Puerto Princessa is half way up the eastern side of the island of Palawan, one of the most southern islands in the Philippines. This is the preferred island to travel along while headed north from Malaysia. The island is long and skinny so you can go up either the east or western side of Palawan and give Mindanao a very wide berth. In Mindanao (SE about 280 miles) abduction and ransom is still very much a growth industry and while some of those unfortunate enough to run across the modern incarnation of the Moro Pirates may have friends affluent enough to bail them out of trouble, it’s extremely doubtful these yachties could raise the funds to get themselves out of such shite.

The passage up from Kudat involved 220 miles travelling in either very light conditions or motor-sailing, close hauled into the north-east monsoon; with of course the occasional squall and the usual thunder, lightning and torrential rain. Off ‘Brookes Point’ the rain was so heavy we were obliged to run something of a race track a mile offshore while waiting for visibility to get better than 100 metres. We stopped at Banggi down in Malaysia, Balabac town (on Balabac Island of course), skirted east around Bugsuk Island to spend a night under Iglesia Point near Rio Tuba, Brookes Point on November 01, a night off the mangroves at Rassa Island and a longish hop direct into Puerto Princessa just in time for the Sunday Buffet at the ‘Abanico Yacht Club’. After all of the doomsayers on weather and conditions the trip up was straightforward if to windward and hot! So hot that on one day of sweltering along the fishermen in their little boats hiding under a towel a couple of miles offshore looked so parched we decided they were in need of a beer. These guys sit in the blazing sun, no shade, a few miles offshore, in the smallest of boats jigging for a few fish; the beers appeared to go down well. Around Bugsuc Island we marvelled at the inshore fishermen engaged in far more high tech fishing pursuits happily blowing what’s left of the reef here to pieces. You could actually watch the columns of water leaping into the air after they tossed their home made hand grenades away from their boat and into the water. They didn’t appear to be particularly perturbed by our presence and enforcement would appear to exist only as a fantasy. It shouldn’t however be to hard to catch them, apparently you can pick the explosives fishermen by counting the number of fingers. We did manage to catch one fish (a tuna) ourselves coming up but also managed to lose our last good lure on something very big; probably a really large model of those smelly Barracuda.

The Abanico Yacht Club at Puerto is run by (Big Nose) John and Cissy and is such a chilled and laid back place to spend time that in Amanda’s words, it seems to be something of a ‘black hole’ for passing yachties; many of whom takes months or years to leave. Sissy is the driving force here with John acting as social organiser in the open lounge each day; good place to visit and hard to leave, would you like another glass of wine? John also has some moorings out in the harbour so this was a good place to leave the boat and head back to Australia for Christmas and New Year. Of course the best laid plans and all almost came to grief as two days before flying out the cyclone season gave it’s last hoorah. There we all were, two in the morning, extra anchors ready, sails off and everything conceivable lashed down while waiting the passage of tropical cyclone ‘Washi’ which in the end was supposed to pass directly over Puerto. An eventful night with all the boaty types waiting, waiting, waiting, but by the time it passed 60 miles or so north the winds up there were only about 40-50. The storm did however manage to kill around 1000 people in Mindanao with flash flooding along rivers washed through the shanty areas where so many of the poor people live.

The island of Palawan is becoming apparently one of ‘the’ places to visit while at the moment not suffering from the excesses of tourism that abound in parts of Malaysia and most of Thailand. Top of the list of things to do here is visit the ‘Underground River’ on the islands west coast at Sabang. The river is in a large national park and was in 2011 declared one of the seven, natural wonders of the world. The only way to visit the river is to utilise the local (parks) boatmen who take you in their little ‘paddle-boats’ about two and half km upriver. The (underground) river system actually extends some tens of km underground with tributaries and smaller offshoots all over the place having carved an extensive network of tunnels through the limestone bed-rock.  We are back in Karst country here similar to Phang Nga Bay back in Thailand, except without the same scale of crass, over-development (at least not yet). The tunnel trip was interesting although the boatmans observations about the landscape were pretty much restricted to, ‘the rock to your left looks like an onion’, ‘this rock to your right looks like a mushroom’; many vegetables involved here. There were also the obligatory religious observations, ‘the face on this rock looks like Jesus’, ‘that rock looks like the Virgin Mary’, ‘this rock looks like the last supper’, of course they all looked just like rocks. Ollie did make the observation that one rock might look a bit like a Priest doing interesting things to an alter boy, this did draw a few strange looks from others in our boat party! There are also the vestiges of past visitors (described as vandals) who left their names or boat names painted on the walls of the tunnel. Interesting thing that some of the writing is barely legible, while some of the more notable graffiti (English and Japanese soldiers for example) all seems fresh and new and appears to be have been touched up with the same white paint; now who would have thought?

On January 08 we dragged ourselves away from Puerto headed north for El Nido, about 16 miles south from the top of Palawan on the west coast. On board now were new crew, Ollie and Sally from the UK and Jamie from Canada. Ollie is headed generally back toward home after 18 months of travel in India and Asia and after sailing in the Philippines is looking toward a train ride across China and Russia with a skiing sojourn thrown in on Lake Baikal!!!  Sally is fresh from Thailand and Malaysia after completing the 2011 Sail Indonesia rally, while Jamie is taking a couple of weeks of boaty travel before braving the travails of a five star holiday around Papua New Guinea. Jamie is also quite the creative type and artist so before he leaves we will finally get our special ‘Gadfly’ T-shirt design. The weather of course is still NE, sometimes ENE and we are departing amidst tales of doom about what the NE monsoon is going to do to us if we dare move north. Must go though before being swallowed up by the Abanico black hole.

Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park

PPUR (National Park) is located about 50 kilometres (30 mi) north of the city centre of  Puerto Princessa, Palawan, Philippines. The river also called Puerto Princesa Underground River. The national park is located in the Saint Paul Mountain Range on the northern coast of the island. It is bordered by St. Paul Bay to the north and the Babuyan River to the

east. The City Government of Puerto Princesa has managed the National Park since 1992. It is also known as St. Paul’s Subterranean River National Park, or St. Paul Underground River. The entrance to the Subterranean River is a short hike from the town of Sabang.

Geography

The park has a limestone karst mountain landscape with an 8.2 kilometer navigable underground river. A distinguishing feature of the river is that it winds through a cave before flowing directly into the West Philippine Sea. It includes major formations of stalactites and stalagmites, and several large chambers. The lower portion of the river is subject to tidal influences. Until the 2007 discovery of an underground river in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, the Puerto Princessa Subterranean River was reputed to be the world’s longest underground river.

The area also represents a habitat for biodiversity conservation. The site contains a full mountain-to-the-sea ecosystem and has some of the most important forests in Asia. It was inscribed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site on December 4, 1999.

Flora

The Park has a range of forest formations representing eight of the thirteen forest types found in tropical Asia, namely forest over ultramafic soils, forest over limestone soils, montane forest, freshwater swamp forest, lowland evergreen tropical rainforest, riverine forest, beach forest, and mangrove forest. Researchers have identified more than 800 plant species from 300 genera and 100 families. These include at least 295 trees dominated by the dipterocarp type of species. In the lowland forest, large trees such as the Dao (Dracontomelon dao), Ipil (Intsia bijuga), Dita (Alstonia scholaris), Amugis (Koordersiodendrum pinnatum), and Apitong (Dipterocarpus gracilis) are common. Beach forest species include Bitaog (Calophyllum inophyllum), Pongamia pinnata, and Erynthia orientalis. Other notable plant species include Almaciga (Agathis philippinensis), Kamagong (Diospyros pulganensis) Pandan (Pandanus sp.) Anibong, and Rattan (‘Calamus sp.)

Fauna

Birds comprise the largest group of vertebrates found in the park. Of the 252 bird species known to occur in Palawan, a total of 165 species of birds were recorded in the park. This represents 67% of the total birds and all of the 15 endemic bird species of Palawan. Notable species seen in the park are the blue-naped parrot (Tanygnathus lucionensis), Tabon scrub fowl (Megapodius cumunigii), hill myna (Gracula religiosa), Palawan hornbill (Anthracoceros marchei), white breasted sea eagle (Halitutus leucogates ).

There are also some 30 mammal species that have been recorded (Madulid, 1998). Most often observed in the forest canopy and along the shoreline feeding during low tide is the long-tailed macaque (Macaca fascicularis), the only primate found in the area. Other mammal species in the park are the bearded pig (Sus barbatus), bearcat (Arctictis binturong), Palawan stink badger (Mydaus marchei) and the Palawan porcupine (Hystrix pumilus)

19 species of reptiles have been identified, eight of which are endemic (Madulid, 1998). Common species in the area include large predators like the common reticulated python (Phython reticulatus), the monitor lizard (Varanus salvator) and the green crested lizard (Bronchocoela cristatella). Amphibian fauna include ten species. The Philippine woodland frog (Rana acanthi) is the most dominant and frequently encountered. One species, Barbourula busuangensis, endemic to Palawan was also observed in the area.

Notable are the nine species of bats, two species of swiftlets and whip spider (Stygophrynus sp.) found in the cave, and the sea cow (Dugong dugon) and the hawksbill sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) that feed in the coastal area of the park.

International notability

Puerto Princesa Underground River was entered as the Philippine entry – and topped the first round of voting – in the New7Wonders of Nature competition, and on July 28, 2011, after the second round of voting, it was declared 1 of 28 finalists. Mayor Edward S. Hagedorn extended his gratitude to all those who supported and voted for the PPUR.On November 11, 2011 it was provisionally chosen as one of the “New7Wonders of Nature”, together with the Amazonia, Halong Bay, Iguazu Falls, Jeju Island, Komodo Island, and Table Mountain.

The voting was criticized, especially the Philippine voting. Nothing in the New7Wonders voting procedure prohibited repetitive voting, making the results subject to government and tourism industry campaigns to vote often for local sites with the financial incentive of increased tourism. Philippine president Benigno Simeon Aquino III, in his speech during the official proclamation launch of the Puerto Princesa Underground River as one of the 28 finalists, urged the country’s 80 million cellphone subscribers to vote PPUR via text: “We send two billion text messages a day, all we need is one billion text votes for the Puerto Princesa Underground River so (we can accomplish) that in half a day,” the President said. “I urge everyone to vote to the maximum for the Puerto Princesa Underground River as one of the New Seven Wonders of Nature” he reiterated.

Now who would have thought????

On the site of the big tree above the Australian camp.

Eight miles outside the town of Sandakan is one of the most melancholy places you might visit in Borneo. It’s easy to get to, just take a bus from in front of the market, get off after going past the ‘Giant’ supermarket at about 7 miles, then walk up the hill between the houses. Go past the community centre and turn right just after the new townhouse development. You will probably get funny looks from some of the locals walking down to the main road and from others who jog along the road and in the memorial park at the top of the hill; there after all aren’t that many non-Malaysians out here or tourists getting about on foot.

