056:21.330N 005:29.628W
.Paramour
He loved it this evening though. Instead of taking the dinghy back to the pontoon from the mooring we pootled (we’re running in the outboard) over to a near by island, all of 100 ft across at it’s widest but with trees and grass and seaweed covered rocky bits - all the essential components for an exploration. However we weren’t the only visitors. As we came ashore sleek grey shapes slipped into the water. About 8 seals, mums and pups, peered at us curiously from the safety of the sea. Aonghas was beside himself, clambering over the rocks to get as close as possible to the intriguing smells he’d never smelled before. It’s clear we were invading their home: they had been feasting on mussels, the clean opened shells were littered all about.
New sounds, new boat, new crew. But the same lapping of the waves against the hull, the smell of the salt air and that delightful unsteady feeling as we are getting back our sea legs. The world is no longer steady beneath us. Anything might happen…
Aonghas’ Island - view from our deck.
When ever we decide to lift the anchor and head off a lot has happened beforehand. We will have looked up the prevailing winds and currents, checked when the monsoon changes or the hurricanes come and discussed, discussed, discussed.
Ever been in a busy railway station and looked up at the board and thought "I could go anywhere! Why follow the path I was planning on? Look at all these destinations... I could just get a ticket and take that step from a different platform"? That's what it's like every time we plan to move on; we could sail anywhere!
But, at some point, the decision is made, we're going there. Next we have to sort out charts and visas and entry forms, research good anchorages, make sure Lochmarin is in order, go ashore for provisions and finally ready Lochmarin for sea.
Then Phil takes the wheel and I go forward to lift the anchor, and, as I'm stowing the anchor ball, I get to look up, at the sea ahead of us and that is when that moment comes.
We're off. What will be will be.
It may be all plain sailing with a gentle swell, the wind on our quarter, clear skies, and blue water - we'll sit in the shade of the jib and watch the dolphins.
Storms may come, green water running down the side decks, Lochmarin racing the white horses on the top of every wave, storm job tight in, lightning filling the sky like the thunder fills my ears. We'll weather it, or turn to seek shelter, which ever is more prudent.
Either way we're off, all the deciding is done with, the scurry and bustle to get prepared before the weather window closes is over, there's a peace and an excitement and a conscious act of commitment to what the fates will bring.
And today is another of those moments. We aren't on deck, we are sitting in a coffee shop in Kuala Lumpur International Airport heading back to the UK.
Over these last few months it has become clear that crossing oceans is no longer for us. Some health issues, combined with no longer being able to get health insurance, made us realise we need to take another path. So we've made a new plan: we'll live with one foot on shore and one in the water, have a house in the Scottish Highlands and a smaller boat, cruise in cooler waters closer to home. And sell Lochmarin.
There I've said it. My eyes fill as I write this. It's hard: our home, our ticket to adventure, our safe place with whom we've shared so many highs - and lows! But if we're not living full time on board nor crossing oceans she's bigger than we need, it makes sense.
So we are just heading to the boarding gate, Lochmarin cleared of our personal bits and pieces and all spic and span ready for her new owners, when they find her. The decision's made, the jobs are finished.
Here comes that feeling: we're heading for a new adventure..
Lochmarin4sale.com ]]>
The houses of a fishing village on Pangkor Island, dwarfed by the scattered rocks beside them.
It was after dark before we arrived between Pangkor Island and it’s little brother, Pangkor Laut. It had been a long day, 95 nm since we’d lifted the anchor in the dark of 3:45am. Both of us had been kept busy, one helming the other acting as spotter for the frequent fishing nets which run a surprisingly long way from the fishing boats. Happily we discovered that if we went right in the middle between two floats we could pass above the nets without fouling them.
All the way up the Malaysian coast we had been intrigued by the sight of flocks of delicate fast moving terns, so fine that the flocks looked like wisps of smoke against the sky. Up close to the coast I was able to snap a few pictures of them, such pretty little birds.
Black-Naped Terns.
We anchored just off Pangkor Laut Resort, a very smart affair, one of the first to have bungalows over the water, a style that has been followed from Tahiti to the Seychelles.
Pangkor Laut Resort.
We didn’t get a chance to enjoy the setting though as we were due to lift out next day in Pangkor Marina, built about 5 years ago on a reclaimed land island between Pangkor Island and the mainland. By 9am we had the anchor up and were back under way. Oh well, that lie in, leisurely breakfast and a swim I'd been looking forwards to would have to wait!
Rounding the SE corner of Pangkor Island, Marina Island is the buildings and line of trees on the right.
A tug with its tow of sand waiting in the entrance to Selat Lumat.
Pulau Pisang and Pulau Besar had been pleasant enough anchorages, enough shelter, not too deep, pretty islands to look at but, with the shipping lanes right next to them, it was a little like free camping alongside a motorway. Our anchor beers were spent sitting on the side of the bridge deck watching the traffic pass by.
Apart from the big ships there was a steady stream of tugs and tows, staying just outside the main channel as we did, but often going the wrong way. They were mostly transporting sand. Perhaps surprisingly, sand has become a hugely important international commodity. The massive growth of cities and roads across the developing world all need vast amounts of sand for the cement (and glass). Indonesia has completely erased at least two dozen islands since 2005 and, in contrast, Singapore has created an extra 20 square miles over the last 40 years, making it the worlds largest sand importer. It is so hungry for sand that Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam have all restricted or banned the export of sand to Singapore*. However, when we were passing by we saw dozens of old ships kitted out as sand miners, working on the Malaysian side of the Strait, with a convey of barges continually transporting the sand across to Singapore.
One of the sand miners anchored in Selat Lumut. The bow extension allows them to send a big pipe over to suck in the sand along with sea water. The crane off loads to drained sand into the barges. They all seem to be in as bad a state as this one - repurposed after they are too tired to continue as long distance transporters?
