizes from three or four meters long to well over fifteen meters. Bamboo outriggers on either side, attached to the main hull by thin arched bamboo struts, stabilize their very narrow hulls. The central hull has three masts one in the middle and the other two towards the ends. They look a bit like preying mantis insects. Beautifully decorated in multi colors, each with its special name, usually in English (American influence I guess), they are unfortunately often powered by engines, whereas they could very easily be sailed. 
The plan worked well as at 0630 next morning we slowly motored from waypoint to waypoint. Once in the shipping channel we set sail and beat eastwards into particularly rough seas. We had reefs off Iglesia Point and in San Antonio Bay to clear to port, so made two port tacks to the southeast until at 1100 with 22 miles still to go eventually tacked to starboard on line for James Brooke Point. The wind was northeasterly at about twelve knots, the seas soon smoothed out, we were in blue clean water and the sailing was grand. We noticed that the Philippines has the same ‘National Fish’ as Malaysia, the ubiquitous plastic bag!
We spent a good part of the next day watching life at James Brooke point from the cockpit. Children played in the mud at the water’s edge in brightly colored clothes, which were soon mud colored. Hoards of swallows sat on the rungs of ladders leading up to the lights on either end of the breakwater. Evening meals were cooked on open fires on the brown beach outside the huts. Most of the buildings are run-down wood and grass shacks except for the Catholic Church and the customs/coast guard offices at the jetty. Some pigs on the shore raised our hopes of being able to buy ham and bacon again, something sadly missed in Muslim Malaysia. The chief religion in Philippines is Roman Catholic so we no longer heard the moaning muezzins. Instead we heard beautiful hymn singing from the church in the evening.
Latest news was that, if Roke was not deflected when passing over the eastern Philippines islands of Samos, Leyte, Cebu, Negros and Panjay, it would pass to the north of us. We would then be in the favorable southern semicircle. Here the 25-knot forward motion of the typhoon would counteract the anti-clockwise 65 to 85 knot westerly winds of the typhoon itself. These would start from the NW and back through W, SW and S as it passed over. We were expecting sustained winds reduced to 35 to 40 knots with higher gusts. If however the Japanese were right, and Roke passed to the south of us, it would be another story, with 25 knots added to 65 to 80 knots giving speeds we didn’t even want to think of. We had thus made Senta as low profile as possible and a clean target for the wind. We were also hoping for lots of rain to wash away our mountains of salt.
On Friday 18 March we were up early to undo all of the previous days’ typhoon preparations. By 1130 the sails were back in place, the anchors retrieved and stowed and Senta was ready to move on.
In the evening we all went ashore for a farewell dinner at the Flower Island Resort. We planned to round the top of Palawan and sail back to Kota Kinabalu down the west side. The other two boats were going to sail to the Calamanian group of Islands and Meridian passage would eventually carry on to Japan after further exploring the Philippines.
The remainder of the day we rested, read, baked bread-rolls and cinnamon buns and admired the scenery. Malapacao Island has the usual white beach and palm trees, but these are backed by tall, gray, eroded, vertical cliffs, which reminded us of the Phi Phi Islands in Thailand. But we didn’t have to put up with all of the tourists and the noisy motorboats and longtails.
Bertil liked the look of our dinghy so much that he borrowed and copied the plans so that he could build a similar one for his children. They will have a wonderful time sailing it in the sound.
We needed another lay day and as soon as sunlight permitted we moved Senta behind Surinao Island out of the swell. We were becoming concerned about diesel consumption with all of the motoring we had done and seemed likely still to do. But an inspection of the diesel tank showed that we had used 140 liters since leaving Kota Kinabalu and still had 160 liters left. So that was not a problem. 
Our anchorage at Mantanani Besar island was in crystal clear water where we could see the rocks and sand on the bottom in a depth of 14 meters. We were able to maneuver to drop our anchor onto a large sand patch. Soon a young man in a canoe approached us from the village wanting to sell us coconuts. We bought two green ones for a few ringgit and a pack of cigarettes. Later three other canoes arrived also wanting cigarettes. Did they think Senta was a dispensing machine?!
We were now only ten miles from Kota Kinabalu, which we reached the next day by beating slowly into a light westerly. The change over season was now well established and we may have left our return a little late as the NE wind had deserted us. On the way in to anchor at the Kota Kinabalu Yacht Club as we passed outside of Gaya Island, a large black shark , at least 12 feet long, surprised us. He swam agitatedly close by the cockpit. He may have been basking in the sun and been disturbed by us creeping up silently under sail. He scared us more than any of the tales of pirates in the areas we had visited. 
This first stage was only 20 miles to Pulau Lakei off the Baku national Park. There we anchored at 1530 and spent two hours swimming and diving under Senta to attack the barnacles. We managed to clean the rudder and propeller, but only about one quarter of the carpet of barnacles on the rest of the hull, before the swiftly flowing tidal current made further swimming too dangerous. That evening as we sat resting in the cockpit we saw two amazing things. First was a large ray with a 'wing span' of three meters sailing out of the water close by. Secondly we saw some pink dolphins. They were in amongst a school of the usual grey dolphins. But they were bright 'bubble gum pink'. Later we checked on the Internet and learned that they are an endangered species, the Indo Pacific hump backed dolphin. So the Baku Park certainly gave us our share of marine wild life.