For that matter Sandakan doesn’t really rate very high in the tourist destination stakes except perhaps for people headed out via boat to go diving on island resorts like Palau Lankayan. In fact if it wasn’t for the Japanese occupation of Borneo during the second world war, the town of Sandakan might be just as unknown to Australians as places like Kudat, Miri and Lahud Datu. Instead, Sandakan sits high in the pantheon of Australian military history albiet for all of the worst reasons, and most Australians have probably heard some mention of it.

The Japanese in Sandakan in1942 in one of their standard moments of appalling behaviour decided to use Asian prisoners and Australian and British prisoners of war to build a new airfield to support their expanding empire. Some 3600 Asians and 2400 Australian (largely) and British troops were shipped in and by the end of the war almost all of the prisoners of war had died. By 1945 after two years of neglect and torment and just before the end of the war the Japanese for reasons they could only explain, decided that as the Australian army was approaching, those that were left and could walk would march through virgin jungle and swamp all the way across Borneo to Jesselton, now Kota Kinabulu; carrying Japanese supplies of course. None got to KK but some made it to Ranau, 260 km away on the flanks of Mount Kinabulu where, except for six Australian excapees, they stayed until moved to the war cemetery at Labuan. In most circles the ‘Sandakan Death Marches’ are widely considered to be the single worst atrocity suffered by Australian servicemen during the Second World War; not to mention the fate of British and Asian prisoners.

The ‘Memorial Park’ is on the site of the original ‘8-mile’ camp, largely where previously the Australian compound was situated with the memorial marker on the location of the big tree that used to stand above the Australian’s camp. Nowadays the area and park is a jungle/forest enclave with a small lake, boardwalks, signs explaining the past, and a memorial pavilion containing the standard pictures and accounts of what happened here along with a model of the camp.

Little remains of the camp proper, the old boiler and alternator for providing lighting, an old excavator that hasn’t moved since being sabotaged by an enterprising but unknown Australian soldier; the site of the British compound is currently in the process of being built over by encroaching housing development. Inside the park the footpaths are perfect for the locals out for their afternoon jog while one must wait patiently for the visiting school groups to finish up before taking a few photographs. It’s in the pavilion and after reading the background and accounts of the few survivors that one is left with a very deep sense of sadness for those who thought that one day they might have made it home. Of course from sixty-five years after and without personal involvement it is difficult to really comprehend and engage with the scale and tragedy of what happened here. For others though it is much closer. Jenny (The Librarian), a friend from Melbourne has an uncle who died here; John (Jack) Kenneth Cameron, he died 15th May 1945. Jenny would like to visit but in her words, some photos would be nice. Jack is possibly in the war cemetery in Labuan, but many didn’t make it that far.

After visiting the 8-mile, further sightseeing around Sandakan did seem somewhat self indulgent so the next step was to get organised to head back around to Kudat and to then head north. The boat however, did need some work including new batteries and seats for the cockpit and eventually we were ready to leave on 20Nov; that is until we tried to pull our anchor up the day before. A week earlier at night during one of the usual squalls that slip through this part of the world we were almost mowed down by a German boat whose anchor was proving somewhat slippery. Given that Thyme also appeared to have moved around a bit, Trevor was somewhat suspicious that our anchor might have been attached to something more substantial than sand or mud.

After their evening of squall induced anchor dragging the Germans had later anchored unsuspectingly inside a sunken fishing boat and as suspected, it turned out that our anchor was attached to something formidable enough to defy all our and the local Police boats attempts at extraction by either diver or engine. The bottom here would appear to be a full on scrap-yard and fishing boat graveyard which with zero visibility, strong current and enormous amounts of submerged logs and rubbish makes for interesting diving.

Love the way they name boats here.

The eventual answer for the Police was to press gang a fishing trawler to use their winching gear to extract our recalcitrant CQR. After breaking two sets of gear the answer became, we will tie the chain to the back of the trawler and pull the thing out; now these fishing trawlers are big, very heavy and have very big engines. In spite of Trevor’s pleas of don’t do it, they did manage to pull the thing out while completely redesigning the anchor and converting 10 metres of 3/8 short link chain to 5/16 long link. Next day was spent at the local engineering works converting the anchor back to something approaching its’ original shape.

We eventually got away on the 21st, this time with Canadian Ron coming on for the trip around to Kudat then up to Puerto Princessa in the Philippines (never had heard of Puerto Princessa before coming up here). First stop was the Turtle Islands where we weren’t allowed to go ashore. At Lankayan we could go ashore but not on the beaches at night where we might see some turtles, we were told that this was for our own safety. While one wonders how fast those turtles can actually move we eventually decided this was more about the resort not making money from grotty-yachties. Well after some persuasion that night the local, Sabah Parks fellows relented and let us, that is crew from Gadfly, English Andy on Shah and the same Germans from Samba, go with them where we found a big turtle hauling out to lay her eggs. Problem here was that instead of laying her eggs she actually dug up another nest where the eggs were hatching which had us running about at two in the morning carrying little turtles to the water; though they really did actually seem to know the way without our help!

The next day from Lankayan we slipped across to Tigapil and beers that night with English Andy on his starship ‘Shah’, then a longer hop to Malawali before a good day of sailing the last thirty miles down into Kudat and the basin in front of the non-marina (never got built of course). We were in the Basin for a week, shopping, buying cheap beer from the Chinese, yet again fixing things and chatting to the Navy guys in their new, fast boats. Quite amazing really, six metre runabouts with mounts for four (yes four) 50-calibre machine guns. That’s really a lot of firepower for a biggish, potential fishing boat; wonder where they will put the rod holders?

Sandakan market.

These boats also carry two, two hundred and fifty horsepower outboard motors on the back making them without too much doubt probably the fastest and most heavily armed fishing boats getting about, but they probably need the horsepower. In Sandakan even the local fishing boats that they launch from the yacht club are not short on horsepower with twenty foot, flat bottom fishing boats (barges really) having as much as 500 horsepower of outboard motors hanging off their transom. This does make one wonder what the average smuggler or aspiring pirate might run around with?

The program now after getting sorted in Kudat, was to day hop the 210 miles up the east coast of Palawan to Puerto Princessa stopping at nights of course in true cruising mode. The only problem with this plan though is that the direction we need to go is north-east and by now of course the north-east monsoon had set in. We had been regaled with tales of woe from a number of sources about the problems of moving north in December and the weather which had set in during our trip around from Sandakan seemed to support said woe; you will never get there, it will be horrible! Anyway, operating on the basis that ‘I bet it doesn’t blow hard all day and for that matter every day’, on 28 November after sitting through some really crappy weather we recovered our stern lines, pulled up our still working anchor and with the wind ENE at 5-10 we quietly slipped out headed north for Palawan and the Philippines; must be getting soft even worrying about the weather up here, can’t be that bad?

After the marches; (from Wikipedia).

Due to a combination of a lack of food and brutal treatment at the hands of the Japanese, there were only 38 prisoners left alive at Ranau by the end of July. All were too unwell and weak to do any work, and it was ordered that any remaining survivors should be shot. The prisoners were killed by their guards during August, possibly up to 12 days after the end of the war on August 14. In total, only six Australian servicemen managed to escape. During the second marches, Gunner Owen Campbell and Bombardier Richard Braithwaite managed to escape into the jungle, where they were assisted by locals and eventually rescued by Allied units. During July, Private Nelson Short, Warrant Officer William Sticpewich, Private Keith Botterill and Lance Bombardier William Moxham managed to escape from Ranau and were also helped by the local people, who fed them and hid them from the Japanese until the end of the war. Of the six survivors, only three survived the lingering effects of their ordeal in order to give evidence at various war crimes trials in both Tokyo and Rabaul. The world was able to receive eyewitness accounts of the crimes and atrocities committed. Captain Hoshijima was found guilty of war crimes and hanged on April 6 1946. Capt Takakuwa and his second-in-charge, Capt Watanabe Genzo, were found guilty of causing the murders and massacres of prisoners-of-war and were hanged and shot on 6 April 1946 and 16 March 1946 respectively.

Don’t think the weather is worth worrying about really!!!!

“Piracy is only a sea term for robbery, piracy being a robbery committed within the jurisdiction of the Admiralty. If any man be assaulted within the jurisdiction and his ship or goods violently taken away without legal authority, this is robbery and piracy.” Later, “…to the most remote parts of the world; so that if any person whatsoever, native or foreigner, Christian or Infidel, Turk or Pagan, with whose country we have no war …. shall be robbed or spoiled in the Narrow Seas, the Mediterranean, Atlantic, Southern or any other seas …. either on this or the other side of the line, it is piracy within the limits of your enquiry and the cognisance of this court.” (Sir Charles Hedges, Judge of the High Court of (British) Admiralty, October 13. 1696).

In the 18^th – 19^th centuries in the waters around Borneo and especially in the waters of the Celebes, Sulu and South China Seas, a tradition of piracy developed that was so widespread it became quite the local, major industry. By all accounts it was also practised in such a violent and homicidal manner as to make your Spanish Main buccaneers (Pirates of the Caribbean) appear to be quite well behaved. Most everybody was involved in some way it seems as one was either or a pirate or not a pirate and if you weren’t a pirate then you were likely to be robbed, killed or enslaved by pirates, or get paid by pirates. It also became a major source of income for the various Sultanates, especially the Sulu and Bruneii Kingdoms where even their own people could be captured by pirates, have ransoms paid to obtain release then shortly after be taken again by other pirates; with commissions paid to ‘Government’ Officials. If a captive couldn’t obtain a release ransom they would almost certainly be sold into slavery. Bruneii nobles would buy slaves from one set of pirates while Bruneii people would be captured and enslaved by other pirate groups. If there was no room for slaves, captives might be hacked to death, decapitated, buried alive, burnt or killed by whatever methods of despatch the pirates dreamed up at the time. Killing with their swords or ‘Kris’ was a favoured option however as the wielder of the scythe got to put little brass or gold rivets on their weapon; numbers here were important.

Amongst the Sulu pirates it was said, “To catch a fish is hard, but it is easy to catch a Bruneii”. Piracy became eventually so entrenched in the Sulu kingdom to the north-east of Borneo, that the easterly winds that followed the SW monsoon became known in Bruneii as ‘The Pirate Wind’, as the pirate sailing vessels moved out of the Sulu sea toward Bruneii following the prevailing winds. One does gather however that in this part of the world and at the time, that the term might just as easily be applied to the SW monsoon by people who lived to the NE! Just a matter of perspective really.

