Sad to say they didn’t really materialize on Saturday and we basically motored and hand steered all the way to Labuan. Once in Victoria Harbor we first tried to anchor in front of the marina, which is now being rebuilt but you can allegedly still enter with your dinghy, get water and take shower. We tried that, came in with the dinghy but the marina gates were all closed. We also found out that according to our charts anchoring in that area is in fact prohibited. Nobody seemed to care but the prospect of tug and pilot boats driving at full speed all around us during the night wasn’t exactly appealing. In the end we anchored further inside the harbor opposite the water taxi terminal and used their service to get ashore.

We stayed in Labuan for two days. Weather reports were still predicting squally weather, but during out stay it was usually sunny during the day and only started raining in the evening. Thus we actually managed to wash and dry all the laundry that we collected since leaving Kudat and spent Sunday provisioning for the next leg of our voyage. To obtain diesel was not difficult, we just walked to the local petrol station, where they gave us 60 liters at one go without even blinking an eye (usually in Malaysia you are only allowed to take 20l of diesel per person per day unless you apply for a special permit). But where to get water?

We tried to ask the water taxi drivers but they didn’t seem to understand. Similar enquiries in waterfront restaurants were equally futile. Just when we started talking about trying to anchor in front of the marina after all and reattempt to get water from them, we noticed a water tap above a stainless steel counter belonging to one of the street stalls just next to a narrow alley that leads to the water taxi terminal. I went to the owner to ask if it was alright to take some water. I haven’t even finished the sentence, before she replied: “Of course, go on!” Apparently, we were not the first ones to take water from them… The fried bananas still dripping oil she sold didn’t exactly boost my appetite so we at least bought some cold drinks from her in return of her favor and after we deposited the jerry cans with water next to those with diesel at the water taxi terminal, we returned to town once more in order to buy some of that duty free firewater Labuan is famous for. As we sipped scotch on the rocks that evening and listened to a squall that was thundering by, we thought of our friends in Kudat and elsewhere and were wondering if we could really make it to Johor Bahru before Christmas…

]]> http://www.klubko.net/en/2013/12/kudat-to-kuching-a-rainy-end-to-a-spellbound-voyage-ii/feed/ 2 http://www.klubko.net/en/2013/12/kudat-to-kuching-a-rainy-end-to-a-spellbound-voyage-i/ http://www.klubko.net/en/2013/12/kudat-to-kuching-a-rainy-end-to-a-spellbound-voyage-i/#comments Sat, 28 Dec 2013 01:24:16 +0000 http://www.klubko.net/en/?p=3763 This was supposed to be a relatively easy one. Not counting the passage from Taiwan to Philippines earlier this year, the voyage from Kudat to Johor Bahru was to be our first voyage ever when we would be actually sailing in the right season with the prevailing winds and currents and not against them. Marcello, [...]]]> This was supposed to be a relatively easy one. Not counting the passage from Taiwan to Philippines earlier this year, the voyage from Kudat to Johor Bahru was to be our first voyage ever when we would be actually sailing in the right season with the prevailing winds and currents and not against them. Marcello, an Italian sailor we met in Kudat, told us that last year the same time of year he sailed the whole way from Kudat to Phuket, had the engine running maybe for 2 hours during the whole trip. Not bad at all! Yet for us it just somehow didn’t happen… Instead of NE monsoon winds, we had either calms or were fighting headwinds, countercurrents, squalls and heavy rain. Ideally by now we should have been in Johor Bahru on peninsula Malaysia, yet here we are exactly 17 days after we left Kudat, sitting in rainy Kuching, capital of Sarawak, on the northwestern part of the island of Borneo. Not only is Kuching “the wettest populated area (on average) in Malaysia with an average of 247 rainy days per year”, the rainy season is in full swing now and most of the days it hardly stops raining. And when I say raining, I’m not talking about some minor drizzling but regular downpours. Simply put, the journey so far can only be described as downright miserable…

First of all, leaving Kudat was not easy. After all we did spend almost 4 months there and that’s a long enough period to become attached. Many cruisers boast of a nomadic spirit but I guess from time to time even they don’t object to a spell of familiarity and some kind of a settled routine in their lives. It’s exciting to explore new harbors and anchorages, but it also feels good to know where you get a spare part in case of emergency or when they bring in a fresh catch of prawns to the local fish market and above all that if you need some help, your friends are just “next doors”. Often after a while the familiarity starts to feel too ordinary and you begin to long to go to sea again but when the time really comes to leave and say good-bye to new friends, this, especially for me, is perhaps one the most difficult parts of cruising. And this time it was even more so. Kudat may seem like an enchanted harbor in the sense we were trapped there for such a long time – first the weather and then the troubles with the engine bed etc.; but for me it will always be remembered as a special place – after all when Petr went to Taiwan interpreting for 3 weeks, I stayed there on my own, the longest period I ever stayed on the boat alone and thus have many personal memories of the place and above all the people. Memories that shan’t be forgotten.