Approaching our overnight anchorage a little way up the Selat Lumut we passed full barges waiting outside and an anchored mining ship just inside. However this night we’d be away from the traffic of the main channel, tucked in just down stream of a little marina, swinging with the tide. We weren’t able to enjoy the bird life along the shores however, nor sit and enjoy the view, as it poured with rain as soon as our anchor was down.
Of course all this mining has massive effects on the environment: changing the routes of rivers, undercutting bridges, muddying fishing waters, and even removing whole habitats. With the stuff so readily available to some and so desirable by others governments are having trouble controlling the flow. Meanwhile the mining operations are scaling up, we passed some much larger sand dredgers further up the coast. If this continues the coastline and river mouths in this part of the world will soon be unrecognisable and our safe little overnight anchorage might not be here if we pass this way again.
The long pipe out the front sucks up the sand and water, the conveyer of troughs at the back drains it and lifts it onto the conveyer (that’s standing upright right now) which transfers the sand to a barge.
* Facts and figures from an article in The Guardian, 27th Feb 2017, by Vince Beiser.
Another early start had us up before the light to haul up the anchor. Backs as straight as we can manage, bending at the knees, then: down to the right, up to the middle, down to left, up to the middle, over and over and over, whilst the other one tails the warp. A pause when we get the start of the chain on deck to transfer it on to the gypsy, then it’s back to: down to the right, up to the middle, down to the left, and up to the middle…. There can’t be many lifestyles where one has a full workout within 15 minutes of waking up!
Once the anchor’s safely raised and we’re on course there’s the sails to be hoisted and trimmed then it’s chill time. Time to grab some breakfast and a coffee. Time to relax into helming, feel through your finger tips how the the boat is moving though the water, find the balance point, start to bring her back to starboard even before the passing swell has finished pushing her to port… a good feeling. "This hand helming isn’t so bad” I was thinking, enjoying feeling so connected with Lochmarin. But then I needed a wee… “Phil! Can you take her again?”. And then I was starting to burn, we’d left the mizzen sail down so we could use the awning but the low sun was right on my legs…”Phil! Can you take her again?”. And then I was dying of thirst…”Phil! Can you take her again?”. Perhaps this hand helming lark wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. The first couple of hours were fun but the day starts to feel long when one of us always has to have one hand on the helm. But Otto (the auto-helm) was out of action and, with the current against us, we were motor sailing so Sadie (the wind self steerer) couldn’t do her job. Hand helming it was to be. Phil developed a really cool patented steering with your feet system to save having to have a hand held up all the time, and then, when I’d gone below to grab an hours catch up sleep, he devised a bungee system that would keep us roughly on track whilst one popped below to check the chart, or grab a drink, or take a wee. That was better.
Our anchorage that night was to be a little island not far from Malacca: Pulau Besar, one of the Water Islands. As we sailed up the Malacca Strait the shadows of all the centuries of ships that had passed that way sailed along with us. The same monsoon that had given us such a dreadful time heading into it had enabled ship after ship to explore and to trade, with plenty of wind to bring them back again as soon as the monsoon changed. All those spice traders with fragrant holds bringing their priceless cargo back to Europe, whilst dodging the pirates and the other traders who would think nothing of saving themselves the trip by taking another ship’s cargo. Ship after ship had passed that way, just as we were, looking for safe anchorage and provisions, and these islands had provided the fresh water they needed.
The trading was still going on, but it was big container ships and tankers now, anchored on the shallow shelf off the coast of `Malaysia. Staying in shore of the shipping lanes we passed anchored ship after anchored ship. Now and again the crew get bored waiting on orders. A little fishing helps pass the time.
01:27.438N 103:15.664E
Banana Islands.
With Lochmarin now rat free I left Phil to stay and defend her from further rodent infestation and flew back to the UK for the joy and privilege of being there to welcome gorgeous little Esni Celyn. When we left the UK 5 years ago we had no grandchildren, we now have three lovely granddaughters! It was a whirlwind trip, visiting friends and family meant I drove over 1000 miles a week and I returned pretty tired, carrying a suitcase that bulged with spare parts for the boat.
I flew via Kuala Lumpur and had a wonderful evening in the company of Sharon and Bob, whom we met in Trinidad. When they invited us to come and visit them in Malaysia it seemed impossibly distant, both in time and space, something it was hard to believe would ever happen; it was lovely to see them again and to be able to congratulate them on having sailed from the Caribbean. They treated me to a superb afternoon of sight seeing followed by a truly delicious meal. It did get me thinking about eating habits in different cultures though. I had a yummy desert which consisted of fungus, red beans, lotus seeds, lychee and a dried fruit rather like lychee, sugar syrup and chipped ice. Now half of those ingredients I would have associated with a savoury dish not a sweet one which just goes to show how set in our ideas we can become! Mind you the street stalls we walked past selling deep fried ducks heads and feet and durian fruit (which smells so bad there are signs on the buses banning them!) failed to attract me.
Of course, by the time I returned Phil had had quite enough of rat defence duty and we lost no time in provisioning, checking out of Puteri and setting off. Our gear lever now worked perfectly and all went well until we were out in the middle of the Jahor Straits and Phil went to turn on Otto, the auto-helm. He was on strike. There followed a tricky period when one of us was trying to steer whilst the other was climbing in the bilge space under the wheel to try and figure out what was wrong… it turned out that a lip seal in the pump had failed, Otto was leaking out his life fluid. Clearly this wasn’t something we could fix on the go so we settled down into hand steering our way to our first night’s anchorage, Pulau Pisang (The Banana Islands), spelling each other whenever needed rather than keeping formal watches . There were plenty of interesting ships to look at as we headed North and we were so enjoying being out on the water again that it was no hardship at all.