Not that there weren’t many tribal groups that weren’t involved in some way.  The Illanun and Balanini from Mindanau and the Sulu Archipelago were the biggest protagonists (with help from the Bajaus) but eventually many of the local river and sea  ‘Dayaks’ also became involved after serving apprenticeships in the Malayan war ‘prahus’. These Prahus would range from the Philippines to Sumatra to far NE Malaysia, often in fleets of up to 200 and in journeys such as circumnavigations of Island Borneo. They would prey on shipping and boats of all sorts, local foreign, large and small, at times challenge foreign warships (perhaps inadvisably) and also raid onshore for whatever was available and for slaves.  On Balambangan, an island just north of Kudat and in 1775 a Sulu pirate chief  ‘Datu Tating’ a first cousin of the Sultan even led a pirate attack and destroyed a British military settlement and stockade. The Dayaks of course applied their more bloodthirsty traditions to piracy with considerable enthusiasm and were just as happy hacking off peoples heads (anybody at all) as they were collecting swag.

While various foreign governments tried with limited success to reign in piracy in their various colonial realms, in Borneo it wasn’t until Sir James Brooke became the first white Rajah of Sarawak in1839 that the scale of piracy began to wane. Rajah Brooke exercised the standard levels of British diplomacy for the time and with help from Admiral Cochrane and the Royal Navy, Singapore squadron gave the pirates a lesson in ‘strength through superior firepower. While the Sulu Archipelago was left to the Spanish, the pirate strongholds in the river ports of Sabah, Sarawak and Bruneii succumbed in succession to the latest advances in colonial diplomacy involving, guns, cannons and soldiers.  The actual city of Bruneii also proved quite reluctant to withdraw from the financial benefits associated with piracy and in 1846 the Sultan was given an abject lesson in gunboat diplomacy!

Like elsewhere, piracy of course was never totally wiped out in this part of the world and piratical attacks have continued in various forms up to current times. We have in our sailing endeavours been hearing all forms of expression of concern from locals here, primarily telling us that we are very ‘brave’. However, while the locals tell us that there have been two attacks on shipping nearby this year we have yet to hear of any attacks on yachties in the recent past. To be honest there is not really that much to steal from the average yachtie, a couple of radios perhaps, some cameras and rice maybe; hardly compares to a cargo ship or shipping containers full of all sorts of good things. There were the attacks on tourist divers at Sipidan down past Semporna in 2000 where the locals from the Sulu archipelago decided to resurrect their forebears more questionable concepts of commerce. The result of this little incursion, robbery, abduction and murder, standard program really for your average ‘Moro’ pirate, is a police and military presence that is almost overwhelming. We were overflown twice by military surveillance aircraft near the Kinabatangan mouth on the way around from Lahud Datu and photographed by police while at anchor one morning.

Lahud Datu itself was we are told something of a pirate stronghold for years and the ‘Lonely Planet’ warns people about the perils of the seafaring life here; one wonders if the travel writer at the time even got on a boat or just listened to apophrical stories from locals. There are the stories of ten years ago pirates armed with automatic weapons robbing the bank at Lahud Datu and one of the teachers at the school on Tambisan tells us that the pirates made an attack on Tambisan in the nineties; wonder what they wanted from Tambisan, there isn’t a great deal there?

All things considered though, the Sulu Archipelago and Southern Mindanao are not on our list of places we are going to visit; there probably still be pirates there of some sort!

We got away from Lahud Datu on the 31^st and on glassy seas motored to Tungku Vil, a sort of point with an inlet 38 miles to the east. Hot here so swimming and bombing demonstrations were the order of the day including British ‘back-slappers’ from Lucy and a face plant from Trevor. Dent haven was next 30 odd miles east and north leaving Darvil Bay. Next morning bright and early it was off from Dent to our old haunt of Tambisan and a look around at the local school and recently painted pre-school.  Simon here offered Trevor’s services to talk to the grade sixers in English (or at least Australian) and the teachers took this seriously enough that next morning all four of us sallied forth for our cultural interaction with Tambisan’s brightest. This excursion was undertaken under some difficulty after our Melbourne Cup celebrations and cocktail party of the previous evening.  For the record, Simon won the sweep while Trevor got second and third. Back at the school, after having the students all join in a rousing rendition of Waltzing Matilda and discussing why we would want to travel so far on little boats off we went to watch the launch of the latest initiative in English teaching, a mandatory 33 minutes of communal reading.

The teachers tell us that it is obligatory for them to video proceedings and submit the video to the central education department for verification, it seems they are serious about their English teaching. The school here serves locals from a few nearby communities including some more permanent, Bajau groups who commute, quite appropriately, on boats. It seems that in spite of their stateless nature the school on Tambisan still takes them in, unlike Mabul where they are not allowed to attend the school.  The Bajau here have taken up residence along waterways in more permanent fishing communities and apparently they get by bartering with their fish for whatever else they need.

After our introduction to the Malaysian education system it was back to the boats in anticipation of a visit from the grade sixers who were dead keen to get a look inside the weird boats parked in their river; the strange white peoples boats come and go but none of the locals had ever seen the inside of one. So there we were giving the boys and girls of Tambisan a tour through our boats along with one of the teachers, the local boatman and one of the kids dads who happened to be passing by on his boat. They especially liked playing with the VHF radio and the chart plotter (lots of pretty pictures there) while the girls were fascinated with the on-board toilets. From Tambisan it was on to Dewhurst Bay and a revisit with the proboscis monkeys, then a 35 mile hop back to Sandakan to revisit the yacht club at Sandakan. Time for some new batteries, other boat fixes, a crew change and maybe a clearance to head direct to the Philippines.

Moro Pirates

The Moro Pirates, also known as the Sulu Pirates, were Muslim outlaws of the southern Philippines who engaged in frequent acts of piracy, primarily against the Spanish, beginning in the late 16th century. Because of the continual wars between Spain and the Moro people, the areas in and around the Sulu Sea became a haven for piracy which was not suppressed until the beginning of the 20th century. The pirates should not be confused with the naval forces or privateers of the various Moro tribes. However, many of the pirates operated under government saction during time of war.

The pirate ships used by the Moros were known as proa, or garays, and they varied in design. The majority were wooden sailing galleys about ninety feet long with a beam of ten feet. They carried around fifty to 100 crewmen. Moros usually armed their vessels with three swivel guns, called lelahs or lantakas, and occasionally a heavy cannon, proas were very fast and the pirates would prey on merchant ships becalmed in shallow water as they passed through the Sulu Sea. Slave trading and raiding was also very common, the pirates would assemble large fleets of proas and attack coastal towns. Hundreds of Christians were captured and imprisoned over the centuries, many were used a galley slaves aboard the pirate ships.

Other than muskets and rifles, the Moro pirates, as well as the navy sailors and the privateers, used a sword called the kris with a wavy blade incised with blood channels. The wooden or ivory handle was often heavily ornamented with silver or gold. The type of wound inflicted by its blade makes it difficult to heal. The kris was used often used in boarding a vessel. Moros also used a kampeli, another sword, a knife, or barong and a spear, made of bamboo and an iron spearhead. The Moro’s swivel guns were not like more modern guns used by the world powers but were of a much older technology, making them largely innacurate, especially at sea. Lantakas dated back to the 1500s and were up to six feet long, requiring several men to lift one. They fired up to a half-pound cannon ball or grape shot. A lantaka was bored by hand and were sunk into a pit and packed with dirt to hold them in a vertical position. The barrel was then bored by a company of men walking around in a circle to turn drill bits by hand.

The Spanish engaged the Moro pirates frequently in the 1840s. The expedition to Balanguingui in 1848 was carried out by Brigadier José Ruiz and a fleet of nineteen small warships and hundreds of Spanish Army troops. They were opposed by at least 1,000 Moros held up in four forts with 124 cannons and plenty of small arms. There were also dozens of proas at Balanguingui but the pirates abandoned their ships for the better defended fortifications. The Spanish stormed three of the positions by force and captured a remaining one after the pirates had retreated. Over 500 prisoners were freed in the operation and over 500 Moros were killed or wounded, they also lost about 150 of their proas. The Spanish lost twenty-two men killed and around 210 wounded. The pirates later reoccupied the island in 1849 and another expedition was sent but they encountered only light resistance

Also in the 1840s, James Brooke became the White Rajah of Sarawak and he led a small navy in a series of campaigns against the Moro pirates. In 1843 Brooke attacked the pirates of Malludu and in June of 1847 the rajah participated in a major battle with pirates at Balanini where dozens of proas were captured or sunk. Brooke fought in several more anti-piracy actions in 1849 as well. During one engagement with Illanun Sulus in 1862, Captain John Brooke, the Raja Mudah of Sarawak, sank four proas, out of six engaged, by ramming them with his small four gun steamer Rainbow. Each pirate ship had over 100 crewmen and galley slaves aboard and all were armed with three brass swivel guns. Brooke lost only a few men killed or wounded while at least 100 pirates were killed or wounded.

The Celebes Sea off the coast of Sabah is home to one of the last, large groups of sea-gypsies, the ‘Bajau’ people. These sea-nomads are an indigenous, ethnic group with origins probably from the southern Philippines and in the east of Malaysia, they maintain their seafaring lifestyle living aboard boats or on coastal stilt homes. In the west they have largely abandoned their maritime origins and become farmers and horsemen. With a total population in Asia of perhaps around 400,000, in Sabah the Bajau constitute almost 15% of the population with large numbers living in tribal groups on and around the islands and reefs about Pulau Gaya, now the Tun Sakaran Marine Park. They live on their boats and stilt houses, catch fish and barter, grow some crops on the shore, give birth in their boats and huts and live the very basic of lifestyles. They are also stateless, have no national identity, no passports, no (Malay) identity card and no formal access to hospitals, schools or Government support of any kind. They are however, very friendly and were more than happy in welcoming the crazy white people who came bearing gifts.

Bajau boat, Semporna.

From Semporna to Gaya is only about twenty miles and after escaping from the madness of boaty overload outside the harbour at Semporna, we slipped through the reef entrance at Gaya in the early afternoon. We had visited here briefly on the way south ten days earlier, but on this occasion we had organised the time for a look around. So after dropping the pick we slipped across the lagoon to introduce ourselves to the locals; a lot easier now with our native speaker Patsy on board. Along the way we also took the time to marvel at the beauty of the place. Gaya is really quite something and no shock that it is the centrepiece for the quite newish Marine Park. The lagoon gives all the appearance of a caldera with mountainous islands on three sides and coral reefs completing the perimeter of a lagoon two and a half miles across. The water is blue, the islands verdant green with forest and with luck, time and good management the reefs might get back to the pristine conditions that would do justice to the surrounds.

