One year cruising anniversary

OK, so this post is a few days late, it was 21 June that was our one year anniversary since we left Gisborne. We actually left Christchurch over three weeks earlier, and one could easily argue that's when our cruising life began, but we feel it really started when we began our passage to Tonga. I did a similar post for our six month anniversary. We are still loving the life style and are keen to keep it going for a while longer, although we still have no specific plans. Only thing we don't love it the heat, it's still pertty darn hot out here.

We have now visited five more countries in addition to the first four we visited the first six month, in total the list is: Tonga, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Palau, Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore (which only counts half as we flew there, however, we will sail there a little later on).

It's very hard to pick a favourite, as each country is different and that's also the beauty of it. If we're hard pressed, we actually both agree Vanuatu was our favourite. It's a beautiful country with lovely people (like everywhere, but Melanesia (Vanuatu, Sol and PNG) is particular known for its friendly (and poor) people. The reason we like Vanuatu better than Solomon Islands and PNG is simply because there are no security issues (thefts and worse) and no crocodiles (except at the very north, close to Solomons). If the other two countries didn't have those two issues, they would be just as lovely destinations.

One thing we really miss here in Asia is the snorkelling. In the Pacific we could jump in almost anywhere (except where there are crocs...) and see beautiful coral and fish life. Sadly here it's so over-fished that there is very little left. The only good places in Philippines were also some sort of sanctuaries.

On the other hand, we really like the the food here in Asia (me the local food, Phil the fast food options!) as well as the much better stocked supermarkets and more things to do on land. I actually used to dream I was in huge supermarkets sometimes back in the Pacific, or OK, admittedly, it was often in the candy sections of supermarkets, haha.

More numbers:
- the first half year we had about 48 over-night passages, that number has been drastically reduced, three more to Palau (the six month anniversary was mid-passage), four to Philippines and only one (that we even could have avoided) to Malaysia, in total 8 over-night passages. We like day hopping :-)
- somewhere around 8000 miles, we think, but we haven't added it up, and our speedo has been broken for a while, which is the easy way to count miles.
- only one fish in this last half year, a mahi mahi in Philippines!!! Surely that's also related to our sad snorkelling experiences as above.

Stuff broken:
- in general electrical stuff, like small gadgets and chargers! Probably almost half our computer chargers are broken, there are problems with both 240V and 12V chargers. Another example is the little fridge thermometer, so mostly small (and luckily cheap) things like that. It's a tough life on a boat on the salty sea.
- the big broken electrical thing is our Nexus wireless wind wane. It stopped working in Solomon Islands already.  We also have Nexus dept sounder and speed log, and the speed log stopped working a couple of months ago. We bought all the stuff from Pyacht in US only just before leaving NZ and are certainly NOT impressed by their (non-existing) customer service. Thankfully KiwiYachting in NZ has been super great and have twice now sent us replacement stuff (via Phil's parents in Singapore, and yet another nice expat here who flew to NZ last week). We think the speed log is now working, but not the wind anemometer, although Phil needs to play around with it a bit more to be sure.
- the down button on the wind lass (anchor winch) was playing up (like like letting the chain bolt out without being able to stop it), but Sheralee bought us a new one along to Philippines.
- yet another friction hinge on our forward Lewmar hatch broke, the other 'old' one, although the hatch is only 3-4 years old and apparently those hinges never normally breaks. Phil's parents also brought us a new one, so it's all good now, fingers crossed.
- we also only bought our tiny Aakron dinghy just before we left, so just over a year ago, but it has already needed repairs, it's leaking air and most of the handles etc have fallen off. Sure it's all fixable with glue, but it's still annoying and we think it's too soon.

A wooden spoon has had a job for a long time holding our hatch open!

