Visiting the Gunung Mulu National Park, part 2, the animals and the forest

This is about the animals we saw in the park, as well as the jungle itself. Read about our trip and the caves here in the first part.

Most of the animals we saw was on a night walk we did with a guide. We walked really slow while trying to spot all the animals that become active at night, many of them are masters of disguise, especially the stick insects.

All sorts of stick insects, green ones, thorny ones, barky ones, but my favourite is the mossy one! The person is pointing to a massive stick insect, at least 30 cm long I think!

Dwarf squirrel (very cute), moss eating snail, small wood snake and a frog

Jungle flowers, but to be fair, most were found near the part head quarters where they have been planted

Bats streaming out of the deer cave. The 2-3 million bats in that cave alone do a good job as there are hardly any mosquitoes in the park

Butterfly, spider, grasshopper and a big bees' nest high up a tree

Heading down the river to Clearwater cave. The mountain where the Pinnacles is in the background

It was fun driving on these river boats

Cave animals: a racer snake, spider, cave cricket and these weird critters that live of guano (bat droppings)

A snail with really long antennas, a lantern insect, a sleeping bird and yet another spider

Pretty big tree

Phil walking across a canopy skywalk

But even up high at the canopy skywalk it still wasn't possible to see the jungle for trees

Lots of geckos, I like the tiny one on Phil's wrist, we found it in the sink by the hostel

Lots of millipedes and cousins, the fluffy ones are fun, the stripy one is actually as thick as a man's thumb and that's not including its hairs. The top left is a hammerhead worm.

Visiting the Gunung Mulu National Park, part 1, the caves

Wauw. I'm going to apologise in advance for all the superlatives I'm going to use for this post! We just spent the most amazing three days at the Gunung Mulu National Park. It's Unesco World Heritage Site and rightly so. The area is just full of caves. In the middle of the rain forest. Wauw. One beautiful cave after the other, all so pretty it's impossible to pick the best.

It's not often we treat ourselves to land excursions away from Sophia, mostly also because there hasn't been any marinas to leave her in until here in Malaysia. We have also spent half a month's budget in just three days, but it has definitely been worth it. Visiting Borneo is not complete without visiting the park and I'd recommend it to anyone. It's easy to get to the caves via broad walks and the tourist caves have stairs, walkways and lights and you must go with a guide. So in a way it's a bit commercial, but it's far from crowded, and coming from Western countries, it's a sweet deal and still a good adventure. It's also possible to do caving expeditions to caves without the lights and steps, but we didn't do that. I was perfectly happy just to see the show caves, and the light sure helps with that.

An extra bonus was the rain forest. Just walking along the broad walk on the way to caves, we'd see tons of animals, mostly insects, but they are cool and very exotic too! The animals we have seen include: stick insects in all forms, shapes and sizes, millipedes and the likes, a ton of spiders, frogs, heaps of geckos, millions (literally) of bats, birds, dwarf squirrels, two snakes, porcupine, cave critter, one cat (the name started with s) and many more.

I took so many photos and there are so many nice one to show, so therefore I'll split this post in two, this one about the caves, and another one about the animals and the rainforest. I will also post more photos on facebook as I couldn't quite limit myself to just the blog.

Lang's cave was the first cave we visited, one of the smaller ones, but it is really beautiful

Lang's Cave beautiful limestone formations

The top of the entrance to Deer cave is visible. Deer cave is one of the biggest caves in the world, over 2 km long and 174 m high. It is home to 2-3 million bats, 12 different species, and most of them come out at dusk, flying in a swirling pattern, see the photo in part 2 post

Deer Cave, see the broad walk at the bottom for size. The smooth 'dirt' at the bottom right is guano, bat droppings. The bats were hanging at large cluster in the ceiling

Looking back to the entrance of Deer Cave. There are people on the steps and broad walk

Truly massive Deer Cave

Wind Cave, another smaller cave, but also very pretty

At the entrance of Clearwater Cave

Beautiful erosion by the clearwater river

Clearwater Cave is also pretty huge

Yet we only saw a small part of the whole system (red circle), it's over 200 km long!