The Bajau village we visited is on the SW side of the island just outside the lagoon and through a shallow entrance between two of the islands; good protection here from the NE monsoon. The most noticeable thing about the Bajau, other than their choice of housing, is the number of small children. One gets the feeling here that with no televisions and DVD players there is only one form of adult entertainment at night and no room for modesty. Their lifestyle is however, really very humble and makes one consider the accumulation of possessions and ‘things’ that seems to occupy much of a western way of life. We came of course equipped with presents and the kids were terribly excited at the sweet treats on offer (really only marginally more than the adults) and the toys. We became quite the centre of attention here with visitors on boats and on foot, on foot here of course meaning a bit of a stroll through waist deep water. Interesting also to watch the preparation of food for dinner, for the more botanically inclined, fish with seaweed (Caulerpa racemosa).

Can you find the boats?

After our sea-gypsy sojourn we were all set for a quiet evening as the only boat in the lagoon when the radio came alive with the Thymers telling us they were just outside after also getting comprehensively sick of the extraordinary Semporna boat noise. With their arrival the mission next day was to climb the mountain overlooking the lagoon and behind the Marine Station on the eastern side. We had plotted this on our previous visit but constant rain and slippery tracks meant the parks people wouldn’t let us. But the next morning was bright and mostly clear and after a tour of the marine station and the obligatory ‘safety’ briefing away we went on our guided tour (the guide cost us ten Ringgit each).

The marine station is apparently dedicated to rehabilitation of the area as opposed to research and the main feature appears to be growing shellfish to put back onto the reef. Figuring large here are giant clams with lots of little clams being grown and fed via algal cultures growing in the next laboratory. The parks management people tell us that they have had the same problem here as in northern Australia in the past where the giant clams have been knocked about with people cutting out the adductor mussel which tastes apparently a lot like crab meat; might explain the bloody great piles of clam shells underwater and next to the Bajau stilt homes!

Not so 'Giant', Giant Clams.

After our tour of the marine station if was off to the top of the island via the parks people’s newly cut mountain, walking track. On walking in the tropics, one thing you can say about climbing hills is that you do get warm, well hot really; one doesn’t need any reminding how close we are to the equator when climbing up mountains, even small ones.  Fortunately this climb wasn’t anywhere near as hard or high as Mt Santubong back in Sarawak but if anything, the views were even more breathtaking. This really is an absolutely stunning part of the world to visit with the most spectacular vistas across jungle covered islands and fringing coral reefs and the boats just the tiniest of specks in the lagoon.  Of course it started to rain at the top of the hill and in between passing, welcome, cool, rain-showers we ate our fruit, drank our water and pondered how fortunate we were to be there.

Here we are!

North from Gaya and about 10 miles away is Richards Reef, a circular lagoon of reef, with nothing exposed above the water even on the lowest of tides.  Thyme had come in here a couple of weeks earlier and were keen for a revisit so next morning we dropped our anchors inside the lagoon and went snorkelling on some of best coral any of us had previously seen.  The underwater scenery here is so good we are having trouble understanding why Richards Reef hasn’t been included in the marine park. There is the standard shortage of large fish, but no evidence of blasting (for fishing) that much of the reefs have been subjected to in SE Asia. It may be that the shallow reef here just doesn’t have a large population of biggish fish meaning nobody has gone to the trouble of blowing it up. Either way it is quite something to see and any level of protection would be worthwhile.

Blast fishing or dynamite fishing is the practice of using explosives to stun or kill schools of fish for easy collection. This often illegal practice can be extremely destructive to the surrounding ecosystem, as the explosion often destroys the underlying habitat (such as coral reefs) that supports the fish. The frequently improvised nature of the explosives used also means danger for the fishermen as well, with accidents and injuries.

Although outlawed, the practice remains widespread in Southeast Asia, as well as in the Aegean Sea, and coastal Africa. In the Philippines, where the practice has been well-documented, blast fishing was known prior to World War I, as this activity is mentioned by Ernst Jünger in his book Storm of Steel.One 1999 report estimated that some 70,000 fishermen (12% of the Philippines’ total fishermen) engaged in the practice.

Underwater shock waves produced by the explosion stun the fish and cause their swim bladders to rupture. This rupturing causes an abrupt loss of buoyancy; a small number of fish float to the surface, but most sink to the sea floor. The explosions indiscriminately kill large numbers of fish and other marine organisms in the vicinity and can damage or destroy the physical environment, including extensive damage to coral reefs. (From Wikipedia)

Our program from Richards Reef was to head for Lahud Datu, a large port, town about 32 miles west, so to make the next day easier we departed Richards Reef at 1300 (1.00 PM for the non nautical types) and headed for Pulau Tabawan some 20 miles closer to town.  We arrived at Tabawan not too long before dark and after scratching around looking for something shallower than 20 metres of water finally got to anchor just on dusk in the least marginal of anchorages. During the ‘hunt for a decent anchorage’ Thyme had spied what looked like an easy spot to run aground but not half bad looking reef for a snorkel.  Next morning off we went to check out the potential bottom scraper with Amanda complaining about breaking her rule of never snorkelling off mangrove habitats (here there probably be crocodiles). The reef here was okay, but obvious also and sadly was the bane of SE Asian coral reefs with patches of blasted reef all over the shop.  Apparently we had better get used to this before heading into the Philippines.

Patsy and Geoff; cooking, cooking, cooking!

Markets; Lahud Datu.

Lahud Datu was the next destination and home for a few days and around mid-day on October 27 we slipped quietly past the big fishing traps and palm oil ships to put down the pick just off the police dock and town centre. A crew change was in the wind here with Geoff and Patsy heading off to see Patsy’s family over near KL and British Lucy joining the boat for the passage back around to Sandakan.

Legend has it that in the days of yore the sea-gypsies would only ever go ashore to bury their dead. In the circumstances why they would bother to do that seems odd but either way and even today, on sea, on land, with or without a boat, it does look like a tough life.

Sea Gypsies; the Bajau people of the Sulu and Celebes Sea.

Boat of the Bajau Laut.

The Bajau or Bajaw also spelled Bajao, Badjau, Badjaw, or Badjao, are an indigenous ethnic group of Maritime Southeast Asia. Bajau continue to live a seaborne lifestyle, making use of small wooden sailing vessels (known as perahu) for voyages through the seas of austronesia.

Due to escalated conflicts in their native Sulu Archipelago, and discrimination in the Philippines with regards to education and employment, most of the Bajau have migrated to neighboring Malaysia over the course of 50 years. Currently they are the second largest ethnic group in the state of Sabah, making up 13.4% of the total population. Groups of Bajau have also migrated to Sulawesi and Kalimantan in Indonesia, although figures of their exact population are unknown.

Bajau have sometimes been referred to as the Sea Gypsies, although the term has been used to encompass a number of non-related ethnic groups with similar traditional lifestyles, such as the Moken of the Burmese-Thai Mergui Archipelago and the Orang Laut of southeastern Sumatra and the Riau Islands of Indonesia. The modern outward spread of the Bajau from older inhabited areas seems to have been associated with the development of sea trade in sea cucumber (trepang).

Bajau is a collective term, used to describe several closely related indigenous groups. These Bajau groups also blend culturally with the Sama groups into what is most properly called the Sama–Bajau people. Historically the term “Sama” was used to describe the more land-oriented and settled Sama–Bajau groups, while “Bajau” was used to describe the more sea-oriented, boat-dwelling, nomadic groups. Even these distinctions are fading as the majority of Bajaus have long since abandoned boat living, most for Sama–style piling houses in the coastal shallows. Today, the greatest feature distinguishing the “Bajau” from the “Sama” is their poverty.

History

The origin of the word Bajau is not clear cut. It is generally accepted that these groups of people can be termed Bajau, though they never call themselves Bajau. Instead, they call themselves with the names of their tribes, usually the place they live or place of origin. They accept the term Bajau because they realize that they share some vocabulary and general genetic characteristic such as in having darker skin, although the Simunuls appear to be an exception in having fairer skin.

British administrators in Sabah, labeled the Sama as Bajau and put Bajau in their birth certificates as their race. During their time in Malaysia, some have started labeling themselves as their ancestors called themselves, such as Simunul. For political reasons and to ensure easy access to the Malaysian special privileges granted to Malays, many have started calling themselves Malay. This is especially true for recent Filipino migrants.

For most of their history, the Bajau have been a nomadic, seafaring people, living off the sea by trading and subsistence fishing. The boat dwelling Bajau see themselves as non-aggressive people. They kept close to the shore by erecting houses on stilts, and traveled using lepa-lepa, handmade boats which many lived in. Although historically originating from the southern Philippine coasts, Sabahan Sama legend narrates that they had originated from members of the royal guard of the Sultan of Johor, after the fall of the Malay Malacca empire, who settled along the east coast of Borneo after being driven there by storms. Another version narrates that they were escorting the Sultan’s bride, but the bride was later kidnapped by the Sultan of Brunei. The fact that the Bajau-Sama languages belong to the Philippine branch of Malayo-Polynesian languages would substantiate the anthropological origins of the Bajau groups to be from the Philippines, and put the origin legends down to the historic Malay-centric influence of Bajau culture.

However, there are traces that Sama people came from Riau Archipelago especially Lingga Island more than 300 years ago. It is believed by some that the migration process of Samah to North West Borneo took place more than 100 years earlier, starting from trade with the Empire of Brunei. With the fall of the legitimate Sultan of Johor due to being overthrown by Bugis immigrants, Sama people fled to the west coast of North Borneo where they felt safe to live under the protection of the Brunei Sultanate. That’s why native Kadazan-Dusun call Sama people as “tuhun (people of) Sama” or “tulun (people of) Sama” in their dialects, the form of recognition before western civilization found Borneo. It was believed that Sama people are not from the royalty of the Sultanate, but loyal workers, craftsmen, boat builders and farmers that fled from cruelty of ethnic cleansing in chaotic Johor during aggression of the Bugis taking over the throne of Johor.

Today the number of Bajau who are born and live primarily at sea is diminishing, partially due to hotly debated government programs which have moved Bajau on to the mainland.Currently, there exists a huge settlement of Filipino Bajau in Pulau Gaya, off the Sabah coast. Many of them are illegal immigrants on the Malaysian island. With the island as a base, they frequently enter Sabah and find jobs as manual laborers.

Discrimination of Bajau (particularly from the dominant Tausūg people who have historically viewed them as ‘inferior’ and less specifically from the Christian Filipinos) and the continuing violence in Muslim Mindanao, have driven many Bajau to begging, or to migrate out of the country. They usually resettle in Malaysia and Indonesia, where they are less discriminated against.