The tiny poor quality dinghy (everyone calls it cute because it's so little!)

not exactly a breakage, only to be expected, the flag fading. Sheralee brought us a new one to Philippines

Unrelated except to the present, check out more pics on facebook of the hash run all us Scandinavian boat girls did

We are STILL in Brunei (five weeks later, though one was spent in Singapore), but we are leaving tomorrow, finally... Although obviously we really like it here, great yacht club with fantastic facilities and super friendly people. We are going to Miri where the Borneo Race begin, which we're gong to participate in.

More bumming around in Brunei

It's pretty quiet here on the blog and facebook, simply because we're laying pretty low and not doing a whole lot! It's now over two weeks since we got back from Singapore and we're STILL in Brunei. We must be one of their longest visiting yachts! We are in no hurry though, all we have to do is kill time until we are going to participate in the Borneo Race starting in Miri 1st of July. We have both been sick since we got back from Singapore, Phil had 39 in fever one day and then subsequent days with head aches, while I had cold - sore throat - cough and now 'just' head aches, a bit strange to be sick for such a long time! Luckily it's not quite bed-laying sick, just 'laying low' sick. And it has been nice that we have actually just been able to do very little, mainly just hanging out at the yacht club.

We have been into town (well, city I guess, it is a capital after all) a few times and the second Sunday when we were feeling better, we again did the dinghy racing. That time we actually had enough wind to sail and it was really good fun. Quite hard work constantly moving around for us lazy slackers, we both had sore muscles the next day! We improved vastly through the three races. The first one we came last (out of four in total), second race we capsized (totally my fault, but it was the most fun I thought, which I do know is a bit weird) but still finished third! The last race we won, amazingly, but of course all thanks to my clever boy friend :-).

Another reason we're still here, Phil has gotten a tempoary job cutting down the 10 ISO dinghy sails

 Two Norwegian boats just turned up, both round-the-world boats, the great thing is they both have young (ish) crew, one with little kids even. This week Phil and I have borrowed a car from one of the boat owning expats here who's away for a week, another example of how nice they all are. Anyway, yesterday we invited Camilla and Inger Johanne to join us visiting the Empire Hotel here in Brunei. It has a really funny background, beginning with the the Sultan's younger brother, Prince Jefri, who was the country's finance minister for a while. Typical bored rich kid, he went on an insane spending spree and among many other silly things, had the Empire hotel build, originally as a place to put the Sultan's visitors (as if the palace's 1788 rooms wouldn't be enough!). The hotel complex is huge and extremely lavish, gold, marble and columns everywhere. To our surprise we were actually allowed to just walk all over the place, which we of course though was great. We finished the visit with lunch from the hotel's own bakery, yummy sandwiches and fancy pantsy cakes! Ohh yeah, Prince Jefri was later sacked from the job and apparently is now a big embarrassment to the country.

Tomorrow is our one year anniversary since we left New Zealand (Gisborne) and I'll write up a summary similar to the one I did for our six month anniversary although I might be a day or three late with it.

Not from the Empire Hotel, but a random mall. Typical example of the extreme colourfulness and bling of Islamic womans' clothing

May's cruising costs for Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore

And wham, with NZ$ 2364 we're back with an expensive month. It all started when we stayed in flash Kota Kinabalu (KK), making eating out and marina fees our highest ever. Most items are more than average, but especially so boat parts and miscellaneous.

We spent almost $500 on boat parts, mostly the cutlass bearing and associated costs. It is 'funny' that the local cutlass bearing we got in KK was only $35 compared to $280 for the one we got from NZ (via Phil's parents). We didn't dare rely on getting a local one and in good enough quality, which is why we had to quickly order the one from NZ, so Phil's parents could bring it with them. Phil might change over to the NZ one next time we're on the hard. Phil's parents of course also brought along a bunch of other random boat bits (and other unexpected NZ goodies such as kiwi dip!). We love visitors :-)

The other very expensive item is miscellaneous, $845. We did go on a bit of a shopping spree in KK buying all sorts of various things, none very expensive, apart from a new hard disk for Phil's computer, but it all adds up. I also added our Singapore trip( $505) under there and not under sightseeing, as it really mostly was to see Phil's parents and get all the things they had brought for us.