Lagang Cave was cool because we saw lots of cave critters and a racer snake plus it also had beautiful formations

Eventful passage from Brunei to Miri

Four and a half month since we first arrived to Brunei we have finally left the country. We were in and out of the country 4-5 times, both with and without Sophia, and all up we spent over half that time being out of the country, Phil more so than me. We have had a great time though and we really will miss the yacht club with it's nice facilities (pool, showers, dinghies, electricity, wifi and not least the washing machine), but mostly we'll miss the super nice people we have met. 

We left Brunei Friday morning (we're not superstitious about leaving on Fridays) and arrived in Miri (in the Malaysian state of Sarawak) almost 24 hours later. It was an eventful passage, which isn't necessary a good thing, we like easy plain sailing!

We're still in the SW monsoon season, although here on the Borneo coast, luckily, it's not very pronounced. We didn't leave with the best of forecasts, but it was either leave, or wait another week for better winds, and we (OK, me) was keen to get going and be on the move again. And 10-15 knots headwinds isn't that bad, although much more than that, really isn't fun.

We started out motoring into 5-10 knots on the nose, but at midday it changed a little bit, so we could actually sail close hauled. The wind did pick up to 10-15 knots and sometimes getting closer to 20 knots with small squall coming through, but it was still OK. Before dark we put on reef in the main, it doesn't slow us down much, but is much safer at night. Unfortunately a little later the wind had turned on the nose again and we were back to motor sailing.

And we caught a fish, yipee, our first fish since Philippines. It was Barry's (expat with a boat in Brunei) magic lure that did the trick, and we even had a hit a little earlier. A big Spanish mackrel, so much meat we gave some away here in Miri.

There are A LOT of oil rigs between Brunei and Miri, to the degree that even with no moon or stars, it was still very bright! Constant and vigil watch was required because suddenly one of the many lights was actually from a ship moving and was often hard to notice until it was close. Most have AIS, but there are still some without. Plus some of the old oil rigs seems to have been just left with no lights on them. Very different from night sailing in the Pacific where there's a whole lot of nothing and it's suffice to check the horizon every 10-15 minutes.

poor photo at night, but this has no zoom, just to show how close we are and the amoung of light

We knew it was very likely we'd be hit by at least one squall, but there isn't much you can do to avoid them, especially if you're avoiding oil rigs at the same time. Luckily the worst one didn't hit us until we were only half an hour away from Miri, just after day break at 6.30am. Torrential rain and 30 knots of wind hit us, so we had to stay out circling around as it was too dangerous to go into the marina inside the river mouth, but the good thing about squalls is they dont' last long.

You might have noticed all the specific wind speeds in this post. We finally have our Nexus wind wane back again, a bran new one even, and it's working. So, for the first time since Solomon Islands, almost a year ago, we actually know the wind speeds. The saying ignorance is bliss is actually onto something, for me anyway, because I didn't like to see 30+ knots on the speedo when the big squall hit, and would have been a bit happier not knowing it.

I have added the bunch of photos from Brunei on facebook, this is hopefully a direct link to the album. 

September's cruising costs for Brunei and Malaysia

After skipping the month's of July and August (only two of those weeks were actually spent on the boat), I finally got a new month's budget.

Sarah and Anton visited the first week, and Phil wasn't back until two-thirds way through the month, so it's not quite a typical month. Our total spending was NZ$ 1236. After food the largest spending was various boat parts Phil bought in NZ. As a side note, we did also buy some parts in Denmark (in July and August), but it wasn't actually that much, some springs for rope clutches, a new kettle and other small bits and bobs.

The high transport cost is Phil going to KK to deliver a sail plus when we have borrowed Barry's car, we have topped up the petrol. One thing we'll really miss here in Brunei is the cheap fuel, we have even bought an extra five 20 liter containers (slightly dodgy ones for $2 each) so we can take come of that precious liquid with us.