Demographics and religion

The various Bajau sub-groups vary culturally, linguistically, and religiously. Religion can vary from a strict adherence to Sunni Islam, forms of folk Islam, to animistic beliefs in spirits and ancestor worship. There is a small minority of Christians.

Tigabu

The North-Eastern part of Malaysian Borneo, ‘Sabah’ is often referred to as “The land below the wind”, because of its location just south of the typhoon-prone region around the Philippines. North of Sabah the typhoons (tropical revolving storms or cyclones for the antipodeans amongst us) move east to west across the Philippines. Whilst some of these cyclones dip south across Palawan (southern Philippines), there is not enough coriolis to let them operate this far south. So, for the intrepid boaty types amongst us this is a good time to have a look at the coast of Sabah while waiting for the more ‘non-cyclone’ season and to then move further north into the Philippines. In Sabah one can day hop all the way to the Indonesian border about 300 miles around the coast from Kudat headed east and south.

First stop out of Kudat was Pulau Banggi actually north of Kudat where we slipped in for a quiet night in the very beautiful Milford Haven. Not wanting to waste too much time next morning and not too early we headed for an island stop at P. Tigabu and anchored off one of the ubiquitous native villages that either cling to the coast of the little islands all through here or park themselves on piles above the water. Tigabu is something of the standard little fishing island but like all the others one wonders where they get their water from. From Tigabu to P. Lankayan is 26 miles and on this island there is the ‘Lankayan Island Dive Resort’, apparently the self proclaimed ‘Paradise Island of the Sulu Sea’.

We're free!!!

The island itself is quite small and advertises itself as an ‘Eco-Resort’ and comes fully equipped with a fellow titled the ‘Reef Guardian’; we did spend some time wondering how they get rid of rubbish and more pertinently their sewage, but anyway. It is very nice however and they have a turtle hatchery here, hoping it would seem, to do something about helping the turtle numbers recover in this part of the world. Having your own turtle hatchery does of course lend itself to spruking environmental credentials in spite of and ironically the resort having to be built in the first place on top of a significant haul out site for the turtles.

Having the resort there does however slow down the illegal removal of the turtle eggs from the beach. Apparently it is now illegal to catch turtles or dig up their eggs in Malaysia but it’s not too difficult to spot the (black market) fellows on the roads outside of towns letting you know they have turtle eggs for sale. Either way it is encouraging to see some sort of conservation moves happening given the state of rapacious development one sees all through Borneo.

Sandakan

We spent two nights on Lankayan in company now with English Andy (Shah) who was also island hopping down towards the diving hotspot of Mabul and nearby Sipidan islands. On Lankayan and in the spirit of protecting coral they have provided moorings for passing yachties and given the depth of water even close in (20 metres), here a mooring is always handy. You do however need to check moorings at times and after being woken that night by a passing, very nasty squall off a very ‘lee’ shore, Trevor was mortified to find the Gadfly swinging on one little, tiny strand of a very damaged nylon rope; yep, move moorings immediately!

The islands all through this part of Borneo are really quite beautiful with the obligatory white, coral-sand beaches, clear water that away from the coast takes on that lovely deep blue colour and there are even fish here to be caught. Geoff is very keen on the fishing and between Banggi and Sandakan we managed to catch three Spanish mackerel and two barracoutta. One of the barracouta was kind of big and took thirty minutes to get in; both went back. From Lankayan we headed for the bright lights of Sandakan and after a lunch stop on Shah out between the reefs (barbecued Spanish Mackerel) we put down the pick in front of the yacht club to spend three days doing the restaurants on the sea-front, fresh-water, swimming pools and road trips.

One of the things one has to do here is visit to the ‘Agnes Keith’ home/museum and tea house on the hill. Agnes was a writer married to the ‘Conservator of Forests’ (now that’s ironic, bring him back) before during and after the war who wrote about life in Borneo and as a prisoner of the Japanese. If you listen intently you might still hear the sounds of the British colonial era here, the clink of the gin and tonics and the clunk of the croquet balls!

Having tea; Sharon (Andy's crew), Geoff, Trevor, Andy.

There are also a few interesting conservation areas out of Sandakan, one of them the obligatory Orang-utan reserve ‘Sepilok Orang-Utan Rehabilitation Centre’ (they always seem to be rehabilitating the Orang-Utans), another the, Rain-forest Discovery Centre and the privately run ‘Proboscis Monkey Sanctuary’ where one can get close up and personal with Proboscis monkeys. Of all the monkeys these are probably the most chilled and laid back with people around; unlike the macaques who spend an inordinate amount of time aggressively hassling for food or anything that might potentially be food. Whilst at the Proboscis Monkey place we sat through a film outlining how the area came to be protected. It seems the local Chinese developers, after cutting and bulldozing most of the area for palm oil decided the small strip of mangroves along the shoreline could be left for the monkeys; palm oil probably doesn’t do very well in saline ground-water one guesses. The only problem is that most of the monkeys foraging range (they eat leaves mostly and rely on the mangroves)  has been cleared and the monkeys would now appear to be heavily reliant on the sugar free pancakes provided by the reserve. This does of course provide an excellent way to guarantee monkeys for ones new nature-reserve, viewing area (60RM entry and 10RM per camera), all accompanied of course by much back slapping and self congratulation (in the film). However and once again, something is better than nothing.

Bill

After our three days at Sandakan and with now just Trevor and Geoff on board (Ana having headed for the diving hotspots of Mabul and Sipidan) we headed for ‘Dewhurst Bay’, a really quite shallow entranced bay that provides the northern entry for the Kinabatangan River. We were only going as far as just inside but after advice from the Thymers we manned Andy’s dinghy for a trip up the nearby creek/little estuary to spot some wild(er) proboscis monkeys in yet another residual nature reserve.

Tun Sakaran Marine Park. P.Gaya.

From Dewhurst to Tambisan island was another day hop to anchor off another fishing Kampong. The next day was a longer 65 mile hop to Pulau Gaya in the Tun Sakaran Marine Park where we once again met up with Thyme (Simon, Amanda, Sloop and the Chilean couple Manne and Christian). The next day we slipped two miles across to Pulau Maiga where we stopped opposite a sea-gypsy village for the night. Next day we were visited by a (little) canoe full of local kids touting sea-shells for exorbitant prices; ah well they are doing their best. Of course buying a couple of shells then meant quite the flotilla of boats heading out to get some money from the crazy boaties.

The weather next day (Thursday Oct20) turned somewhat pear-shaped so in rain, close hauled most of the way and in company with Shah we dodged around the reefs and headed for Mabul, apparently one of ‘the’ diving destinations in the known universe. Quite the place Mabul, loads of resorts built out across the water, dive boats zigging and zagging all over the shop, loads more resorts on shore and when in doubt park an oil-field, accommodation platform just offshore as yet another diving operation.

It seems the go here is to find a place that fits the bill for world heritage status then over-develop, trash the place and don’t stop building until there is no room left; shades of Thailand really. It all seems a bit ironic that many of the divers who come here to experience their bit of underwater-spectacular seem blind to the crass over development that has preceded them and will follow; probably spending to much time staring into the dive computers they were wearing in the dining room and bar in the evening! Quote from Geoff, “Maybe they could wear their aqualungs as well”? On the upside most of the dive companies appear to be promoting an environmental message re: reefs, fish, sharks and rubbish.

Having decided that Mabul was not the go for these sailors and not wanting to risk falling into the cult of PADI, we upped anchor the nest morning for the twenty odd miles to Semporna.  This entailed a twelve mile run in the channel up inside Beaufort Reef to finally anchor just off the harbour entrance at Semporna amidst what seems to be a million noisy boats and possibly the worlds largest collection of floating rubbish; probably an over-statement but not by much. On the boats, these are mostly the little, small, go fast variety we saw so many of back in Kota Kinabulu that seem to provide the equivalent of cars in more land based locations. There are literally thousands of little houses parked on and over the water in this part of the world and every family has a least one boat and usually more than one. The result is the noisiest cacophony of un-muffled engine noise imaginable accompanied by total chaos. Being so close to the divers heaven of Sipidan there are also subsidiaries here of the PADI cult here with divers being ferried out each day from the very busy Semporna, water- front.

Semporna town jetty!

Boats and more boats.

A happy day for Kiwis.

The Gadfly's refueling.

The plan was to spend three days here, long enough to pick up Geoff’s partner Patsy from Tawau, watch the rugby world cup final and buy food and diesel before heading north out into Darvel Bay. Patsy arrived in time to start making spectacular inroads into improving the Gadfly culinary capabilities while the world cup was a spectacular success for our cousins on the eastern side of the Tasman Sea; Simon was so happy it was breathtaking and Amanda is none too pleased with French lack of sportsmanship. Getting diesel was easy with the local lads carrying the jerries in wheelbarrows back to the town jetty. This went swimmingly for the Gadfly refuel but Amanda unhappily managed to come across the Semporna equivalent of the ‘Artful Dodger’ resulting in much heartache over issues of payment; note to oneself, always pay at the end!  On the twenty fourth we extricated our anchor from the piles of debris on the bottom and headed out to revisit Tun Sakaran and try and climb the mountain at the back of the park headquarters.

Patsy and Geoff.

Amanda, the 'Artful Dodger' and hangers on.

How things happen sometimes!!!

Sabah is one of 13 member states of Malaysia. It is located on the northern portion of the island of Borneo. It is the second largest state in the country after Sarawak, which it borders on its southwest. It also shares a border with the province of East Kalimantan of Indonesia in the south. In spite of its status as a Malaysian state, Sabah remains a disputed territory; the Philippines has a dormant claim over much of the eastern part of the territory. The capital of Sabah is Kota Kinabalu, formerly known as Jesselton.

During the 7th century CE, a settled community known as Vijayapura, a tributary to the Srivijaya empire, was thought to have been the earliest beneficiary to the Bruneian Empire existing around the northeast coast of Borneo. Another kingdom which suspected to have existed beginning the 9th century was P’o-ni. It was believed that Po-ni existed at the mouth of Brunei River and was the predecessor to the Sultanate of Brunei.

The Sultanate of Brunei began after the ruler of Brunei embraced Islam. During the reign of the fifth sultan known as Bolkiah between 473–1524, the Sultanate’s thalassocracy extended over Sabah, Sulu Archipelago and Manila in the north, and Sarawak until Banjarmasin in the south. In 1658, the Sultan of Brunei ceded the northern and eastern portion of Borneo to the Sultan of Sulu in compensation for the latter’s help in settling a civil war in the Brunei Sultanate. In 1749, the Sultanate of Borneo ceded southern Palawan to Spain.