Janna also underwent major metamorphosis there. The whole interior is now painted, joints between hull and bulkheads re-glassed and our engine got new mounts and above all with help of our friends a proper engine bed instead of just being screwed into the fiberglass as it was before. So in a sense Janna also was changed during our stay in Kudat. Something we are reminded of every day…

The last night we spent in the Kudat marina it rained a lot, but we were so tired from the last days’ preparations that we hardly noticed the pounding of the raindrops on the coach roof. The plan was to get the boat ready by the end of the week and apart from checking out with the local authorities take the Monday off and have some rest before the voyage. But first our house batteries mysteriously got themselves discharged, almost failing to start the engine, and then we found out that salt water is leaking into our diesel tank! So instead of resting we were shopping for a starter battery – something we should have done a long time ago – and tracking the source of the salt water coming to the engine room and the crack through which it was leaking into the diesel tank. These are not tasks you should be doing 2 days before a long passage across South China Sea! Maybe this should have warned us, that our problems were far from over. Yet at that time we interpreted it the other way round – hopefully after all these troubles, we are now more or less predisastered and the voyage itself will be just fine. Or so we hoped…

On Tuesday morning, our departure day, everything seemed alright. Even the rain stopped and so we cast off our mooring lines and waving to our friends slowly sneaked out of the still sleepy marina. One last look at the familiar masts in the marina and the adjacent boatyard that were slowly disappearing behind the horizon and there we were again almost 2 months later after our last attempt to leave Kudat, sailing in direction of Singapore and then through Mallaca Strait to Langkawi and Thailand.

Same as two months ago, there was almost no wind so we engaged our tiller pilot and kept motoring towards the Tip of Borneo. While the autopilot was doing its job, we sat back, watched the occasional fisherman and kept staring at the mesmerizing blue color of the sea. Janna was gently rocking and our engine was running as it should. Then after two hours our quiet sea meditating was suddenly interrupted by a weird clicking sound, after which our tiller pilot started violently veering off the course to port and then to starboard. First we thought it’s the bad contact in the socket acting again, but it soon became obvious, that it’s more serious than that. It’s not a good thing to lose your autopilot just at the beginning of the voyage, but we were hoping to encounter some monsoon winds soon. This way we could hand over the steering to our windvane Capehorn and so we decided to press on and hand steer in the meantime.

In the afternoon some wind did pick up but from the south-west, plus there must have been some weird current coming against us, because even though the sea was relatively flat, we were barely making 3 knots. Originally the plan was to go from Kudat straight to Labuan but now with the broken tiller pilot and no winds we decided to anchor for the night in Ugus Bay. Moreover we noticed that for some reason it’s really hard to hoist the mainsail, so it was prudent to drop anchor and see into the problem. Unfortunately Ugus Bay proved to be a very rolly anchorage and not even two glasses of red wine after dinner were enough to keep us asleep till morning. At 3 am I got up tired and frustrated to find out Petr was not exactly sleeping either and so we heaved the anchor and continued towards Kota Kinabalu. By leaving that early there was a good chance we might make it to KK still some 60 miles ahead before sunset.

Again the winds were against us but at least we didn’t encounter any squalls and after 14 hours of motoring and hand steering we dropped anchor in front of Sutera Harbor next to our friend Gevin on St. Jacob. It was his last night in KK and before he went ashore for a farewell dinner with his friends, he told us to come into the marina next morning and tie up the dinghy next to Patrick and Janice on Obsession, whom we briefly met before in Kudat. After taking the autopilot apart, Petr found a broken circuit, potentially the source of our troubles, so the plan was to go to town and try to have it repaired somewhere. Next morning Patrick and Janice first treated us to some coffee and then they lent us their bicycles, which was a real blessing. We spend the whole day riding all around KK’s highways, trying not to get ourselves killed by some insane Malaysian driver, and after being repeatedly send from one shop to another, in the end we actually found this tiny Chinese repair shop, where they managed to repair the circuit. Patrick, who works as a captain on merchant ships, only just got reunited with his family after another voyage, so we didn’t want to spoil their family dinner, but he and Janice insisted we stay and we spent a very pleasant evening on their boat. Before we finally left in our dinghy some time after midnight, Patrick tried to avert our next day’s departure by inviting us to a barbeque on Saturday, but we politely declined and promised that we will try to meet with them again on Monday when they come to Labuan to have their life raft tested.