The only item that was exceptionally cheap is fuel. Diesel, petrol and LPG were all filled up, which is also quite rare that it all happend in one month: both gas bottles, petrol cans and 100 litre of diesel, but thanks Brunei's extremely cheap fuel prices (30 cents a litre of diesel), it was very cheap.

Next month will be our 12th month, and I'll make an additional yearly overview and averages etc.

A week of luxuries in Singapore

We are now back in Brunei on Sophia after a week in Singapore (by air). It's been a week full of luxuries, big city and lots of fun. We were so lucky we could stay with my friend Theresa in a real house and enjoyed that immensely. Things that most people take for granted such as fresh water showers, lots of power to charge the laptops, internet and air con are now big privileges for us. 

It's all relative though, because normally we feel very lucky living on Sophia, even more so after visiting local people in the country we visit, especially Melanesia. At least we still have some electricity (just not unlimited), clean water and soft cushions which is an awful lot more than the far majority of the people we have visited on our way. 

With Theresa and her two girls Saba and Lea

I was even cold quite often because of the air-con, we're simply not used to it, and didn't even have it on at night! On the trip home in airports and on planes I was wearing a fleece jacket and was still cold. I do wonder how we will cope when we go to Denmark on visit, it will be the height o the summer, but it will still be far from the temperature we're used to.

The real purpose of the trip was to see Phil's parents who had one day's stop in Singapore on their world cruise! Naturally they carried a lot of random boat parts for us, as well as a bunch of other goodies. Typically Singapore we actually spent a bunch of time in traffic, especially on the MRT, but that alone was also an experience for them, people watching and seeing all the Singaporean efficiency. It's quite funny that we'll next see them in Denmark when they have one day's stop in Copenhagen on 15th July.  I was even cold quite often because of the air-con, we're simply not used to it, and didn't even have it on at night! On the trip home in airports and on planes I was wearing a fleece jacket and was still cold. I do wonder how we will cope when we go to Denmark on visit, it will be the height o the summer, but it will still be far from the temperature we're used to.

The real purpose of the trip was to see Phil's parents who had one day's stop in Singapore on their world cruise! Naturally they carried a lot of random boat parts for us, as well as a bunch of other goodies. Typically Singapore we actually spent a bunch of time in traffic, especially on the MRT, but that alone was also an experience for them, people watching and seeing all the Singaporean efficiency. It's quite funny that we'll next see them in Denmark when they have one day's stop in Copenhagen on 15th July.

Phil's parents and 'their' ship!

Visiting Eli and Jan in One 15 marina on Sentosa Island

 We also went to see Norwegian Jan and Eli on Jenny in One 15 marina on Sentosa. Sutera Harbour's extreme luxury totally fades in comparison to that marina, boy oh boy, there are some rich people in Singapore! After a delicious lunch we got to hang out in the super cool see-through pool. We might seem them again later when we get to West Malaysia, but maybe not, as they are heading to South Africa later in the year.

Unfortunately we had to rush on to Changi yacht club. Phil had arranged with an Assiue Young 88 owner that we could race on (another) boat as his was on the hard. We totally underestimated how long the transport would take (2 1/2 hours) so when we finally turned up, the race was almost over! The silver lining was that a Sumatra squall hit the race and we would have gotten more than soaked and we didn't have a dry clothes. We still got to meet and a bunch of other club members and had a fun night.

Otherwise we have mostly been hanging out with Theresa and her two cute little girls and seeing what their expat life is like. We will even get to see them again in Denmark as they are visiting at the same time as us, and we'll also stop by Singapore with Sophia when we're are sailing up to West Malaysia and Thailand.

We are now just going to do some more bumming around this area before participating in the Borneo Race in the first week in July. It finishes in Kota Kinabalu and then we'll sail back to Brunei and leave Sophia on the mooring here again while we go to Denmark. We'll be back mid August and then we'll keep going as planned. As usual more photos on facebook.

East Coast park has a lake with automatic wake boaring towing!