In 1761, Alexander Dalrymple, an officer of the British East India Company, concluded an agreement with the Sultan of Sulu to allow him to set up a trading post in the region, although it proved to be a failure. In 1846, the island of Labuan on the west coast of Sabah was  ceded to Britain by the Sultan of Brunei and in 1848 it became a British Crown Colony. Following a series of transfers, the rights to North Borneo were transferred to Alfred Dent, whom in 1881 formed the British North Borneo Provisional Association Ltd. In the following year, the British North Borneo Company was formed and Kudat was made its capital.

In 1883 the capital was moved to Sandakan. In 1885, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Germany signed the Madrid Protocol of 1885, which recognised the sovereignty of Spain in the Sulu Archipelago in return for the relinquishment of all Spanish claims over North Borneo. In 1888 North Borneo became a protectorate of the United Kingdom. The Sultanate of Sulu was granted the north-eastern part of the territory as a prize for helping the Sultan of Brunei against his enemies and from then on that part of Borneo was recognised as part of the Sultan of Sulu’s sovereignty.

In 1878, Baron Von Overbeck, an Austrian partner representing The British North Borneo Company and his British partner Alfred Dent, leased the territory of Sabah. In return, the company was to provide arms to the Sultan to resist the Spaniards and 5,000 Malayan dollars annual rental based on the Mexican dollar’s value at that time or its equivalent in gold. This lease was continued until the independence and formation of the Malaysian federation in 1963 together with Singapore, Sarawak and the states of Malaya. As of 2004, the Malaysian Embassy to the Philippines had been paying cession/rental money amounting to US$1,500 per year (about 6,300 Malaysian Ringgits) to the heirs of the Sultanate of Sulu.

There is only so many times you want to get underneath a boat and scrape off the critters that like attaching themselves to your floating home and after three months of the weekly ritual of cleaning the water line and detaching barnacles, the long overdue haul-out had to happen. The plan had been to get the boat up way back in Thailand or at least Langkawi, but better things to do beckoned along the way. Kudat had been recommended by a lot of the passing yachtie throng so up we were, once again fulfilling the oft quoted adage; cruising = boat maintenance in exotic locations. Of course it hadn’t helped that back in Johor the lads from Danga Bay who scraped the equivalent of Minerva Reef off the bottom used their razor sharp scrapers with so much enthusiasm that along with the boats personal, marine, ecosystem they scraped off most of the remaining anti-foulant.

One of the ongoing dilemmas with cruising is prioritising the multitude of jobs that need to be done, (hmm how important is that, will we sink?). The usual way is to cross jobs off the top of the list as you add more tasks to the bottom, in other words it never stops. So there we were, sanding, epoxy painting, anti-fouling, new skin-fittings, painting, sealing chain lockers, etc etc, the usual life of the intrepid sailor, same jobs, different country, interesting yard.

Sand blasting!!!!

The yard in this case was, Penuwasa, run by the local Chinese and set up for the local fishing fleet; big travel-lift, outdoor workshop, clouds of sand from the very noisy sand-blasting, lots of rubbish, the resident pack of dogs, dirt/mud to walk/splash around in, ladders that are designed to terrify and a symphony of chain saws.  The standard tools here for the shipwrights are adze (sort of a chisel/axe combined), an electric plane and a good chain saw, but they are very good with those chain saws. This is big timber repairs and with a sharp chain-saw they can cut their chosen pieces of rain-forest to absolute perfection, spectacular really. The pack of dogs was great and of course, like usual, for a while there one of them adopted Trevor and the Gadfly. During the day and in the heat (and it is hot in that yard) the dogs generally loitered and slept on their own underneath the various boats, then about an hour before dusk they formed up for the pack thing. The community here is of course mainly Moslem and there is a mosque about 100 metres from the yard with call-to-prayer five times a day. The most interesting was the dawn call and when the singing/call started from the mosque the dogs each time responded with unified howling.

That Mosque.

It took about two weeks to finish the multitude of jobs with the only real source of anxiety being the sand blasting that started thirty metres away, just when Trevor was trying to get all the paint back on the bottom of the boat. The big trawler they were trying to resurrect had all the appearance of having just been hauled off the bottom of the Sulu Sea and the lip service to preventing clouds of sand wafting about the yard was about as effective as wearing slippers to keep your feet dry in a rain storm. Every afternoon when the wind changed the boat took on the look of having just crossed the Great Sandy Desert.

The work continued once back in the water with repairs and painting on deck, rigging repairs, fixing instrument problems, the usual stuff. On the eighteenth Trevor flew back to Aus for a visit and on October 6 flew back with bags of boat parts and (can you believe it), cheese cultures that Amanda had ordered from somewhere and had delivered to his mother; this of course then required an ongoing availability of refridgerators and freezers. On the sixth new crew arrived in the form of Geoff from Perth and Anna from Spain; Geoff is originally from Wales now enjoying the life of sun and surf in SW Australia while Anna is currently running her own restaurant in Guatemala. On the morning of the eighth we pulled our anchors out of the mud in the lagoon and headed out for places south.

Layang Layang; Swallow Reef.

Imagine a coral atoll parked on top of a sea-mount, seven kilometres around with the clearest water imaginable dropping from a fringing reef to 1500 metres, nearly vertical. Then throw in the obligatory large, pelagic fish that love this sort of location, a few sharks, some turtles and all the other accoutrements of a ‘healthy’ coral reef and this is Layang Layang.  All of the rumours had suggested this was one of the places to visit off Borneo and if you are diver they were absolutely right. The diving here is simply stunning with the clearest oceanic water that any of us had seen.  Sadly the hammer- head sharks weren’t about or any of the whale-sharks and manta-rays that we keep hearing about, but then you can’t have everything.

For ten days the lagoon was to be home to the good ships Gadfly and Thyme with the only other boats to keep us company a big South African catamaran and the Malaysian Navy war-ship stationed out there. Well war-ship may be a bit of an embellishment, perhaps more ‘patrol-boat’, but it did have a very large gun on the front of it. The navy base here is pretty much off limits to visitors with signs suggesting anybody taking photos might be in a great deal of trouble, one does wonder though what constitutes trouble at LL as most things are pretty laid back? The sailors were really very friendly and more than happy to help us out with some water and to detail a couple of personnel to help carry the water back to our dinghy; the base Commanding Officer even came down to have a chat as we filled our jerry cans.

Special forces,

Special Forces Fishing Team (SFFT).

Ivonne.

Amanda just above the drop off.

Amanda on the drop off.

As far as Navy bases go, this one thinks doesn’t really rate as a hardship posting with sandy beaches, blue water, warm days every day, bbq’s, volley-ball, fishing etc etc. There is also a big mural on the side of one of their buildings here celebrating their ‘special forces’ acumen and ever afternoon the Navy ‘Special Forces Fishing Team’ (SFFT) would sally forth on operations to teach those fish who was firmly in charge out here. On fishing, the inside of the lagoon is a marine park (hence the requirement to not anchor but rather secure to the aircraft carrier moorings) but one is allowed to fish outside the lagoon and the fishing is also very good. Simon, the original fish slayer, caught a large ‘dog-tooth’ tuna on his first sortie, and eventually worked out that the ‘giant trevally’ (GT’s) have a love affair with the entrance and every night around dusk one is almost guaranteed fish while trolling from the dinghies. Sharks were a bit active here also and Trevor managed to catch on a single lure and at the same time a GT and the head of a barracuda that had recently suffered decapitation by shark. Another barracuda lost most of it’s body about three seconds after taking the lure with the head still twitching when pulled in.

Simon and his 'dog-tooth' tuna. Happy boy.

Trevor and GT's.

A beach of bottles!

Niel and those bottles.

Simon and his bottles!

Like the rest of South-East Asia most of the rubbish here is plastic, largely thongs and shoes and the ubiquitous plastic water bottles. There are in fact so many water bottles sculling around this part of the world that if an alien came to Earth here they would have to assume that plastic water bottles are the dominant life form (in the Andaman Islands this would be ‘thongs’ or for non-Australians ‘flip-flops’). How so many plastic bottles manage to wash up on a little beach in LL is, however, something of an enduring mystery.

Anyway after picking up about fifteen large bags of said plastic bottles we deposited them all under the little rotunda and reflected proudly on our attempt to improve our then little corner of the world; bet the bags are still there next year! Next to our little beach was a sign proclaiming proudly a ‘mangrove revegetation program’ currently underway in front of the beach. Well the little tubes are there but one assumes that such dubious scientific activities are more focussed on supporting the territorial claims of Malaysia to this little bit of the Spratly Islands, i.e. ‘look what good things we are doing’! What they were thinking trying to grow mangroves here god only knows. On other entertaining events, while we were engaged in our beach, cleaning program one of the resort staff arrived with a little tractor pulling a small trailer. The assumption at the time was that he was there to collect the rubbish but his explanation to Trevor when asked was, “No, I am just here to see what you are doing”!  One assumes that crazy white people picking up other peoples rubbish has to be seen to be believed.

The really good weather at LL lasted for the first five days and the following burst of intermittent and less than friendly weather coincided with the Gadfly SCUBA compressor developing a very loud banging noise bringing an end to our diving adventures; bit timely you might say. The weather was also definitely less than brilliant when we were due to leave and on the twenty fourth and under threatening skies, rain and a somewhat squally outlook we slipped away early from our man-of-war moorings for the 180 odd miles to Kudat, just around the most northerly tip of Borneo. The weather did however improve as we moved south with good winds. On the twenty fifth we had a great sail under kite, poled out headsail, full main and mizzen, whilst watching nervously for squalls. Late on the afternoon of the twenty fifth we put down our pick in a bay just north of Kudat and on the morning of the twenty sixth we secured to the wall in the pond next door to the Kudat shipyard. The next day both boats were hauled out for the obligatory bottom clean.

The top of Borneo.

Gadfly on passage to the 'Spratlys'. Photo - Ivonne.

Big, black and sneaky!

For our beach soiree we had three boats crews, Amanda, Simon and Ivonne on Thyme (Sloop also of course), on Metana, Daryl, Marjory and Mena and on the Gadfly, Trevor, Neil and Gabrielle.  Neil from the UK has been on the road for several years and had arrived from a stint teaching English in Korea while Kiwi Gabrielle was on leave from her job primary teaching in KL. Daryl was in charge of the steak situation having marinated the local stuff in Papaya, while the other two boats put together anything else that seemed appropriate for the occasion. On the way out the locals laid on a submarine escort to honour us all (appropriate really) but they did keep their distance, probably and with good reason out of concern that we might run into them. We have no idea at all who the submarine belongs to but it was big and very black.

From Police Bay.

Amanda and Daryl.