A simply HUGE ship carrier, with half a wreck and an oil platform on board. In the centre, at the bottom, the little orange blobs with white dots are workmen in orange overalls and white helmets - just to give you scale.
Entering Puteri Harbour, with bamboo sculptures and the endless construction.
Puteri is an oasis in the midst of a desert of construction. It’s surrounded by restaurants, shops, a hotel and, wait for it: Hello Kitty World and Thomas The Tank Engine Town! The grounds are full of tasteful sculptures, hooded crows swoop overhead stealing the left over food at the restaurants, 5ft long iguanas swim around the bay. Everywhere there are fascinating things to watch: Chinese families on holiday, local engaged couples having photo shoots in their wedding clothes, live music by young super cool men of Indian descent. But we were un-enchanted.
View from the rooftop ‘infinity pool’, Sinapore is across the water to the right, in the distance on the left are the buildings of of Johor Bahru
We’d acquired him in Kalimantan, which is surprising as we’d not been alongside a dock since Australia, but we worked out that he must have come on board through the galley port from Adi’s motorboat when he was delivering diesel. Now a rat in your house is a horrid thing but a rat on board is worse. He’s not going anywhere, you and him are confined together, sharing your space as best as you can. This wouldn’t be too bad except that rats make a pastime of chewing, not just food but anything they come across: plastic containers, wires, pipes… a little exploratory chew on the wrong pipe and he could sink us. He left confetti in his wake. I would lie there on my off watch and listen to him chewing and running in the space between the deck and the headlining above our bunk. I’m not good at rats: they simply freak me, it’s a deep seated 'jump on a stool and scream when you see a mouse' type response, in my bones and body by-passing my mind. I hated that rat.
How he got on board.
Right! We had to catch the rat, fix the gear cable, repair the bow and move ourselves to a proper berth so we could get some shore power. So, of course, we ran away. Just for a night, just for 36 hours, just long enough to recharge our batteries and gird our loins.
Old Singapore streets.
We needed to visit Singapore anyway, to get a new gear cable and epoxy to fix the bow damage, so the idea of staying the night and treating ourselves to some stylish living was irresistible. Raffles Hotel, Singapore Slings and pure luxury called. Of course, being yachties, we weren’t going to waste our cruising kitty on anything as extravagant as a taxi so we emerged from the bus, towing our suitcase on wheels, much to the surprise of the doorman, who was rather more used to people stepping out from their Mercedes.
It was bliss, from the first sip of a Singapore Sling in the gracious colonial lobby, through to the deep blissful bath in the cool, fan swept suite they upgraded us to, to the exquisite meal served by wonderfully friendly staff. They were intrigued by our sailing adventures and slipped us goodies as we left - more of the delicious ‘proper’ bread they served, english lea leaves, and even a bottle of wine to enjoy back on board. Anyone else out there been to Raffles and left with a goodie bag?!
We returned recharged and ready to solve our problems, which we did, though that rat took some catching. We couldn’t poison him as he’d then go and die in some inaccessible recess of the boat. We tried our rat trap - like a large version of the type of mouse trap you see in Tom and Jerry cartoons, but he simply stole the cheese and avoided springing the trap. We’d had glue traps recommended: shallow trays filled with super sticky glue that rats are supposed to get stuck on, so we gave them a try. All that happened was we got to find out just how huge our rat was: those foot prints were enormous! But we had no choice but to persevere so each night we baited the trap with something new and spread more glue out on cardboard with tempting delights in the middle to try to catch him. One time the trap sprang! Half the bait was gone but there was no rat. Being a super strong rat he’d dragged himself out of it. He lay low for a couple of days then was back to his usual tricks. I was starting to wonder if having a decaying rat full of maggots somewhere on the boat in 35 degrees would be as bad as people say when finally I woke to a clunk! The trap had sprung again. “Phil! Phil! The rat trap’s sprung!” “Good, good, I’ll look in the morning….”. I lay there, my heart beating at the thought of what squished rat remains awaited day light, when I heard a smaller clunk. “Phil! Phil! He’s getting out!” I rushed to open up the companion way whilst my Knight in no armour at all went to battle the dreaded half dead rat. Giant Rat had extracted himself from the trap again, but this time was lying trying to recover next to it, still breathing. Phil picked him up by the tail, calmly stepped out on deck and flung him as far as he could out into the middle of the marina! Happily he didn’t surface: no swimming back for our stowaway! Once again I was filled with awe and gratitude at the bravery of my Captain. Imagine! By the tail! He could have twisted up and bitten at any moment.
A few of the delicacies on offer in the Chinese restaurant in Puteri. Sea Cucumber is a polite way of saying Sea Slugs!
01:25.0449N 103:39.4544E
Singapore
Fishermen seemingly oblivious to huge ships passing by.
The only problem being that between us and our destination there was, arguably, the busiest shipping lane in the world (the Dover Strait handles more tonnage but the Malacca Strait has more vessels. So when it comes to crossing the Malacca’s harder!). At first I thought that there must be hills or areas that weren’t built up across on the Singapore shore because there were big black patches with no lights. No lights? Well, perhaps a red one one end, or a green one, and a stern light the other end…. yes the huge black patches were moving, they were gigantic ships blocking out the lights of Singapore as they passed ahead of us. Scary stuff. Deciding discretion is the better part of valour, the Skipper kept us pootling along the edge of the lanes, keeping out of the way and moving towards a narrower place to cross when daylight arrived. It was a good plan. As the light grew the scary truth of the sheer volume of traffic became apparent - it looked like Frogger Level 20 but with no central reservation! So we watched, judged, checked AIS predictions of Closest Point of Approach, waited for a gap and legged it! It felt like when you were kids taking a short cut across the bypass (oops, Mum, I never told you about that did I?) a real adrenaline rush.
A snap of our chart plotter. All the little triangles are ships with AIS. It isn’t that there aren’t any to the left and right of the screen, it’s just that they are not yet in range. We are the boat shape under the white cross.