How to make fitted sheets for boat mattresses

OK, so this is definitely the most random post ever on this blog. If you don't own a boat or if you already know how to do this, just skip this post. But maybe there are some of you boat owners out there who is wondering how to make fitted sheets for the irregular shapes that boat mattresses/squabs are. And it's actually really easy and it also makes it much easier getting into the storage underneath the bunks if the sheet fits nicely as opposed to a loose sheet just wrapped around a mattress. I'll do my best to explain how to do it even if you don't have much sewing experience, but a bit of knowledge definitely helps.

Sophia's quarter berth which is a cosy long double. The squabs are split in two, making it easier to get into the storage below. The front squab features a complicated corner, more about that at the bottom of this post

It's easiest to do if you have the squabs with you where you're sewing and a nice flat area on which to lay it down, which pretty much excludes being on a boat unless you have a LOT of floor space. Originally I did ours back in Christchurch when we were house sitting and were storing the squabs there anyway as I was painting everything inside Sophia. I did two for the two saloon bunks (with lee cloths where we normally sleep while underway) and two for the quarter bunk where we also slept on the first long trip up to Tonga, but since then it's mostly just storage, as it's the least airy (and therefore stuffy) bunk on the boat. A shame, cause it's really cosy. I did three for our v-berth as that's where we sleep when at anchor, and therefore the far majority of the time. But they had gotten quite yucky from our dirty sweat (no showers and hot climate!) and while in Denmark visiting my family I made three new ones, obviously without the squabs, but just with measurements.

If your sheet fabric is new, always wash it first (and tumble try if you think it will be tumble dried later on) to pre-shrink the fabric. I have used a mix of new sheets, second-hand sheets and cheap fabric to make mine. I have made a drawing below that shows how to cut the fabric (red) around the squab (white). Put down the fabric, and put the squab on top with the top side facing the sheet. If your sheet fabric has a right and wrong side, place the right side facing down (the side you'll sleep on). Basically you just extend the lines from the sides and cut out the corners, the picture below does a much better job of explaining that than I do!

How much to cut away? It depends on the thickness of your squab and how much fabric you have, but you want at least the thickness of you squabs and ideally some more. Roughly 30 cm, try and make it even all around the squab, especially the corners.

Most squabs most aren't symmetrical, for example if one end is wider than the other. One symmetric example is our v-berth. If the squab you're doing is not symmetrical, then you need to pin the corners so you know which side is. If you don't know what I'm talking about, just pin it anyway, better safe than sorry. Basically try to imagine which side of the sheet is right and wrong (or inside and outside) and then you pin the wrong side (where the seams are). Again, the photo below explain much better than I do. For your information, our squab covers are red with a (cheaper) grey backing. You only need to pin one corner to show you which side of the sheet to do the sewing on.

pinning the corners together so you know which side is right and wrong. It's enough to do this on just one corner of your sheet

Now you're ready to start sewing. If this sounds complicated look at the picture below which pretty much explains all the steps in one photo.

1. zig zag: most fabrics unravel, so first you need to zig zag all your edges. Zoom zoom is the sound of your machine sewing all these straight edges.
2. sew corners: next you sew the corners together, those cut-outs you did when it was laying flat, also see photo above.
3. fold: then you make a fold where the elastic is going to be (and therefore the width of the safety pin you'll use to insert said elastic)m, approx 2.5 cm. If you're the super pedantic type who cares about how the back side of your sheets look, then make two folds, but it's harder and you need a bit more fabric. Obviously I don't care. Remember to leave a small hole where you're going to insert the elastic. A good trick is to start by a corner and fold all the corner seams the same way, which will then be the way you insert the elastic, the safety pin will run much smoother that way.
4. insert elastic: I insert the elastic after the sewing using a safety pin (see pic), but others may want to insert the elastic while sewing, I just find I can't sew as fast then and then the time difference evens out anyway. Tighten the elastic until it seems right and either tie a know or just sew the ends together. For the sheet in the picture below I made a relative small hole and didn't even bother to sew up that seem after I had inserted the elastic. It makes it easier if I later need to tighten the elastic or change it for a new elastic (lesson learned: don't used old elastic from old sheets, they dont' last as long).