Next morning Daryl headed back into Sutera to continue his watch over Farmer Dave’s boat (gone to Thailand he had) while Thyme and Gadfly slipped into the next bay north for a change of scenery.  There is a resort in this bay that apparently doesn’t like grubby yachties and does it’s collective best to discourage them from even coming ashore, let alone use any of their facilities; but, they have a swimming pool. That afternoon Simon, Gabrielle and Trevor decided that a swim was in order and while Simon and Trevor surreptitiously (blatantly really) slipped into the pool Gabrielle ordered a drink and was very nicely told the guests get their first drink for the evening free, well cocktails all round then wasn’t it!  In our new status as guests we decided to have a good look at the place and after getting directions to the ‘Spa’ huts, Trevor was all fired up to get some more drinks and fill the local hot tub but was (probably wisely) talked out of it by Simon.

Cocktails next!

Our planned departure for Layang Layang on the Friday was for 6.0 AM (0600 for the more nautical inclined) so bright and early next morning off we went headed around Tanjung Bulijong to steer as close to 302 degrees as we could manage for the 155 mile passage to the entrance at Layang Layang (also known as Swallow Reef). Layang Layang is a coral atoll that sits on a sea-mount out in the ‘Spratly’ group of islands west and north-west of Borneo. Nobody seems to actually own these islands but everybody up here says they do with much arguing between Malaysia, Vietnam, China etc etc.  Anyway Malaysia has a Naval Base and airstrip on this particular one which makes it a good option to visit as long as you get permission from Malaysia.

Layang Layang entrance 1500 metres to 8 metres!

Anchored inside.

The passage out to took us about 33 hours with the mandatory squalls and close hauled on port whenever there was actually very much wind. Always exciting it is to make landfall after any sort of passage out of sight of land and no exceptions here; especially as we had heard much to be even more excited about with regard to this landfall. This atoll rises from abruptly from around 1500 metres and the reef enclosing the lagoon at high tide barely sticks out of the water; or doesn’t at all. Inside the lagoon the depths are around four to 10 metres and there is a sand spit at the North-Eastern end where the Navy has their home.  There is also yet another little resort that operates during the SW monsoon providing dive trips to the more financially endowed members of the diving fraternity. The sales-pitch here is ‘The best diving in the world’ and at this establishment they wouldn’t even sell us a can of Coke; no confusion at all on where we fitted in! Anyway it was good to get inside and get the pick down whilst coming in at the entrance and marvelling at the depth sounder going from no-result (too deep) to 8 metres whilst moving forward about 10 metres. Of course the Navy quickly told us we had to move onto some nearby moorings that are big enough to secure a Destroyer to; this meant of course we were to later spend a lot of time keeping our boats from drifting into them when there was no wind; does wonders for the paint work and all. But my, the water is clear.

More when we get to Kudat. From the Gadfly at:  07 24.872N 113 47.846E.

Tough life!!!!!

Elaeis guineensis Jacq.

‘African Palm Oil’

Palm oil, produced from the oil palm, is a basic source of income for many farmers in South East Asia, Central and West Africa, and Central America. It is locally used as a cooking oil, exported for use in many commercial food and personal care products and is converted into biofuel. It produces up to 10 times more oil per unit area as soyabeans, rapeseed or sunflowers. Oil palms produce 38% of vegetable oil output on 5% of the world’s vegetable-oil farmland.Palm oil is under increasing scrutiny in relation to its effects on the environment.

Palm oil is composed of fatty acids, esterified with glycerol just like any ordinary fat. It is high in saturated fatty acids. Palm oil gives its name to the 16-carbon saturated fatty acid palmitic acid. Monounsaturated oleic acid is also a constituent of palm oil. Unrefined palm oil is a large natural source of tocotrienol, part of the vitamin E family.

An estimated 1.5 million small farmers grow the crop in Indonesia, along with about 500,000 people directly employed in the sector in Malaysia, plus those connected with related industries.

As of 2006, the cumulative land area of palm oil plantations is approximately 11,000,000 hectares (42,000 sq mi). In 2005 the Malaysian Palm Oil Association, responsible for about half of the world’s crop, estimated that they manage about half a billion perennial carbon-sequestering palm trees.Demand for palm oil has been rising and is expected to climb further.

Between 1967 and 2000 the area under cultivation in Indonesia expanded from less than 2,000 square kilometres (770 sq mi) to more than 30,000 square kilometres (12,000 sq mi). Deforestation in Indonesia for palm oil (and illegal logging) is so rapid that a 2007 United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report said that most of the country’s forest might be destroyed by 2022. The rate of forest loss has declined in the past decade.

Global production is forecast at a record 46.9m tonnes in 2010, up from 45.3m in 2009, with Indonesia providing most of the increase.

Rising demand is driving owners to clear tropical forest to plant oil palms.According to UNEP, at the current rate of intrusion into Indonesian national parks, it is likely that many protected rain forests will be severely degraded by 2012 through illegal hunting and trade, logging, and forest fires, including those associated with the rapid spread of palm oil plantations. There is growing concern that this will be harmful to the environment in several ways:

• Significant greenhouse gas emissions. Deforestation, mainly in tropical areas, accounts for up to one-third of total anthropogenic CO₂ emissions.
• Habitat destruction, leading to the demise of critically endangered species (e.g. the Sumatran tiger,the Asian rhinoceros,and the Sumatran Orangutan.)

• Reduced biodiversity, including damage to biodiversity hotspots.
• Destruction of cash crops, such as fruit and rubber trees in Sarawak, Sabah and Kalimantan and Borneo, that belong to indigenous peoples (the Dayak), despite their frequent objections.

Greenhouse effects.

Damage to peatland, partly due to palm oil production, is claimed to contribute to environmental degradation, including four percent of global greenhouse gas emissionsand eight percent of all global emissions caused annually by burning fossil fuels,due to the clearing of large areas of rainforest for palm oil plantations. Many Indonesian and Malaysian rainforests lie atop peat bogs that store great quantities of carbon. Forest removal and bog drainage to make way for plantations releases this carbon.

Environmental groups such as Greenpeace claim that this deforestation produces far more emissions than biofuels remove. Greenpeace identified Indonesian peatlands, unique tropical forests whose dense soil can be burned to release carbon emissions, that are being destroyed to make way for palm oil plantations. They represent massive carbon sinks, and they claim their destruction already accounts for four percent of annual global emissions.

Greenpeace recorded peatland destruction in the Indonesian province of Riau on the island of Sumatra, home to 25 percent of Indonesia’s palm oil plantations. Growers plan to expand the area under concession by more than 28,500 square kilometres (11,000 sq mi) which would deforest half of the province. Greenpeace claims this would have devastating consequences for Riau’s peatlands, which have already been degraded by industrial development and store a massive 14.6 billion tonnes of carbon, roughly one year’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Research conducted by Greenpeace through its Forest Defenders Camp in Riau documents how a major Indonesian palm oil producer is engaging in large-scale, illegal destruction of peatland in flagrant violation of an Indonesian presidential order, as well as national forestry regulations. Palm oil from peatland is fed into the supply chain for global brands. FoE and Greenpeace both calculate that forests and peatlands that are replaced by palm oil plantations release more carbon dioxide than is saved by replacing diesel with biofuels.

Environmentalists and conservationists have been called upon to become palm oil farmers themselves, so they can use the profits to invest in their cause. It has been suggested that this is a more productive strategy than the current confrontational approach that threatens the livelihoods of millions of smallholders.

African Palm Oil.

Once was a rain forest!

Deforestation Borneo.

At Kota Kinabalu in northern Borneo the locals careen their boats at the western end of Sutera Harbour on the last bit of sandy shore exposed on the spring, low tides. They bring their boats ashore at high tide and lay them across two large logs and when the boat settles on the logs they lash the gunwhales of the boat to the logs on both sides with doubled lashings. As the tide recedes they then tighten the ‘two’ ropes by twisting them until the boat is pinned to the logs (if it worked for the Romans!). After that they spend all night (at the moment) cleaning, painting and anti-fouling their boat and then untie the lashings as the boat starts to ‘float’ the logs on the rising tide; diurnal and very long tides here with one low and one high each day.

We are anchored just off the careening beach at Kota Kinabalu (KK) in company with Metana (Daryl), Mirage II (Dave) and Thyme (Simon, Amanda and Sloop). Thyme has been here for about a week while we all arrived here on July 28 after a bit over two weeks travelling east and north from the Santubong River. All three boats (Gadfly, Metana and Mirage) slipped out of the Santubong on Monday the 11^th to spend a night in Muara Sabang, a little bay underneath Palau Lakei in the ‘Bako’ national park, about twenty miles to the east of Kuching; good chance here to clean ones bottom without risk of being bitten by crocodiles. Aboard for this leg were Flavia and friends from Sydney, Cinnamon and son Phoenix, both on board for a week long holiday. Next day was a sixty mile hop to the mouth of the Belewai river where we arrived just on dusk and watched the sun set as we dropped the anchor. From here we had the choice of either a sixty mile hop around the top of Pulau Beruit, or take the fifty mile option through the river. The river option sounded better so we spent the day looking for dolphins, avoiding shallow sand bars, considering the local timber industry and marvelling at the amount of palm oil they grow here. That evening we anchored in the channel between Pulau Beruit and Pulau Patok and after a few drinks went ashore at Kampong Bruit for a visit. Bruit is ones classic fishing Kampong with houses built pretty much over the water and joined by raised walk ways and bridges. The people here were very happy to see us, seems we may have been the first non-Malays to visit for a few decades; do not swim, big crocodiles!

On the Belewai River. Cinnamon.

SV Metana.

The plan after getting around or under the headland of Tanjung Sirik was a day hop to a village called ‘Mukah’ followed by a longer run of around 150 miles into Miri where the ‘Passage to the East’ Rally people were congregating for a soiree and free dinner prior to heading for the bright lights of Kota Kinabalu. The day run went well until we tried to find a way into Mukah. We had been advised that the channel was dredged and marked and that large vessels routinely enter the somewhat small port, but the only thing marking the entrance is an ‘all round danger’ marker and a wrecked and half buried in the bottom barge (one of these big ones they haul sand around on for some obscure reason). Anyway we were eventually joined by a local fishing boat who offered to guide us in so in line with the local fishermen we followed our new friend while calling the depths between us as the bottom got closer to our boats. Shallow here on the non-marked entrance and in typical boat fashion just as the Gadfly was scraping off some barnacles the pulley wheel on the raw water pump decided enough is enough and gave the game away. The plan then became get the boat into the deeper water just ahead, anchor and resolve the problem; except that as the engine temperature soared the hose at the bottom of the fresh-water pump decided to let go and compound the developing dilemna; oh joy, all this on a falling tide and with enough water under the keel to just accommodate a sea-snake. Anyway Trevor was endeavouring to resolve the problem when our new fisherman friend came back out and offered a tow so thirty minutes later we were tied up at the floating pontoon in the middle of town with Metana and Mirage rafted outboard.

