Borneo Race and 347 miles later

Phew, what a fortnight. Over the last two weeks we have sailed 347 miles in straight lines, I'm sure in real life it was a fair bit longer. First south from Brunei to Miri, then north to KK via Labuan, then back south to Brunei. We have done two long 'ocean' races and 2 1/2 harbour races and met a bunch of cruisers. Basically a whole heap of fun. And we did well in the race also, 2nd overall in cruising division A. All to Phil's credit of course, yes, I'm the very proud girl friend, not afraid to brag :-)

Our routes south, north, then south again. Red arrows reflect the first leg from Brunei to Miri although missing our overnight stops, green is the racing (plus harbour races), and yellow is back to Brunei!

To start from the beginning we first has a leisure three-days sail down to Miri (Malaysia) from Brunei. Norwegian Flow and Hero also went, so we got to hang out a bit more with them, which was really nice. We also started meeting the other race participants. The night before the race we had the first of in total three local dinner buffets, all part of the free race! It's the 10th year that the race is on, the earlier years the participants even got paid to do it, but now it's 'just' free. And it includes goodies like free marina in Miri and KK, the three dinners and a few other things. It's all a bit cooperation between the two states Sarawak and Sabah (the two Malay states on Borneo) and Labuan Corporation (the tax free island, part of Malaysia) mainly to boost tourist, but I'm sure there are lots more agendas.

The first leg was from Miri to Labuan, 90 miles, 10am start, 26 hour time limit, you'd think enough, but this is Asia, so light winds prevail. We did have a bit of every kinds of winds, from becalmed to 20 knots on the nose, keeping us on our toes. Ok, make that Phil's toes. From the late afternoon through to the early morning we were actually beating Bewitched (the winner of cruising division), which made Phil extra keen to tweak maximum speed out of Sophia. That meant I'm not good enough to be in charge to let him sleep, so I got lots of lovely sleep that night! We got close to Labuan mid morning, but then the wind just totally died and in order to make the 12pm deadline, we had to motor the last hour or so, and we came in just few minutes behind Bewithced, no bad at all. Motoring is allowed, but it comes with penalties.

Needless to say, we slept well that night. The next day was harbour races. Luckily Keith from Voahangy (the NZ ex-paua fisherman we met in KK) was keen to crew with us for the harbour races, which made things a lot easier. It's quite tricky with the spinnaker (no sock) with only two people. It was a nice day with OK breezes and we came third, then second in two races, which unfortunately favoured gennakers, not spinnakers, which both our closes competitors sported, and yes, there is a type of sail we don't have on Sophia!

The second and final long leg was from Labuan to Kota Kinabalu (KK), about 70 miles, 3pm start, 20 hour time limit. Bewitched just took off and we couldn't catch them. This leg was more influenced by several squalls, none bringing more then 20 knots of wind, but with lots of rain and lightening, including some phenomenally huge bangs. We crossed the finish line at 2am (average of 6.4 knots of speed), and got some well deserved sleep. The next day we were lucky to get a spot in the marina, the immensely luxurious Sutera Harbour. We were mostly busy being social though and didn't get much pool time. The KK harbour races unfortunately didn't have much wind, so we only did 2/3 of one race, then they cancelled it. A real shame, because we were finally beating Bewitched :-) All those trailer sailor lake regattas Phil has done in NZ in lights winds makes him real good at still moving along in next to no wind.

Bewitched with half a gennaker, but look how much bigger she is, and we had to beat her on handicap!

A cool little series of us overtaking a competitor, Full Flight I think. Thanks so much to Behan on Totem for taking these pics of Sophia

Keith from Voahangy joined us for the harbour races. This is before a race, hence the relaxed pose...

