17th June - Miri to Labuan - Borneo International Yacht Race (with some motoring involved...)

Tuesday 17^th June

Chris Pete Mick Lyn Jacqui Dave (I was too hot to put my race t-shirt on)

We were misinformed!  Labuan is a splendid marina, with many beautiful new spaces especially for catamarans.  We are lined up very happily between Isis (George and Lies, Holland,) and Out of the Blue II (Lyn and Chris, Australia), and – oh joy – one of our family of power plugs actually fits the designated space.  So we have fans blowing; I have put up the awnings; we have completed our race and all is well!

It was cooler this morning so I wore it to cross the finish line

We left around noon yesterday and wallowed around at the start line for what seemed to me an interminable and incomprehensible time, in quite a big rolling swell.  I felt like a small child about to start complaining…Are we there yet???  But I shut up and yes we did begin and yes we did get here, to Labuan.  And we weren’t the last over the line.

But was it fun??  Well no not really, not for me.  Pete enjoyed it much more than I did.  In the beginning it was all very thrilling.  We went past Calypso,

Calypso, South Africa)

and Saol Elle

Saol Ella (Ireland)

and tried to catch up to Jackster. 

There were hundreds of large logs floating free; impossible to avoid them.  Some of them served as useful rafts for a few adventurous seabirds

Birds on a log, with Brunei as a backdrop

We were going a steady 5-6 knots; not very fast but…we were advancing towards Labuan.  The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, the furrow followed free*…That sort of thing.  And then the wind changed and…we started to go backwards.  With me at the helm, while Pete had his nap on the couch.  Oh dear… I found this very tiresome and nearly sobbed all over my harness but Pete woke up and took over.  And…we still headed in the wrong direction so we turned on the engines and…all was well!  Every time the wind co-operated we turned them of again, so we really did sail most of the way.  We kept a log of all of this and Pete has presented our details to the race committee.  They are taking it all very seriously… After a few calculations Pete has reported that we motored for 4 hours 15 minutes out of 20, and our arrival was timed by the race boat at 9.37am. 

The end of the race!  Wee hee!

The best bit was going over the finish line… The officials were happily fishing while waiting for the stragglers, and they waved, clapped and honked a small hooter.

* Thank you Samuel Taylor Coleridge; I love the Ancient Mariner and often recite little bits of it to myself when we are at sea.  (Sorry about the asterisk Katy…)