The next stage was easy: motoring along the edge of the shipping lane, enjoying the sights and heading for the Johor strait. We just had to wind our way up between the sandbanks - not too much of a worry as the charts are really accurate around Singapore and if we did touch bottom it would only be sand not coral, then get ourselves under the Tuas bridge - should be fine, according to the chart we had one and a half meter clear, and we’d be home and dry. Well, if not home and dry at least in the first Marina we’ve entered since going into Bundaburg at the end of May last year. There’d be electricity to plug into, water on tap, showers, a laundry, probably a cafe or two and we’d be able to climb down on to the dock instead of having to go in the dinghy. We’d have no fears of anchors dragging or someone running into us at night. We’d be able to sleep and sleep and sleep.
It’s a strange thing, but when you look up at the mast as you go under a bridge it always looks as if it’s going to touch, even when you have 20m clearance not less than 2m. It’s at times like this that I really appreciate being First Mate, not Skipper. "I’ll helm," Phil said, "then it’ll be my fault if we touch.” But touch we didn’t and we’d cleared the last obstacle and were in sight of the entrance to Puteri Marina.
A Brahminy Kite checks us out.
In my opinion Marinas always look tiny. As we turned in between the pontoons it looked like there was hardly any room to swing around into the berth that was being pointed out to us. Luckily Phil amazes me with his ability to manoeuvre Lochmarin in tight spaces. I knew how he’d do it: slow but steady, fast enough not to get blown off course, but taking it easy and smooth… although we did seem to be going a bit fast. I looked at Phil. He looked at me. I watched him push the gear lever into reverse - remember there’s no brakes on a boat, you have to go astern to slow her down, and nothing happened, in fact we seemed to go a little faster forwards if anything. You know those nightmares where you’re driving and you press and press on the brake but the car doesn’t stop? But we were awake. He tried again, not believing this was happening - it had to go into reverse. This time we definitely sped up - forwards! All 32 tonnes of Lochmarin was charging past the berth towards a dead end with no room to turn around even if we had been going slowly. I ran to the companionway, thoughts of lifting the pilot house floor to get at the engine and find the lever there to force us into reverse were in my mind… but there was no time, twenty seconds at best, before we would hit. It was a brace situation.
Thank goodness Phil kept his head and managed to steer us around so we avoided any other boats and hit the dock square on our bow… rising 4 or 5 feet into the air before gravity took over and we slid back down into the water. If we’d hit a fibreglass boat we’d have sunk her. As it was Lochmarin had a good scrape down the paint of her bow, through to the aluminium with a little dent where we first hit, but otherwise she was fine. We weren’t holed. We discovered later that what had happened was the gear cable had chosen that moment to snap, but the throttle cable was working fine, so when Phil tried to engage reverse it stayed in forwards but increased the revs.
Having heard the bang people emerged from boats all over and helped warp us alongside the dock - it wasn’t a proper berth, no water or electricity but it would do for the moment. We got tied up, any which way, thanked everybody for their help and as soon as they had gone we sat down in the cockpit to have that rather well earned ‘anchor’ beer: we were still shaking.
There's a lightness aboard this morning. We're back in the Northern Hemisphere, the winds have settled down to steady Northerlies, the seas have calmed, the squalls have receded to the world of bad dreams and we have finally been able to set our course a little away from the wind, easing the sheets, letting Lochmarin sprint along at an easy 6 knots instead of struggling to get 2 or 3. We did it: we've crossed the South China Sea.
Now that the skies have cleared our night watches have been filled with the stars once again. The Southern Cross still dominates the sky behind and Orion still strides across the zenith, from East to West, shooting his arrows at Pleiades, but before the dawn the sky ahead of us is filled by Ursa Major, however you know him: The Great Bear, The Plough or The Big Dipper. When I was a kid I thought a big dipper was a kind of roller coaster, it took Laura Ingalls Wilder to educate me otherwise. Well this dipper would be no good as it's facing down, pouring its contents towards the Pole Star that I know is down there, below the horizon still. As we head North along Malaysia's coast we'll get to see it, along with the rest of the familiar Northern Hemisphere stars on their nightly whirl around it. It's good to see old friends.
No wonder we're upbeat, we've still got over 100 miles to go, navigating our way through current filled channels between the islands and crossing the busiest shipping lanes in the world as we skirt Singapore. Should be a doddle.
Passage Food
Day 6 - Breakfast: weetbix with canned peaches. Lunch: Nasi goreng with pilchards and a salad of christophene, cucumber and tomato. Supper: a can of Watties Pepper Steak chunky soup from New Zealand. It tasted exactly like the Jester pepper steak pies we used to stop and get in Wellsford when ever we were driving up and down from Northland to Auckland.
Day 7 - Breakfast: egg and not actually bacon (a sort of bacon tasting luncheon meat we bought in the deli on Lombok) sandwich.
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All's well, much better than it was! The squalls have finally stopped and we even had some sunshine for a few hours this morning. We're tacking our way North West into 20 knots of North Westerly but we're starting to hope that we've left the worst of the weather and counter currents behind us in the Java Sea.
Such a strange passage this one has been, not just because we don't make a habit of heading out straight into the wind and into stormy weather, but because the seas we've been crossing are so shallow. We're in the deepest bit just now, all of 40m. Most of it has been around 20m and, when you consider that we spent months hoping against hope to find an anchorage that was less than 30m, it seems crazy that we can be over 100 miles from land and still in 30m. As a consequence the sea is milky, closer to shore a milky green, out here definitely blue, but chalky. None of those crystal clear deep blue depths here.
We've not been trying to fish, partly because we've had enough to cope with with the weather, partly because the deep sea fish we're used to catching: mahi mahi, tuna, wahoo, wouldn't be in these shallows, but also because it's hard to believe there's any fish left in these waters as at times it feels like we can hardly move for the fishermen!
