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!

Bumming it in Brunei

Well, we have now been just over a week in Brunei. Plans change all the time, now the change is we're not leaving Sophia in Miri (in Malaysia south of here) to fly to Singapore, but instead here. A nice cruiser who has got a mooring here just left to go haul out in Kudat and then to Philippines and he is letting us use his mooring. We actually even think we'll use it also when we go to Denmark in July. The big advantage of a mooring over a marina is no rats or cockroaches are able to get on the boat. The mooring is almost new and it's pretty safe here, so we feel OK leaving our most precious possession here.

Royal Brunei Yacht Club's mooring field (all owned by the locals and expats), only the big ketch is on anchor, as well as the Polish boat that's on a lean when they anchored too close to shore, ups.

Tomorrow we then begin a marathon travel day to get to Singapore. Two buses to get into town, then another bus to Miri across the border, then two flights to Singapore and finally a taxi to Theresa's house very late in the evening. We're really looking forward to Singapore though, it will be great to see Phil's parents and Theresa & co, plus they got great food there...

We have literally just been bumming around here in Brunei, but have enjoyed it too. The club really is very nice, and is a bit of heaven for the many expats living here, in an a country where alcohol is illegal, so everyone walks around with a chilli bin, pretty funny. We have met a bunch of people and they are all very nice and friendly to us, even buying us dinners! The far majority seems to be teachers, but there are also pilots and a few other industries (oil one of them).

We even joined in on the club's dinghy racing on the Sunday in an ISO, but unfortunately it was a total drifter and because there's so much current (tide) we were literally sailing backwards despite there being some wind. The fastest we went was when we towed by the dinghy! We still had a nice day and got to meet even more people.

Where we bum around most days: in the yacht club with free wifi and power plugs... Swimming pool in the background! No, it's not ice cream wrappers on the table...

We did go into town one more day for more sightseeing. Unfortunately the national museum is closed because it's leaking, and the big mosque we had hoped to get into and especially up the tower was also closed to visitors. Instead we visited the Royal Regalia Museum, basically the Sultan's show-off of his life and all the silly things has been gifted by other countries etc. There was nice air-con and we even 'got' to wear these cosy slippers while inside. About the only cool thing was the huge dragoon 'car' which is powered (pushed and pulled) only by people!

In Brunei and a slight change of plans

I think we ended up spending three days in Labuan. We visited the Labuan museum for a history lesson and also the marine museum, although our general marine knowledge is higher than the average, so we didn't really learn much new. We also had one last fun night with kiwi Sarah and Dave and not least Russel the dog (a Jack Russel) who lives in the Labuan's marina (which unfortunately is falling apart, but may be fixed some day). They treated us to yummy kiwi wine and we went out for a late dinner.

How cute is Russel the boat dog?!

It meant next morning was a bit slow, but we eventually got out act together and went off to Brunei. Luckily it was only a couple of hours of sailing (or motoring, there was no wind) away. We first anchored off the ferry terminal so we only had a short dinghy ride in to see customs, immiration and port control. It sure was a nice and easy way to do it, and fun walking into an empty ferry terminal the backwards way.

We then went to anchor by the Royal Brunei Yacht Club. It's a really nice club with friendly people and for NZ$5 a day we get: dinghy dock, free use of facilities including: swimming pool, showers, wifi and washing machine. The only downside is the location in the middle of nowhere. Brunei has SE Asia's richest average income per person thanks to all the oil. I guess this means a lot of cars and spread out places. There are however some busses and we did manage to catch one into the city. 

The down town was quite different from any capitals we have ever been in. It's very organised and clean, similar to Singapore, but, there are hardly any people walking around and not that many cars either. Admittedly, it's a small country and hence a small capital. But it made for a very casual and relaxed non-stress feel and we liked it. We saw the impressive Omar Ali Saifuddien mosque with the concrete 'boat' parked in the 'mote' around it but otherwise just wandered around with occasional trips into small malls mostly for the air con!

Behind us is Kampung Ayer, a water village build on stilts, aparently app 30,000 people live there!

As for the change of plans, only few people actually knew those plans, so it's mostly just a change of our mindset. Phil's parents are coming to Singapore on the 31st May on their world cuise(ship) and we have for a long time figured we'd try and get there by then and it did also fit quite nicely into our overall plans. But we spent a bit longer in Philippines than originally anticipated, then we were hanging out in first Kudat, then KK, and now we're still pretty far away from Singapore. We could sail straight to there from here, it's about 700 miles or 6-7 days, all depending, but we don't really feel like such a relatively long passage, but most importantly we just don't feel like we have seen enough of Borneo yet. Instead we now going to fly to Singapore from Miri.

We're looking forward to seeing Phil's parents and of course they are also boat part mules like all visitors to Sophia... We're going to be staying with one of my oldest best friends Theresa and her family and we will also go see Jenny, the Norwegians we spend xmas with in Palau. Now we just have to try and figure out where to leave Sophia when we go to Denmark in July and what to do before then, so many options!