Ahmed's boat; follow us!

The entrance at Mukah.

The locals here were fabulous and had moved three boats to get us alongside where we were to spend two nights, fifty metres from the local fish market and vegetable market, as well as service station for diesel and water. It seems the whole town came down to see the boats, because, as they told us, “no boats ever come in here”, no surprises there really. We even had some local journalists come down to interview us and ask us where we were from, “Really, Australia? Is very long way on small boat”!! When we tied up the locals pushed a fellow forward ‘Ali’ who is a mechanic and after a chat he raced down to start resolving pump problems and suggested next day we should cut a keyway in the pump pulley wheel to sort the problem. It turns out Ali is the brother of ‘Ahmed’ who is the owner and skipper of our fishing/pilot boat and tow vessel; bit of a family thing happening here with the fishing industry it seems. We gave Ahmed one of the cartons of Skol beer from Langkawi and also handed out beer to about twenty of the locals who had piled into the boat cockpit; amazing how warm they can drink beer here!! Next day Ali and friends cancelled their morning plans to take a mates son to Sibu to get a plane back to Newcastle in Australia (they had actually already left but turned around when Trevor called) and took the pump and Trevor to another friends place to have a keyway cut and permanently sort out the pump issue (should have happened when fitted by previous owner but you get that). Anyway, after fitting the pump in the boat they headed for Sibu after refusing payment and only accepted a present of a ‘Hong Kong Bar’ T-shirt from Penang!

A big event in Mukah!

Buying Trevor breakfast while waiting for the pump repairs.

Ali

Ali and friends.

Fish market Mukah.

So at dawn on the morning of the 17^th and on the high tide we headed out for an overnighter to Miri, Trevor this time single handed as the girls and Phoenix had decided to bus to Miri to ensure catching a plane on the 18^th headed back to Australia. This went swimmingly with light conditions and then a great morning sail reaching up to the Marina at Miri; the only drama being the two clocks Trevor bought in Mukah where the alarms seemed to operate randomly and the trick became to set them for different times and assume one will go off early enough to check the boat and traffic. The rally boats were still in town and having a ‘free’ dinner that night for their race event up to KK, so, ‘when in Rome’ and not being inclined to knock back a free dinner, off we went.

Barges in Mukah, sand, galley, tables, chairs, dogs!

A highlight of Miri was our trip out to the Niah Caves about 100 km west of Miri so after hiring a car we promptly got lost with Scottish Ron (crew from Metana) getting most frustrated when acting as guide. Ron had lived in Miri 27 years previously when working for Shell and couldn’t really have known that that what he presumed to be the one main road between Miri and Bintulu is actually somewhat newer than 27 years old but just not marked on maps; interesting concept. Anyway the caves are something to see with the birds nest scaffolding attached to the ceiling (20 to 30 metres up) and climbing ropes (actually long lengths of wood joined by wooden pegs) also attached to the cave ceiling so that locals can climb to their scaffolding to get at the nests. The caves go on for over a kilometre with enough space in the main cave to park a 747 jet (says this in the reading material) and in the painted cave there are 2500 year old paintings on the walls of people, boats and animals. Apparently the painted cave was a funeral site and in the 1950’s still contained remains of funereal boat-coffins laying about. The caves were a focus of one of David Attenborough’s films twenty years ago showing the locals climbing around six stories up on bamboo scaffolds (hanging from the ceiling) collecting their bird nests; unbelievable really.

On the way to Niah, Scottish Ron commented that the biggest change in the area he could see is the extent to which the rain-forest has been cleared. Everywhere we looked on the way to the caves all we could see was Palm Oil plantations and on the way back as he said, “all of this was virgin rainforest”. We had previously seen all the way through South-East Asia huge areas of Palm Oil production and had read and heard much about the issue, but here in Borneo the scale is simply staggering and very much in ones face. Where we could see forest there is everywhere areas that have just been stripped and burnt in anticipation of planting Elaeis guineensis Jacq., better known as ‘African Palm Oil’, as apparently the cheapest means to produce vegetable oil for all manner of use including and unbelievably, biodiesel. So here we are chopping down some of the worlds most stunning rain-forests so that we can continue to drive cars with gay abandon with what seems to be no concern about loss of biodiversity, loss of habitat, land and topsoil degredation not to mention increased green-house gas emission. French Nathalie at the marina had worded us up on the Palm Oil paradigm but still something to see and frustrating that it couldn’t be undertaken in something more environmentally sustainable or even considered. The park at Niah (a world heritage site) is quite spectacular but is now an island in the middle of a massive mono-culture crop of palms. In other parts of Borneo we had seen areas where the rain-forest had been left along roadsides to obscure the palm oil stands, but on the unmarked road to Bintulu, they don’t even bother to do this.

Palms for oil.

We spent four nights in Miri and again in company and now with German ‘Janja’ on board for the leg to Labuan we slipped out early on the 22^nd for the one hundred and ten mile run to the top of Bruneii Bay and Labuan. This involved an overnight stop off Tutong on the Bruneii coast where the Sultan’s brother has built a flash new harbour that could hold a small Naval task force. Nothing at all inside the two enormous breakwaters though, except of course for that very little but aesthetically pleasing island. Ron did speculate that the harbour may have been constructed to accommodate the two destroyers that the same brother had ordered and had built in the UK that are now and probably inevitably, in moth-balls as the Bruneii Navy doesn’t extend to enough personnel to man even one; ah well, the harbour looked nice.

Port Victoria, Labuan.

Labuan is an oil town with a history of British coal mining and oil production. It also sits quite high in the pantheon of Australian military endeavours against the Japanese and Australia has named minor war vessels Labuan and Balikpapan in memory of landings in Borneo. The oil industry is still huge along this part of Borneo and we spent the best part of two days passing all manner of production and drilling platforms. In Port Victoria on Labuan there were any number of rig support ships at anchor although one assumes that like everywhere else in Asia these boats probably spend time towing barge loads of sand around to keep them occupied; towing, towing, towing. We hired a car for the day here and went out to see the sights, Aquarium, Museum, Coal Mining Museum, Buddhist Temple, Surrender Point and of course the War Memorial and Cemetery. The aquarium was a laugh, interesting but where you can’t afford to have fish, just have plastic ones! On more sombre locations, ‘Surrender Point’ on the west coast, is near where the amphibious forces (mainly Australian) came ashore and where the Japanese forces in Borneo finally surrendered at the end of WW2. The location then became the headquarters for the Australian 9^th Division and where war crimes trials were carried out following the cessation of hostilities. Now there is a ‘Peace Park’ there, built by the Japanese in the 1980’s. The cemetery on the east coast contains almost 4000 people who died on active service in Borneo during the war with over half unidentified aside from country. The memorial is dedicated also to those whose graves are unknown and to the servicemen who died on the ‘Sandakan Death March’, when the Japanese marched over a thousand POW(s) 260 km from Sandakan on the east coast to Ranau, inland near Mt Kinabalu; only 6 survived the war (three died shortly thereafter) and they had escaped and were helped by locals.

Aquatic centre Labuan. Trevor, Dave, Daryl, Whale.

Love the plastic fish!

As previous.

Plastic birds etc.

Coal Museum, Labuan and locals. Dave and Daryl.

Farmer Dave and Scottish Ron; War Memorial.

Plaque, Surrender Point.

Probably!!!!

Peace Park, Surrender Point.

Farmer Dave at the Buddhist temple.

From Labuan it is only 36 miles to Pulau Tiga, then another 30 miles to KK. We stopped for a night anchored in front of the resort at Tiga (most expensive beer in Christendom although we are in a Moslem country), then next morning we sallied forth for ‘Pulau Gaya’, the big island just to the north of KK. Here we once again came across the good ship Thyme, Simon, Amanda and Sloop with Americans Ben and Josh on board; although when we passed them in the first bay the only welcome we got was from Sloop as the rest were diving. First order of the day after the diving was beers and the obligatory bombing competition followed by a dive for Trevor after leaving on his sunglasses. That night was the standard fire and music on the beach with the guitar going ashore off Gadfly and sore heads next morning.

Stolen from Thyme.

Also stolen from Thyme.

Anchored off careeing beach, Sutera Harbour.

The Thyme people have since been busy looking after Amanda’s parents and their concerns about local food, while the intrepid three (Trevor, Dave and Daryl) decided a road trip was in order and hired a car to have a look at Mt Kinabalu and the ‘Poring Hot Springs’ and rain forest walk; we wanted to go up the Mountain but the mandatory guided walk costs $400; bit much for these yachties.

Kota Kinabalu.

KK Yacht Club. Expensive beer!

Things in Museums.

So here we are anchored out in Sutera harbour watching the locals boats come and go off their beach and listening to the roar of the little go-fast boats from the sea, pole-village at the other end of the harbour. These boats are about three to five metres long, one to two metres wide and have a large and very noisy inboard engine in them. The drivers steer them with a long tiller and clearly the faster, noisier and more brightly painted they are the better. There seems to be a lot of the pole-village people employed on the rather expansive development taking place just up the canal nearby and the preferred means of transport for the villagers is their own go-fast boat or go-fast taxi. On developments and building things, KK has the same scale of construction going nowhere (completed and not) that happens in the rest of Malaysia, but the need to build things goes on unabated. On the waterfront here there is a whopping great shopping and board-walk complex being completed that is completely at the wrong end of town and will probably look quite ordinary and empty in five years; shades of the ‘Festive Street Mall at JB’. Sadly the building of the waterfront board-walk seems to have reduced the careening beach to just the 50 metres or so up near the canal and this is squeezed between development sites. Fishermen have probably careened and worked on their boats along this end of the harbour for hundreds of years, one wonders when the last one will come up?

Fishermans wharf KK.

The cafe at the fishermans wharf.

Careening beach KK

Once was a careening beach.

Careening a vessel  or boat means to beach it at high tide in order, usually, to expose one side or another of the ship’s hull for maintenance below the water line when the tide goes out.  Careening can be accomplished by either laying a boat or each side in successive tides or by holding a vessel upright to give access to both sides simultaneously.

The process could be assisted by securing a top halyard to a fixed object such as a tree or rock to pull the mast over as far as possible. Maintenance might include repairing damage caused by dry rot or cannon shot, tarring the exterior to reduce leakage, or removing biofouling organisms such as barnacles to increase the ship’s speed. A particularly well-protected area might be called “Careening Bay” to the locals. Pirates would often careen their ships because they had no access to drydocks.

A secluded bay would suffice for necessary repairs and/or hull cleaning, and such little “safe havens” could be found throughout the islands in the Caribbean and nearly around the world. One group of islands, Tres Marias, became popular when Francis Drake had sailed there in 1579 and quickly became a place for piracy.