Passage Food (Sorry, I forgot the last couple of times)
Day 1 - Supper: nothing. First we were too busy to eat, then we were too tired to eat.
Day 2 - Breakfast: granola, tinned mandarins, yoghurt. Lunch: Nasi goreng with a black bean and aubergine stew; Supper: cup-a-soup and cream crackers.
Day 3 - Breakfast: Lychee and banana smoothie; Lunch: slice of bread with peanut butter and jam. Supper: ham and lentil stew with flat bread.
Day 4 - Breakfast: granola, mandarins, yoghurt. Lunch: tortilla filled with re-fried beans and cheese, with a cucumber, mint and yoghurt salsa. Supper: Bihun goreng with shrimp balls and butter fried greens.
Day 5 - Breakfast: oatmeal and lychees; Lunch: meatloaf, red pepper, tomato and chili salsa, green beans. Supper: gnocchi with parmesan and peas.
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Sitting on the side of the bridge deck we tossed little scraps of paper into the water, watching them slide slowly upstream on the smooth brown surface of the river. No, not yet, there was still a little time to go. We were waiting for slack tide, when the river flow changes from upstream to down. That way we would be just pulling up the weight of the anchor and its chain instead of having Lochmarin pull back at the same time, which is important just now as our electric windlass has given up the ghost, for good this time. We've nursed it back to life four times but now has come the time for it to end its mortal toil. So we are lifting our anchor hand over hand then using our manual windlass, a rather laborious and longwinded process which can use all the help it can get.
With the anchor up we set off down the slick dark river, letting the turning tide help the engine as we go. It's overcast so no stars help us but we can make out a dark band where river meets bank and pin pricks of light are dotted about. Some are shore buildings, some anchor lights of tankers filled with palm oil, three vertical ones mark a tug with his tow and others are the catch-me-if-you-can will-o'-the-wisp lights of small fishing craft. A few are even markers, guiding our passage. Phil delights in unraveling the clues, working out which are moving and which just appear to move as we do, which to worry about, which to ignore. I stand on the bridge deck and faithfully keep my eyes on the ones he tells me to watch, trying not to be distracted by the occasional firefly that meanders by, flashing on and off as he goes, or by the incredibly bright single line of phosphorescence that scrolls away from either side of the bow, drawing green-white curlicues on the black canvas.
Just to keep things interesting, when we got to the 'tricky bit' at the mouth of the river, where one has to cross the bar then turn sharply to starboard and run along parallel to a sand spit before finding the deeper water channel out, there was a tug and tow just heading in and a massive raft of logs anchored. Having manoeuvred our way past them we thought crossing the bay would be plain sailing but there was a whole other game to play.
The bay was littered with small fishing boats, all too small to show on the radar, tiny lights everywhere you looked. Some were steady, some came and went, some were flashing: red, green or the cycle of red, blue, green that we'd come to recognise from the solar powered Chinese LED lights small craft use. Some of the lights were on boats. Some were on marker buoys on the far end of a net. It looked like chaos but there was a system of sorts. Most of the boats didn't show any light until you got close, then they'd flash a torch at you, expecting you to flash back to show you've seen them. If you get close the flashing gets more insistent so it's a good indication of how far away they are. The continuously flashing LED lights are (mostly) on the end of the nets, but it can be very hard to work out which net belongs to which boat, so once you've flashed them back, they'll shine their torch on the sea surface in the direction their net is set in. We got through without hitting anyone or fouling our prop but it certainly took a lot of concentration and course changes!
Happily, they were only in the bay so we were able to settled down to retrace our wake from last week. Night rolled into day, bringing grey skies, milky green seas and squall after squall, day rolled into night, pitch black except for the loom of the lighted up fishing boats on the horizon, and bringing more squalls after squalls after squalls. But our system of keeping close to the land seemed to work again and we missed the worst of the squalls until we rounded the South West corner of Borneo.
It was my fault: I was on watch and I had got complacent as we'd managed to skirt the last few squalls with nothing worse than a bit of rain and 20 knots of wind. I was flying the jib when I saw a squall 4 miles away in the radar. I furled some rolls in the jib but left it out, watching the wind speed. Looking up the black cloud seemed a lot closer and glancing in at the radar I saw it was just over a mile away now, there was no way we'd avoid it. I called Phil for help but we were too late: the squall hit and we had real difficulty furling the jib, having to let it flap to get it free enough to wind in. The poor thing flogged itself whilst we battled it in and ripped. We had no jib to fly.
Now, you have to remember that we are punching into the wind, waves and current. With the engine on we can manage about 2.5 knots. When the wind is far enough off our bow we can use the mainsail and staysail to motor sail, giving us another knot or so. With 500 miles or so to go at around 3 knots that would take us a week, non stop, day and night. Too long. When we can fly it the jib gives us speed, doubling it to 5 or 6 knots. We needed a solution.
We do have another jib; we keep a second so we can fly them both poled out each side on downwind passages. However, to put it up we'd have to unfurl the torn one, drop it onto the deck, flake and bag it, hoist the second jib and unfurl it (it's on a code zero furler so wound up like a sausage), drop it on deck, take off the code zero furler, and hoist it again. These jibs are nearly 700 square feet and we'd be doing it in stormy seas between the squalls with just two of us. I think not. That'll have to wait until we get some calm.
Phil came up with a solution. Remember the removable inner forestay that broke (and caused Herman to come on board)? We'd not been able to get it fixed as we've not been anywhere we can get parts yet but if we could rig that up we could hank the staysail on (we've been using the storm jib for a staysail) and use that as a jib. We managed it. It was quite exciting, working on a fore deck that is going up and down 12 feet every 3 seconds and awash with waves every time it dropped. When we were finally done my legs were wobbly as we came back to the cockpit and my arms aching fiercely. At least the water was warm!