It was Thursday and we wanted to heave the anchor and get back to sea, but after most Thursdays, Fridays follow and we’ve tried to leave port on Friday before with bad consequences…

Janna in Kudat marina

Our travels were once more mainly work-oriented. We (yes, both of us!) were offered an interpreting job in Taiwan for one week in the second half of August, and since we kind of had to overstay our visas last time before we left Taiwan (we had to wait for our new hank-on genoa to be recut and Petr’s stitches to be removed), we now had to apply for a tourist visa in advance as part of the “punishment”. We could either do it in Kuala Lumpur or in Singapore and since we have special emotional ties to Singapore (after all that’s where we bought Janna), we didn’t think twice before deciding to apply for our Taiwanese visas there.

And so not even a week after our arrival to Kudat, we flew for a few days to Singapore and got our visas to Taiwan. We spent the next week translating and then packed our bags once again and after four hours ride on a minibus to Kota Kinabalu and a night spent at the airport, we finally boarded the plane that was to take us back to Taiwan.

Once our work there was over, we traveled to Kaohsiung, where we stayed a week more. Our friend Kevin kindly offered us to stay in his newly opened B&B – basically a big apartment on the ninth floor with a huge, professionally equipped kitchen and stunning view of the Kaohsiung harbor. During the day we worked on our translations and in the evenings met with our friends, both old and new ones.

Welcoming party at Kevin’s B&B

The two weeks in Taiwan passed so quickly! Before we left Kudat, we were really excited to return to the island, that was basically our home for more than eight years. What would it be like? We honestly didn’t know. Suddenly it felt as if it’s already been ages, since we sailed away. Can we still speak Chinese? However, once we stepped out of the plane, it was as if we left only yesterday, not more than four months ago… We headed infallibly towards the bus stop to the center and once on the bus we counted the well-known landmarks and buildings on our way to town.

We enjoyed Taiwan to the fullest – we traveled both north and south, experienced spells of sunny weather as well as two typhoons (in 2 weeks!); we savored all our favorite Taiwanese delicacies and under Kevin’s guidance even sampled some new ones. And last but not least, we of course filled our backpacks to the brim with special provisions for our future voyages. On our way to airport we stayed overnight with a Czech friend in Taipei, who is now relocating back home after more than ten years in Taiwan…

Back at the Kota Kinabalu airport we first had lunch in already familiar restaurant and then managed to stop a private taxi that took us to town for third of the price of that of the airport taxis. Man, it was a wild ride! Once we got in, the taxi driver swapped the CD with Indian slow dance rhythms for a wild dance music, pumped up the volume and while we stared at him eyes wide open, he started swaying violently to the rhythm behind his steering wheel, occasionally letting it loose in order to clap his hands and give a whoop of joy. Normally we would probably laugh at the sight of such a show, except that the loudspeakers were blasting right next to our ears: “I crashed my car into the bridge, I don’t care, I love it…” We nevertheless survived the ride from the airport unharmed and after another four hours on a minibus the driver kindly dropped us off right next to the marina gate.

Back aboard Janna we once again enjoyed the silence and relative solitude – after all we are still in a marina, albeit half empty nowadays, not in a deserted anchorage! On the other hand, I have to admit, that for the first two days (at least) it felt kind of lonely here – after two very social weeks in Taiwan with every evening spent in the company of our numerous Taiwanese friends, it took several days for us to get used to the fact, that our only companion in the cockpit after dark were swarms of mosquitoes.

Now, however, we are back in the cruising mood and can’t wait to be back at sea! Hopefully within a week or two at the most! We will continue SW (luckily the SW monsoon seems to be getting weaker these days) following the coast of Borneo towards Kuching, then cross over to Singapore (actually to Danga Bay, Malaysia, we probably won’t enter Singapore with the boat, since it’s too expensive) and from there through the Malacca Strait to our previous cruising grounds, including Lumut, Langkawi, etc. The ultimate next destination is Thailand, where we hope be sometime mid-November…