Sunday 16 September 2012

Farewell Malaysia, hello Indo

With Przemslaw and Basia from Poland aboard we completed our outward paper work and headed off, first stop the mouth of the Kinabatangan where Sloop caught up with his the Probiscus Monkey friends.

Tun Sakaran gave us a chance to give some of the kids clothes left with us by Max and Nadine to the local sea Gipsys much to their surprise and excitement.
 We took the opportunity to scrub below the water line in preparation for the crossing as well as snorkeling the outside of the reef.
 We picked the dive resort island of Mabal as our departure point and in between snorkeling trips pre-prepared our passage meals. With a windy forecast Friday evening worked out to be the best time to go even though as most sailors will know, its bad luck to set out on a Friday. We soon discovered that perhaps there is some truth in it with the autopilot on strike2 hours out and a sea water leak at the stern gland. After some discussion the decision was made that we could hand steer the 420 miles and as the water leak was only a problem while sailing and could be managed by the pumps.
 The wind was as expected and the first few days we were kept busy with pumping and steering,  thankful for the meals that we made before departing.
 As the wind began to ease Przemslaw (now called Chamois) made the mistake of whistling. This is also bad luck onboard, fabled to bring strong winds. The wind picked up again and he paid for his mistake by losing the contents of his stomach on a few occasions. The morning of day 3 brought the sun, swimming in water 4km’s deep and cleaning vomit off the side of the boat.
 Pleased to be back on land Chamois found himself with his first ever drinking coconut, instead of kissing the ground as promised. I think he was sold on the first sip - just wait till we show him what it’s like with a little rum. Everyone but me also got to snorkel with a Dugong. I thought Amanda was yelling Turtle and swam the other way. Shit.
 Bear Gryls I mean Chomois / Przemslaw attempted to light the beach BBQ with a flint before I had to show him the marvels of dingy fuel.  Finally a hooker dive and off we go for our inwards clearance in Talaud.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hopefully the Tanduay stores are holding up for the coconuts! Hope all is well, Michele

Anonymous said...

Fear not, we will head back to the Philippines again this year!