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Things were going well. We’d checked the weather and a five day window was opening up - we could leave with the tide on Monday night. Then on Saturday we started the engine to charge the batteries. It had been overcast and wind less so the solar panels and wind turbine hadn’t kept up with our power usage; we thought we’d run the engine for an hour to top up the batteries. I looked over the stern where the cooling water was chugging out to see an rainbow slick forming. We had oil in the cooling water.
All the usual ‘is it a head gasket blown or worn piston rings or something else super terrible?’ thoughts ran through our heads then Phil realised the engine cooling system is freshwater, there’s no way the oil could get to the coolant then to the salt water - it had to be the gearbox oil. Ok, we knew the problem, the solution was going to be harder. It’s difficult enough to get stuff sent into Indonesia through customs at the best of times but when we’re already checked out and stuck in a river by a little one horse town…
The grey buildings aren’t apartments - they’re swallow nesting sites, for bird’s nest soup!
Now, you may be saying “But you’re a sailing boat!” and indeed we are. However, there’s no wind here just now, and strong currents running in the river and a dogleg at the entrance to get over the bar without running aground, then we have over 500 miles of sailing into the wind - the wind direction is just the way we need to go, so if we want to do more than a couple of knots and get there before the weather window breaks we’ll need help from the engine. There’s also the Marina in Singapore to consider - I don’t fancy sailing Lochmarin into a strange berth with no engine to put in reverse to stop her - remember, boats don’t have brakes!
Adi and Anam.
Luckily we had our local contact: Adi. He was able to bring out a mechanic to whom we were able to explain the problem. He then hired a car and Phil and hewent off to the nearest town and managed to find a Chinese oil cooler that will do - it’ll get us to Singapore anyway. It didn’t have quite the right fittings but, having been sent from place to place to place and with the help of Phil's ingenuity, a solution was found.
So we should be able to catch that tide tonight after all but it’s been a worrying few days.
One small item of interest I thought I’d share with you before we go: on the day we arrived we were followed into the river by a huge thunderstorm with a torrential downpour. I though next day that we’d be able to start collecting rain water when it runs down the deck as the downpour would have cleaned off all the salt water. However, when we got up next day we found the deck simply littered with wings - about 1cm long. There were also little bugs running around, usually in trains of two, the second hard on the heels of the first. They seemed to be some kind of flying ant - you know the kind that grows wings to fly off and mate then drop the wings and start a new colony. These chaps had decided to use Lochmarin for an overnight bonk fest! I decided not to collect the rain water: wings and bugs in my tea doesn’t sound too inviting.
(Continued from previous post)
A fisherman passing us.
The Orangutans were simply magical. They are clearly social creatures with a specific pecking order. Some females and their babies would sit in the trees or feed together, whilst others would grab as many bananas as they could carry and scarper as soon as they saw another Orangutan coming. The huge mature male, with his cheek pads and massive throat sack, was simply awe inspiring - none of the others come on the platform while he came to feed! Being so close to Orangutans made me realise how like us they are - we’re clearly cousins. They gestate for about 8 months, they become sexually mature around 12 years old but don’t usually have their first baby until they are 15 or 16. Not so different from ourselves.
Feeling shy.
But what really made the link for me was the eye contact. Now and again they’d look at us, they knew we were watching them, not like birds when you’re in a hide. The little ones would hold onto Mum, unsure about these strangely furred watching apes, but soon gained in confidence when she showed no fear. It wasn’t like looking into the eyes of a cat or a dog, they weren’t tame in any way, they were wild people of the forest (Urang-utan, forest-people) who were choosing to be in the same space as us.
A un-flanged (no cheek pads) male and a young mum with her baby. She had deliberately decorated herself with the leaf.
Once we’d realised that our little outboard motor zooming by didn’t faze the wildlife at all we came to terms with our unusual-for-us transport and rather enjoyed side slipping around the bends. One concern was the number of floating islands, water plants and debris that collect together. They can catch on the bank and stop more floating islands until they end up blocking the river. This is exactly what happened the day we went up. It was only about 15 feet, a boat length across, and no more than a foot or two high so Alam simply backed up to give himself a run up and went at it full speed! The engine cut as the propeller hit and we skidded over the blockage landing with a plop on the other side - in true James Bond style! On the way back the blockage was a great deal larger. Two of the tour boats were stuck, unable to pass, and the accumulated islands were now about 25 feet across. The guys from the tour boats were busily chopping off bits and letting them float down stream to form a passage in order to get the boats through. The passage was far from complete but they all worked together to pull our little boat over the top of the floating island, with Phil and I remaining seated in the back feeling like royalty!
On our way back down the river, as evening approached, we were able to stop and watch big troops of Proboscis Monkeys feeding. The Indonesians call them Dutch Monkeys, saying they looked like the Dutch colonials with big noses and fat bellies. They eat mainly leaves and fruit and have a series of ‘stomachs’ where bacteria neutralises the toxins from some of the leaves, giving them rather pot bellies. They have short fur on their wonderfully expressive faces and their big furry hands make them look as if they are wearing gloves. Such a privilege to have got to watch these monkeys, endemic to Borneo.
Mr and Mrs, showing off their different nose styles.
We got back on board Lochmarin just as the sun was setting. It had been a long and tiring day but lying in our bunk that night it took me a while to drop off - I had so many magnificent images to replay though my mind's eye and my ears were still filled with the eerie whoop of the gibbons calling from tree to tree. What a wonderful day it had been.
Sure, I'm hanging by one hand 30 feet up in the air whilst I peel a banana with my feet, is that a problem?