First you zig zag edges (the bottom right hand edge was the existing finish from the new sheet I was using, so I just kept that edge). Then you sew up corners seams and finally make the elastic pocket/fold. The safety pin is about to be inserted the same way/direction as the corner seams are folded down.

If you have complicated squabs like the one in the first photo, it does, well, complicate things. For that one I ended up inserting extra fabric, but I can't really explain it in words, it's easier in real life to just fiddle around and find a solution that works for you. Maybe you can tell from the photo below how I did, although you need a bit of imagination. Basically I inserted some extra fabric. The second photo shows what a squab with fitted sheets looks like underneath and also the complicated corner with extra fabric.

Phil holding up the sheet with the complicated corner, before elastic was inserted. Also note the Q I had sewn onto it, indicating it was for the quarter berth. I did S and P for the two saloon bunks' sheets, even in green and red thread :-)

What a fitted sheet looks like from behind. This also shows the complicated corner with extra fabric

Making new v-berth sheets on my parents's floor with just measurements. I cut all three layer fabrics in one go, as I knew exactly what I was doing and was certain it was correct, but I wouldn't recommend it the first time you try making a fitted sheet. Our v-berth is a king size at the widest point, so I just bought IKEA king sized flat sheets. The left hand corner at the bottom wasn't quite wide enough, but I still managed OK.

Guest post by Sarah and Anton: river cruising and tropical island time

Sarah and Anton came to visit the previous week, and we had a short, but fantastic time together, and without much further ado, here's a post Anton wrote, maybe with a bit of input from Sarah. Thanks for writing it, and thanks a lot for coming to visit.

Anton and Sarah chilling in the cockpit while underway to Tiga. Shade is essential, hence all the sarongs...

Well I have to say from wo to go I was amazed with our Hostess, the fantastic Astrid. Having someone to navigate the local restaurants and choose something that was not going to get us sick and also something that we ended up loving was the key to actually trying a little local cuisine! Have taken photo of the menu board so that I can remember the name of the meal.  Like an egg and vego omelet sandwiched between two crepes, yummy!

Despite professing some anxiety to going solo taking charge of the boat, Astrid was totally at ease as Captain.  Even to the point of navigating up the Klias River. At our anchorage about half way up the river we saw dozens of crocodiles (ok read floating logs… but at least 2 were heading upstream and we all agreed they had eyes). We also saw monkeys!!! Astrid was lucky enough to spy a proboscis one which if you use your imagination is captured in the photo below (notice the red patch?). The second leg of the trip saw us head North. We ambitiously put the sails up with a light aft wind before taking the main down again 20 minutes later. They don’t call Borneo “the land below the wind” for nothing! No danger of us capsizing. The next couple of days were spent snorkelling and hiking round Pulau Tiga. Astrid, spoiled by the underwater beauty of Palau and the Philippines, was unimpressed with the reef, but Sarah and I enjoyed some cool coral and fish.

Ok, so the Yacht Sophia and our experiences, through my eyes!

S:  Sea, it was so amazing to be swimming and snorkelling in really beautiful warm water. Warm like to spa.
O:  Organised! From the little facecloths that you put on your hand like puppets, to the dishrack that has clips for cups I was amazed how organised and easy to find everything is. Everything has a place and every place has a thing!
P:  Pancakes! I made pancakes one morning after one of my Anton sleep ins, well received by the girls for sure while at the helm to get to Pulau Tiga Island. However on the last day Astrid made the Danish Pancakes, I have to say those nicely browned far thinner pancakes really took first prize for me.
H:  Hot! Amazing how much a person can sweat in the Tropics, being the winter season too, it really was humid. I love Sophia’s fans! As we would sit under those fans in the evening and watch the temperature gauge slowly go down. Heaven forbid we had to do any cooking or make a cup of tea, as it mean’t that it would creep back up and over the really important 30 Degrees!
I:  Icecold drinks. We really loved Sophia’s fridge, it just made such an amazing difference to our body temp to be able to drink some wonderful ice cold drinks! Though not sure on the Coconut milk and Nesquik drink we tried to copy from our time in Bali.
A:  Awesome time! We really and truly loved every minute/hour/day on board Sophia with Astrid, just missed Phil!

