Wednesday 18th June
On our last day in
Miri, Janice and Mick (SV Zoa, WA,) went into town for supplies. They found a wet market which was just closing down Wet markets are always
just closing down, in my experience. And
a good thing too; they are usually so smelly and so full of things from which I
need to avert my eyes that I don’t mind at all.
Give me a little roadside stall, or even a supermarket, for my fruit and
veg any day!
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| Janice, from SV Zoe (WA) |
Across the road,
however, was another market, so shopping bags in hand, they crossed over. Fascinating,
said Janice, who is made of sterner stuff than I am. First she found a large python, sliced into
chunks, ready for the pot. (No she did
not lug this back to Zoa…) Next she found an eviscerated animal, not quite
recognizable… She described it to me and I think it was a civet. Or maybe not.
She asked the stallholder what it was and he looked around, shiftily,
and said, Shhhhh! And then she found a tub of darling turtles,
swimming hopefully. Do you eat these? she asked.
Her new friend looked at her quizzically and then said, with a large
expansive gesture.
Oh no. I set
them FREE!
Hmmmm…
 |
| The Paris end of the marina |
The Labuan marina
pontoons where we are safely tucked away are lovely and new. They seem very safe and sturdy… But just
along from us, there are the remnants of the other pontoons which came before…
Apparently the big
swell makes mincemeat, so to speak of the pontoons. Out there, just beyond the breakwater, is an
extremely lively port, with hundreds of tugs, plus ferries, barges, ships. Busybusy, and none of them go very slowly so the
wash and the swell are constant, undermining the pontoons on the poor little beleaguered
marina. They need a New Plan!
We hardened (some
more hardened than others…) sailors are all…wobbly!!! Dave, who has been on Jackster for six years,
and on and off boats all of his life, thought he was standing on a rickety
pontoon yesterday afternoon. He checked
it out and no; he was standing on terra firma and it was his entire body which
was wobbly, not the ground…All of us are feeling the same effects of the night
sail along the coast of Sarawak and Brunei to Sabah. Tomorrow…more of the same…sailing from Labuan
to Kota Kinabalu…I do hope we don’t go backwards this time; totally infra dig…(or maybe we will sail into
Brunei for the day. Cheap fuel, and a bit
of a look at another country. We would miss
out on the race, but only by twelve hours or so…
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| Those of us not at the Paris end have to negotiate a high, barrow concrete wall to get to and from their boats...(Here Paul (South Africa) and Porric (Ireland) very happily teetering |
Labuan is a duty
free island. We have done a few grips to
and from the large shopping centre only a few hundred metres away.
Pete loves duty
free…
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