How could we not? We knew we were just a mile or two away from one of only a handful of places where they still live, along with their cousin the Proboscis Monkey, which is only found in Borneo. From our anchorage we could see the entrance to the river which winds its way into the Tanjung Puting National Park. From time to time tourist boats would come past us, off for a three or four day trip into the Park. The guests would meander slowly up the river through the astounding beauty of the forest and sleep on the top deck under mosquito nets at night. We wanted to go too, but we’d checked out, we were only there to wait for the blow to pass through the South China Sea and to repair the oil leak in our oil cooler. Then Sunday came, and Chinese New Year, all the shops were closed, all the mechanics were on holiday, there was nothing we could do to work on our repairs. So we snuck off, just for the day.
Tour boat coming up the river.
The traditional tour boats weren’t an option for us if we were going to get there and back before nightfall but Adi and Alam offered to take us in their little speed boat, so we set off up the side branch of the Sekonyer River, feeling like we were flying over the smooth surface of the river. We weren’t used to the scenery flashing past so quickly but happily our hosts were and they were fantastic at spotting wildlife and making quick u-turns so we could watch the birds or primates that we encountered.
A ‘speed boat’ like the one we were in.
We weren’t disappointed. There are three research centres in the park and two of them support their rescued Orangutans by putting fruit and milk out once a day on feeding platforms. We were hopeful that we’d get to see some on the platforms but there was no guarantee, some days they come, some days they’ve found plenty of fruit in the wild and they stay away. We were lucky; they came but even before we’d got to the research centres Adi had spotted some in the trees alongside the river, along with troops of macaques and proboscis monkeys. We also stopped to watch hornbills chuffing overhead, birds of paradise preen, kingfishers perch on overhanging branches and dangly legged storks fly by.
Storm’s Stork, Stork Billed Kingfisher and a Bird of Paradise
(Continued on next post…)
All images by Phillip Smith and Sara Xavier, copyright 2017
Passing the North Eastern corner of Bali.
Seeing we’re stuck waiting on weather and doing maintenance I thought it would be good idea to post some pictures of the passage so far.
Evening light breaks through the squalls.
Watching the storm pass over on the radar. Each ring is 2 miles. Some storms you just can’t dodge.
This is one of the ‘light boats’ that have dominated the night sky. The dangly things on the framework are very high powered light bulbs, each one about a foot long. As we neared Kalimantan there were more and more of them until we could count over 50 around us - we’d clearly sailed into their spawning ground!
The same boat but showing tens of other similar boats all along the horizon.
Our neighbours on the Kumai river.
Our view of the river bank - there’s orang-utans living in them there trees!
Passing traffic… unbelievable number of trees.
An Osprey keeping an eye on us.
Heading along the South of Kalimantan in the shallow sandy waters (most of it less than 20 meters) the sea was green. I know this picture is very like the one further up - a fishing boat about to be over taken by a squall, but it has literally been squall after squall after storm after squall all the way!
We had a Plan. It was a good plan. The weather forecast told us there was going to be some nasty stuff coming along the Java Sea over the next few days and it looked like we would have to stay put in Kumai until next week, assuming another blow didn't come along after this one was done. We had a solution: we would head off anyway, staying as close as we could to the coast of Borneo, so we'd be above the bad weather and out of the current. We'd then sneak around the corner into the South China Sea and again stay close the the Borneo coast out of the worst of it until we were far enough North to cross West above the bad weather.
The Plan worked beautifully. We had a fantastic day's run, using the engine as well as sail to go as fast as we could in order to get clear of the bad weather. There was no current against us and, feeling very intrepid, we found a route through the banks, despite the chart stating "There is no safe passage" and that "vessels should pass well to the South out of sight of land". We were able to dodge all the squalls, except, of course, the one that hit just as we were going through the narrowest bit of the route (though none of them were anywhere near as bad as the 50 square miles ones we had crossing the Java Sea). We were delighted to finally make the South West corner of Kalimantan in great time, we could start to go North and would have plenty of time to cross above the bad weather.
That was when we radioed the daily weather grib file down. It showed us that after this bit of a disturbance in the Java Sea a bloody great big storm was going to make it's way down the South China Sea by the weekend.
Even if we could be sure of getting across in time there'd be no shelter on the other side. We looked for possible anchorages on the West coast of Kalimantan but nothing looked secure and we can't take a chance on a place we didn't have any information about in a full South China Sea storm. There was nothing else to do: we had to turn back to Kumai.
More than 24 hours out on the best run we've had since leaving Bali and we have to retrace our steps. That's a hard one. But no one ever said sailing is a piece of cake and certainly no one ever said sailing to Singapore from Bali in the North West Monsoon would be easy! Maybe we'll get to try The Plan again next week.
Passage Food
Day 7 - Supper: green bean, tomato, egg and tuna salad.
Day 8 - Breakfast: sourdough pancakes with fresh pineapple and yoghurt. Lunch: bake-in-the-tin steak puff pastry pie with green beans and mash potato. Supper: too disheartened. No supper.
(Allam, who works with Adi in Kumai, got us eggs, green beans, tomatoes and avocados from the market. At least we won't get scurvy!)
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Somehow it's a much longer way to Singapore than I had thought it would be. Something to do with getting blown back each time we heave to in a storm, I expect, and to do with current and wind against us, so we have to tack our way along, zigzagging our way. It's a three steps forward, one step back sort of affair. We've been having to motor lots, even when we can sail the current and waves against us slows us right down so we end up helping with the engine.
However, we managed to cross the Java Sea and decided to nip into Kumai, Kalimantan to get more fuel and catch some sleep. We figured that if we didn't go ashore we were still on passage to Singapore so shouldn't be in trouble with the officials, having checked out already. Happily, as soon as we anchored, Adi came out in his motor boat to offer to take us to see the orangutans. We so wished we could have gone - it's a two or three day trip into the jungle up a river. But we couldn't risk it. The fine for stopping when you're checked out is the value of your boat - we couldn't risk Lochmarin. Adi was very happy to arrange for fuel for us though and within an hour he had it delivered, by dark we had half in the tanks and he arranged to come back in the morning to finish off and take away the containers.