PS:  The photos are a mix of mine and Anton's, but the captions are mine (Astrid's)

Croc or log?

Macaque monkey

Early morning on Klias river

Proboscis monkey, spot the red in the green

This was one of the best snorkeling pics from Tiga, unfortnatley it's pretty dead coral and there are only few and very tiny fish

Outboard wouldn't start, so we rowes ashore, but the rest of the time, we just swam in, much easier

Walking across the island we got bitten a fair bit, so at this mud vulcano Sarah and Anton decided to try and use mud as insect repellant

We played Settler of Catan every night, SOOO much fun. We each got a win, but Sarah got two, so she was the overall winner

Bye bye guys, thanks for coming! Sarah and Anton got a local boat to take them to the mainland and from there a bus back to KK, while I sailed back to Brunei by myself over the next two days, over 90 miles (pat on the back!)

Why it's so quiet here

It's been ages since I posted anything, but time in Denmark flew by. I have now been back in Brueni on Sophia for a week, but unfortunately I'm alone. Phil was going back here two weeks before me, but while he was underway, his dad died, so he detoured straight to NZ where he will be for another two-three weeks yet. This is when international relationships are a bummer and the long distances suck. Feeling are just really hard to convey on skype and email!

Being alone on the boat is another interesting challenge for me, especially since it was so unexpected. The really nice thing is that I'm feeling very much at home here in Brueni having been here for such a long time before we left and everyone are very friendly and helps me out if I need it.

One often discussed cruising subject is pink and blue jobs. On Sophia we're very traditional, mainly because Phil is the traditional male not being very domestic in the cooking, cleaning and laundry department. And since I do almost all those things exclusively, it's only fair that Phil does the typical blue jobs such as engine maintenance, hauling heavy stuff and so forth. He's also the most technical/computer minded, so he also does navigation.

This coming week we're having visitors (yeah, we love visitors), Sarah and Anton found time to come see us while they were here in Asia anyway. Obviously this was planned a while ago. I'm going to take them cruising around here and that's main challenge. The 'funny' thing is if it was Phil who was alone here, it would be much more 'normal' and not cause anyone to thing twice. My main worry is the engine, if something happens with that, I'll have no idea what to do.

The only problem that has arisen this week was the outboard engine, another blue job. It lost a part of the fuel on/off valve and was therefore leaking fuel. Luckily I got help the first night, so I could get out to Sophia. Then I did a really silly blond thing, I went to the yamaha store in town. The problem is our outboard is a mercury! How stupid can one be... Anyway, they didn't have the part, or actually they did, but they couldn't find it. Phil will get one in NZ and bring back here. I made an alternative solution (inspired how the guy fixed it the first night) with some hose and a ball squeeze thingy directly into a jerry can. It does the trick, it's just not very weather proof.

I'm skipping July and August's cruising budgets as the far majority of that time was spent in Denmark, but will be back in a month's time with September.

Below are more picture of our Denmark holiday, including a little mini holiday to Goteborg, Sweden.

My twin and I, her boys and our parents. The green thing is a Kaj cake, very yummy :-)

My twin top right, little sis top left. Centre pic includes my friend Theresa's two girls, the one whom we stayed with in Singapore. 

Mini trip to Goteborg, Sweden. We got a 24 hour city pass so did lots of things, including a boat tour and Liseberg (amusement park). Bottom is me in heaven in a Swedish lollies shop :-)

Martiman Museum was really cool, a collection of various ships, including a submarine and a destroyer!

 

Universum is Scandinavia's larges science museum, also super cool, in the hot and humid jungle section we felt very much at home...