Tioman is the location of ‘Bali Hai’ in the film ‘South Pacific’. Much touted in travel brochures and on every tourist's ‘must do’ list, Tioman was a disappointment. All of its anchorages were rolly and we tried most of those tenable in the SW monsoon. A particularly bad one was to the east of Pu Rengis, a popular spot for snorkeling. It was a madhouse full of dive boats and water taxis, called ‘Sea Bus’, that further churned up the rough seas caused by the SW wind against the spring tide. We were continually fending off the dinghy as it surfed into Senta. No one had heard of wake less zones and I was reminded of the slogan on a t-shirt that read ‘He who maketh a wake knoweth not his father.’
This would have been a good plan if the wind had remained in the south or south west as it should have done. But at 1430 two innocent looking rain cells developed into a full-blown gale from the northwest. We reefed the main, first two reefs and then three, both too late! The headsail was furled to jib size and then completely closed as we ran before the gale. We hand steered in the overtaking short, sharp, steep, breaking waves kicked up by the wind in the shallow water. From 1700 the wind abated and we found shelter to the SE of Pu Satang, about ten miles from Santubong. After supper the NW wind died and was replaced by a moderate SE wind putting us on a lee shore again. But the wind did not increase in strength so we stayed where we were for a reasonably comfortable night.
After lunch Jacky, the wet bike dealer, drove us to Kuching and back, mainly to look for or have made a spacer for Déjà vu’s spare propeller. We had our first encounter with the capital of Sarawak, with its pretty houses and striking modern buildings set in beautiful gardens decorated with statues of cats, honoring the name of Kuching which means Cat in Malay. We were particularly struck with the cleanliness of the city and the thirty-one kilometers of countryside separating it from Santubong.
The first of our waypoints, near Sultan Shoal, proved to be surrounded by land, newly reclaimed Singapore territory. We had to go three miles further south than the waypoint before we could turn eastwards again. We were now south of Sinki Fairway, so skipped out our second waypoint to the north of the fairway. After that we could follow the preset waypoints. There were many, many ships, more anchored than underway, but we managed to miss them all. The moving vessels were controlled by pilots who knew exactly what they were about and expected us to do the same. Being less than twenty meters we had no rights whatsoever and had to keep clear of everyone.
There the staff greeted us with friendly smiles and showed us to a good berth in the middle of the main walk-on. After tying up our first activity was to connect our hose to the fresh water supply and wash off the anchoring mud we had accumulated since leaving Langkawi. We could then explore our new surroundings. Stately stone, wood trimmed buildings reminiscent of Sir Herbert Baker’s architecture were set in beautiful gardens and well-mown lawns. There were several restaurants, a gym, sauna, swimming pool, golf course, tennis courts, customs and immigration offices, Internet access and hot showers. This exquisite, well-run facility, which cost us R58 per day to use, must have been losing a packet. Of the eighty berths in the marina only twenty were occupied and the resort hotel had so few guests it was like a ghost inn. We treated ourselves to hot showers and Sunday lunch at the restaurant. After a welcome afternoon snooze, in the cool of the evening, we unloaded our bicycles onto the dock. My troublesome knee had improved a little, but the walk from the boat to the marina buildings was a hurdle easily overcome on the mountain bike.
Most of our time in JB was spent shopping. We needed to provision Senta for at least three months and the bookstores with English language books and international news magazines were irresistible. We split our provisioning between Eden Gardens, an easy bike ride down the waterfront road, and Giant supermarket in Pelangi, which we reached by taxi. We were able to buy everything we needed. Giant was well stocked with an enormous fresh food section. We learned from an attendant in the butchery department that Giant’s ‘big boss’ was a South African and the place certainly reminded us of the large Pick ‘n Pay outlets.
We had a long list of things to repair. ‘Not again!’, I hear you say, and that is exactly how we felt. To make it easier to get ashore and move around the town of Kuah we booked in to the Royal Langkawi Yacht Club marina. We also hired a 125cc motorbike. But at 35 Ringitt per day (about R60) this proved a little harsh on our budget. So after a week we bought two second hand mountain bikes from Martin and Ruth of S/Y ‘Enigma’. They had upgraded to a Taiwanese 125cc motorbike at a cost of 5000 Ringitt and were very happy with it. Our twin blue mountain bikes let us zip from place to place creating our own breeze as we pedaled along. We soon became expert at carrying stuff around on the bikes; groceries, loads of fruit and vegetables, boat parts for repair, jerry cans of petrol and even 12kg PLG gas tanks. At times the bikes needed repairs and new parts. We took them to a young Malaysian cyclist who ran his own bicycle shop, which we called; The Bike Hospital’. He did what was needed quickly, often while we waited and at very reasonable cost. We also made use of his free tyre pumping and bike lubrication service.
After a long wait the plywood arrived and we started work on 15 December. Fifty ten-hour days later on 3 February the dinghy was finished. It had been hard, unrelenting work with many obstacles and pitfalls. But the final product looked good. We were visited each day by interested onlookers, many of whom asked if the dinghy was for sale. We just laughed and said that no, it was for our own use.
With the dinghy built and sailed a few times and credit cards now operational we began preparations for our next voyage. First on the agenda was a haul out at Rebak marina for bottom cleaning and antifouling and a general check of Senta’s underwater parts. My knee was still very bad and the ladder climbing, sanding and painting only made it worse. Try painting the underneath of a boat while hobbling round on crutches. Not easy I tell you.