When he left we were able to sit on the side deck and enjoy that anchor beer we'd been promising ourselves whilst we took stock of our surroundings. Above us swifts dodged and darted in their evening dance, the air was full of their cries. To the East stretched the forests that the orangutans live in, smelling wonderfully green and earthy, with a bird of prey wheeling above. To the West lies the little town of Kumai. I say 'little town' but it appeared to be full of huge grey concrete blocks of flats, with tiny slit windows - what could they be about? It turned out that they are apartment buildings for swifts, made of corrugated steel not concrete but three or four stories high. Thousands of swifts build their nests there - encouraged by tape recordings of their song played daily, and the nests are gathered to send to china to make birds nest soup. The swifts build the nests using strands of saliva which dries hard, to form a ball shape, about the size of a cricket ball (you can get Christmas lights in strings that look a bit like them, but coloured). Incredible.
We slept 10 hours last night, we finished getting the diesel in, showered, checked over the autohelm as it had been leaking hydraulic fluid a little, slept another hour, then, at the turn of the tide we pulled up the very muddy anchor and set off again... back to three steps forward two steps back.
Passage Food
Day 6 - Lunch: instant noodles and peas; Supper: bread, cheese and green tomato pickle.
Day 7 - Breakfast: cereal, yoghurt, mango and coconut water smoothie. Lunch: ricotta cheese and spinach ravioli in a tomato and vegetable sauce - from a tin!
Well - we've been busy! Gotta eat easy food sometimes...
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We're doing fine. So far we've managed to sail about a quarter of the time, motor sailing the rest of the time. The trick is to avoid the squalls and rain storms as much as possible and make as much progress as we can in the light winds in between. So in the day we keep an eagle eye out for black clouds on the horizon, track them on the radar and take avoiding action if we can. If we can't avoid them then it's down with the jib and a second reef in the main straight away (we're flying the storm jib as a staysail anyway), no dithering. At night we reef the main and put out half a jib as it's harder to spot them coming. This means, with less sail out, we end up going very slowly or having to assist with the engine more - but better to be safe than sorry.
The radar has been the hero of the day - not just for tracking storms, but also for spotting the fishing fleets around us. They don't have AIS so don't show up on the chart plotter, in fact some of the huge cargo ships don't have AIS so a good look out is essential. We've learned a new trick: you can assign an object as a target for the radar to track. This means the course and speed is displayed on the chart rather like an AIS. Very useful for the big squid fishing boats we see everywhere. You can't miss them: they have loads of bright white lights, but no navigation lights and it's hard to tell how far away they are and which way they are going. At night they are spaced out all around us, like someone is holding a huge torch shining upwards just below the horizon, 8 or 10 of them at a time.
We've had no big problems to deal with. So far the ensign tore itself off it's halyard - we don't usually fly it on passage but seeing we're in Indonesian waters and they're sticklers for rules and regulations we left it up; a running back stay broke but was easily repairable; flapping jib sheets managed to pull open the latches that close the forecastle hatch, which subsequently needed rather a lot of water pumping out of it (there's a water tight bulkhead between it and the rest of the boat so no damage was done) and the rain came down so hard that my life jacket decided it was immersed in water and unexpectedly inflated. Good to know they work!
Passage Food
Day 4 - Supper: beef and aubergine stew with brown rice.
Day 5 - Breakfast: eggy bread, banana and apricot smoothy. Lunch: meatball wrap with cucumber, yoghurt and mint. Supper: chicken stew, seasoned with ginger, turmeric, chilies, and lemongrass (all fresh) and containing shallots, sweet potato, carrots and christophene. I also added rice vermicelli, which didn't really work.
Day 6 - Breakfast: Scrambled eggs on toast, banana and pear smoothie.
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So we turned tail. Phil says it was a tactical retreat. To lick our wounds, get some sleep and consider whether there was any viable alternative. It was a peaceful night, alternating between drifting hove to and motoring back into position so as to avoid the shipping lanes and the submarine practice area. Bottle nose dolphins came to keep us company whilst we worked through alternative plans. The bottom line is there isn't any option. Indonesia won't have us back unless we have checked in and out of another country, going up around Borneo has its own problems and there's no point heading back to East Timor.
We've hanked on the storm jib, downloaded a weather file, girded our loins and we're off. Here goes...
Passage Food
Day 3 - Lunch: burger, fried greens and tomato, mashed potato. Supper: avocado and bacon sandwich.
Day 4 - Breakfast: banana, apricot and coconut water smoothie; peanut butter, banana and honey on bread. Lunch: spring rolls, prawn crackers and chicken Laksa cup-a-soup.
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During the night the winds lessoned and the waves calmed. Out of the way of the big ships and in the lee of the islands we hove to and took turns to sleep. By morning the sea was glassy and we breakfasted whilst watching a fishing boat circle his nets.
According to the weather grib files it looks like the worse is past now so we're off again, into the wind and waves and current to go back over the ground we spent yesterday covering. Hopefully we won't have to turn around again!
Passage Food
Day 2 - supper: bacon and mushroom sandwich using freshly baked bread.
Day 3 - breakfast: mango and banana with cereal and yoghurt.
Just as a by-the-by food on board is very different from food when we were living in the U.K. Here a mango is not just a mango, it's one of the four Hannah and Diarmaid brought back from their cycling expedition. The bananas were from that lady who called and called in the market for us to visit her stall - and then charged too much. The oyster mushrooms were a rare find on another stall - treasure! The bacon was part of a special bulk buy deal that three boats put together with Molly in Lombok, introduced to us by an ex-pat. And the pineapple that's waiting to be eaten tomorrow, golden and sweet, perfectly ripe, was spotted on a roadside stall when we drove up into the mountains in a rented car.]]>