Not all those who wander are lost
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AKAMA REPORT 10
June 1, 2003
We departed Sebana Cove Marina, as planned, the morning after sending
our previous missive. Well, the plan was to leave first thing in the
morning, but the marina office did not have our bill ready until past
nine. This lost bit of time is not a critical thing when embarking on a
3-day trip. Nevertheless, the old Maurice surfaced briefly, "We told
them yesterday that we were leaving first thing; tell them that if they
want their damned money they'd better move it!"
The trip down Sungai (river) Santi was routine, even a bit boring. This
is a sure sign that we are past due to leave, as we still recall cooing
and awing over the beauty during the first few trips up and down.
Mundane is not what we signed up for!
We will miss our friends at Sebana. As we described before (Report 6),
boaters tend to be a sociable lot and good friends are easily made.
They also tend to help out their own. While in Sebana, friends going
shopping would often pass by and ask if we needed anything from "The
City" (Singapore). But it does not end here, when he could not find a
loudspeaker that we needed to repair our HF radio, our friend John took
it upon himself to patch up our defective one. It works perfectly.
As we proceeded seaward, we received a call from HARMONY 88, an
Australian sailboat, which was making the same trip. We agreed to chat
with each other once in a while during the trip. This is also a common
occurrence; we don't generally travel "in convoy" like the military, but
we do generally keep in touch by radio, especially on long passages.
There are boaters' radio nets, both ham and marine band. The one we
check into is on 14.323 MHz at 0000 GMT. Boats in the served area check
in each day, giving their position and report the local weather. The
nets also provide a weather forecast. They are also useful for getting
in touch with other boaters, and they provide good general safety and
public services. A short while ago a boater in the Philippines died,
and the SE Asia net was instrumental in helping his widow cope with
suddenly being a single hander on the boat. Recently a boat left
Sebana, bound for Borneo and the owner said he would check in daily.
When we did not hear from them the word was spread on the net to look
out for them; they turned up safe and sound albeit a little off of their
planned course due to a storm.
This was our longest passage so far, a crossing of two nights and nearly
three days. There was no high drama this time, nothing broke down and
we barely saw any other vessels, save a few fishing boats. Well, there
was one unlit boat that 'seemed' mysterious, but once we got past it we
realized that it was only an anchored fishing boat.
Highpoints of the
passage:
-We had five dolphins cavorting in our bow wave for the longest time.
No matter how often this happens, we never tire of watching them
speeding along, seemingly effortlessly swerving and veering, but never
getting run down by each other or by AKAMA. At another time one lonely
dolphin swam to our boat and LA started to get excited but it took a
quick look-see and then he was off. It was almost as if he was checking
to see that we were okay. Sometimes as they swim they turn on their
side; we are sure that this is to have a look at us, so who's watching
who?
-Something broke Louise-Ann's favourite fishing lure. It left teeth
marks and tore off the rear hook. This is no puny lure so the fish must
have been huge. We recall the strike, as the bungee cord snapped tight
with a bang, but became loose immediately as it got away. We did not
know the lure was broken and trailed it for the rest of the day,
catching nothing.
-We saw several yellow and black banded (poisonous) sea snakes, one big
one reared up as the boat passed and another dove.
As we neared Borneo, we went rather father north than we needed to, to
avoid being close to land. There have been reports lately of piracy and
other troubles in the stretch between the Anambus Islands (we've been
there-see Report 4) and Borneo. Of course, yachts are rarely the
primary target of these rogues, so there was little real danger.
Immediately after arrival we anchored in the first bay we came to in
Malaysia, Sleepy Bay, intending to stay only overnight and then move on
to Kuching. However, we were joined by HARMONY 88 and then by three
Australian catamarans (SELKIE, MUSKAT and SAMPAGUITA) that had come from
Tioman. So instead of leaving, we stayed for several days and partied.
The first evening, we had a BBQ aboard AKAMA. The next day, we went
ashore had a picnic on a nice little creek running out across a sand
beach, followed by a birthday party for one of the other cruisers.
According to one of the park rangers there are rhinoceros there; but we
did not see any. We assumed that they were imported, but were later
amazed to learn that they were once indigenous here, but are now rarely
seen and possibly extinct.
We and Harmony 88 left the anchorage a day before the cats, and anchored
in the Santubong River, north and a bit west of Kuching. For those of
you who follow in our wake, this is an excellent place. We left the
boat nearly every day in complete safety, as we were anchored near the
fisheries police. There is a private marina nearby where we often left
our dinghies when going ashore and where we were allowed to deposit our
garbage. A fisheries officer located a fuel truck for us. Everyone was
most accommodating. The port of Pending (just east of Kuching), on the
other hand, is busy with people and according to the police is not a
safe place to leave the yacht unattended.
Kuching is the capital of Sarawak, a delightful city of about 150,000
people. It is the chief port for the western coast of Borneo. Timber,
alas some from illegal logging, is exported from here; we saw a big
barge load going right past us to a saw mill on the Santubong River.
They also export the most wonderful aromatic and spicy pepper; we had
received a gift of some a few years ago and were lucky enough to find
more on our recent shopping excursion. We went for an all-day walk of
the old part of town and saw (among other things) Fort Margherite, the
Astana, residence of the 'white rajahs' of the Sir James Brooke family
from 1841 to 1946 and now the governor's residence. The white rajahs
are worth looking up in your encyclopaedia, as space does not permit
telling the tale here. Subsequent walks have taken us down most of the
streets in the old part of town.
It is excellent for provisioning. We went to a very well stocked wet
market spanning over a city block, replete with fish, chicken, fruits
and vegetables. There are lots of shops of every sort and even a few
supermarkets.
As we walked along, we were conscious that we were nearly the only
Caucasians around; tourism is suffering mightily due to many reasons:
SARS, economic downturn, fear of Muslims... The fact is westerners have
nothing to fear here. We walked through the streets of a kampong
(village) and were greeted by endless smiles and hellos.
Kuching also has good repair facilities. When the cats left, one
developed mechanical problems and had to be towed a good portion of the
way, as there was not enough wind for her to sail well. They had broken
a drive shaft spline and were worried that a new one would be hard to
find and would probably have to be flown in. In less than a day,
arrangements were made with a local machine shop to have a new one built
at a reasonable price.
There are also excellent museums and cultural venues. We went into the
Sarawak Museum and Library and the Chinese Museum. We also visited the
Cultural Village, where they have recreated the homes and living style
of the rural ethnic groups. Luckily, the day we visited there was a
special annual celebration, with a beauty pageant, theme play (the
mystical origin of rice) and so on.
We went on a jungle trek in the Santubong foothills, which is nearby our
anchorage. The trail is approximately 2 km. long but seemed longer with
all the ups and downs. Halfway through the trek we came upon a small
waterfall with pools and had a much needed dip. The water was very cold
and fresh.
We're off tomorrow (3 June) headed northeast to explore the coast
towards Brunei. Our Aussie friends will be with us. We'll be in touch
when we can. |
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