No more rattling and on the move again

Yeah, no more rattling. My handy boy friend fixed the problem :-) Last blog post finished with cheap us anchoring outside Sutera Harbour marina waiting for the return of our gas bottles. Amazingly the new bearing turned up even before the gas bottles (so only 48 hours after it was ordered, good service!), so we only spent two night outside the marina on anchorage before moving back in. We didn't want to be at anchorage with a non-functioning engine (while Phil pulled the shaft etc out). Not that we minded being back in the luxury of the marina and the facilities surrounding it, hello again swimming pool.

One of our 'neighbours' in the marina was Keith, ex-paua fisherman from Picton (but fishing in Chathams) who has spent quite a while in KK and has a motorbike, so besides helping Phil with the engine, he also knew all the right places and took Phil to a shop where they machined a new cooper housing for the cutlass bearing. We did have to wait a few days for this, but there's plenty to do in KK. It's actually a big tourist destination, mostly Asian tourists, jets are flying over the city all day long.

So very KK-ish, Mt Kinabalu behind the city, a para sailor in the water and a jet above

We took a local bus (always an interesting experience in itself) to the big city mosque. Here we paid a few dollars to get properly dressed like Muslims (I had come prepared with lots of sarongs and scarves, but that didn't seem to be an option) and our private guide showed us around inside the mosque, which was neat because we got to ask him lots of questions. For some reason all the Asian tourists visiting the mosque only stay outside.

Hilarious how there are paddle boats in the water around the mosque!

Another must-do touristy experience in KK is the night market. It's on every night and the people who wrote the lonely planet guide are very enthusiastic about it, especially the Filipino food section. We did have a yummy bbq fish and scrimp, but otherwise I almost think the market in Kudat was more interesting, because it was more local and actually busier too. Or maybe we just weren't there at the right time.

After in total two night in the marina, two night outside and then four more nights inside we left KK. It has definitely been a great visit, but not so great on our wallet. Especially hanging out with cruisers with more money than us was tough, paua fishing must be very profitable ;-)

We spent one more night by one of the islands off KK where it's swarming with tourist boats during the days, so we figured it must be good snorkelling. It was NOT, limited coral and fish, and lots of jellyfish that sting, not too bad, but enough to be quite unpleasant. On our way south the next morning we tried again at a place LP claims is the best for snorkelling and it was just as bad, if not actually worse. Bugger, we had been hoping for a bit of snorkeling therapy after all that marina and city time.

We are now on Labuan island after one stop at Tiga island. Tiga is another beach where Survivor has been filmed. We choose to go check out a place with bubbling mud, as Phil has never been to Rotorua and therefore hasn't seen the phenomenon before. Rotorua is way cooler though, Tiga's mud pools were just extremely muddy and only a little bit of bubbling.

Labuan is famous for being tax-free, so it's the place to buy cheap booze and beer in an otherwise alcohol-expensive country. There's also lots of duty free chocolate, heaps of yummy stuff, things you normally only see in Europe, so a bit dangerous place to be nostalgic. Maybe it's good I got a reminder to be healthy the other day. The lovely older lady dressing me up in muslim clothes, pointed at my tummy, looked shy and like she wasn't sure, but then did ask anyway: bebe!!! Ups, first time that has happened, and I wouldn't like it to happen again before it's actually true.

Sophia anchored in Labuan close to a whole fleet of ships and oil tankers (oil rich water around here!)

Luxury overload in KK

We ended up spending in total two weeks in Kudat, including three days in the haul out. Phil spent several days trouble shooting the engine vibrations, but in the end decided we need a forward cutlass bearing. Unfortunately they didn't have this in Kudat, and especially I was getting pretty sick of being stuck in a very hot marina, so we decided to sail onto Kota Kinabalu (KK). It's only at certain revs that the engine vibrates, so it wasn't too bad, but we actually had two and a half lovely days of sailing, only the last half day was too light to sail so we motored.

Mt Kinabalu, the biggest in SE Asia, I think, 4095 meters, it's only visible early in the morning, later on it's covered in clouds. If we were much fitter (and could afford the marina fees) we would climb it, but as things are, it's just not going to happen...

monkey on the beach!

We have how spent two days in the über posh marina, http://www.suteraharbour.com. It was actually funny, because we just came from the (free!) marina in Kudat and there Sophia was a total average boat and even on the slightly nicer side, but in KK she's a nobody, tiny and simple looking. The marina is attached to a country club of sorts and a set of swimming pools, one of them 50 meters and it's all part of the fee (NZ$ 28 a day for Sophia's 35 feet), they even give you towels! There's also a gym, tennis courts and lots of other fancy stuff. We of course tried to maximise using the pool and showers, I even got up at 6.30 every morning to swim, it was slightly cooler then, although the water was still really warm! Luckily the showers had a really cold option, super nice. 

We even managed to order a cutlass bearing from a local boat (fishing) shop, it will have to be sent from west Malaysia and they promised it would be here in 2-3 days, but we'll wait and see about that before we believe it. Because we are such cheapies we have now left the marina and have anchored just outside, because we're still waiting for our gas bottles to be returned (full ). After we get the gas bottles back (tomorrow morning hopefully) we will head out to explore some nice islands and anchorages just off KK, supposedly it's even good snorkeling! When the bearing turns up, we'll head back to the marina. As usual more photos on facebook.

Phil in the Chinese boat (fishing mostly) shop where we'll hopefully get our new bearing from in a few days