Overall we really enjoyed the regatta. And even more considering it was all free. In NZ there certainly aren't big buffet dinners for all participants in regattas, and in Thailand where Phil has done a couple, it's just as plush (or even more), but there are entry fees. If we were to complain, it would be of the organisation of the regatta. The morning before the race at the registration, they still didn't have start numbers for us, nor t-shirts, or knew which boats were in which classes (cruising div A and B), that wasn't sorted until late in the day or the next morning. We also weren't very impressed with the handicapper. It seemed quite random how boats were handicapped, and despite Sophia being the second smallest boat entered (and the smallest actually racing) we had one of the toughest handicaps, we actually had to beat Bewithced, a Catalina 42 on the line. The handicapper simply guessed how much all the cruising boats had motored from Labuan to KK, and the guesses were totally off, so of course the results were wrong, instead of waiting until all yachts had submitted motoring times. Somehow the wrong result was used in the price giving and not the corrected one, although that was just more fun than anything else! We did also laugh in Miri when one of the (many) speeches mentioned that race had won an award for being the best organised event in Sarawak.

Most of the participants were from Australia and New Zealand. We were the youngest crew by miles, at least if you don't count in some of the boats with kids on them :-) One of the kids' boats was Totem from US (Washington), whose very popular blog I actually read back in NZ before we were leaving! They have been cruising for five years, including a two year stop-over in Australia to fill up the cruising kitty again. Jaime is also a sail maker, so he and Phil had a lot to talk about. They have three kids onboard, from age 9 to 14, great and well-spoken kids, boat life is good for them too, I think. We also met several other boats, all lovely people, but one fun thing was that the mono-hulls were mostly hanging out together and the multi-hulls were together with themselves, but with some overlaps. Multi-hulls were also all slow, we were beating them all by miles.

June's cruising costs and the big annual overview of costs

June was our second most expensive month at NZ$ 2926, however, that's because our annual boat insurance was due and without that cost of $1974, June would have been our second cheapest month at only $952. And that even with our most expensive eating out month ever, funny how that item just seems to grow each month almost. I think the tipping point was an expensive lunch we had at the fancy Empire Hotel in Brunei with the Norwegians, but it was good too.

The last few days of our trip to Singapore (most figured in May's budget) came in at $151. Other than that, an interesting fact is that June is the only month without internet expenses! In Singapore we had internet at Theresa's place, in Brunei free wifi is part of the $5 a day for use of the yacht club's facilities. The two days we have just spent in Malaysia before the race we just used our old sim card from Malaysia we have loaded up earlier on. Although admittedly we barely had time for playing on the internet there, we were busy being social and also getting Sophia ready for the race.

As this is the 12th month, I have also made an annual overview of all the months put together, fun to see our whole year of cruising layed out like that. Interesting for example that the last four months we haven't had any expenses in regards to clearing in and out of countries. The reason for that is it's free in Malaysia and Brunei and in Philippines there are only entry, not exit fees. If you want explanations to each month and for example what the general misc item consists of (varies each month), you can find them here.

Insurance is a big item, without it the monthly average for our cruising costs would be NZ$1600 and not $1800. And this is even only insurance for Sophia, not our health insurance. My lovely parents insist we have health insurance and they also pay for it. I struggled to even find insurance, both for us and Sophia before we left, but in the end I found boat insurance through the (NZ) Island Cruising Association with Edward William Marine Services, and for health insurance I found several options from the Seven Seas Cruising Association (US). Thankfully we haven't needed to make any claims, so I can't say anything about either services.

I have also made a pie chart to show which items are biggest. For that I added some of the items together, eg groceries, alcohol and eating out, otherwise the many different items made it confusing to get a good overview.

This cruising budget is of course reflective of us and will vary hugely from boat to boat. This is our first year out, so Sophia was well stocked with food from NZ, the cost of which occured before this year began. Sophia also left NZ with brand new sails and canvas and major work done to her, so this first year will probably also be cheaper than subsequent years when more things break and wear out. Another thing to note is we're pretty light drinkers, so the alcohol item and drinks out is very small compared to most cruisers. Other cruisers also spend much more on sightseeing and here in Asia there are quite a few marinas, and they aren't free. In the Pacific it's easy because there simply aren't any marinas (or only a couple), so it's all just free anchoring. We do also know some cruisers who spend less money than us, typically older people (hardy long time cruisers) with only a set income like pension.

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!