Wednesday 4th June - South China Sea - we nailed it! No pirates, no seasickness - arrived inBorneo - Kuchin is fabulous

Wednesday 4^th June

Crossing the South China Sea was…great!  I was so very relieved…I had been really worried, mainly about my own ability to withstand several nights in a row on the open sea.

Flying fish, flying!

But it was all just fine.  Night fell; it got dark; I survived and did my shifts without falling in a heap. No leaning dismally over the back of the boat, feeding the fishies.  No misery.  In fact by the third night I was more or less used to it.  We changed the system and did six hour shifts instead of our customary three hours.  Pete did 6-12; I did 12-6.  And no it wasn’t all that much fun getting up for a six hour shift at midnight, but…I survived.  It was very beautiful on the sea at night.  Glorious stars, the odd brightly lit squid boat, the odd burning oil rig.  But mostly just the sea, and 2XS.

It was very hot.  I don’t think the temperature dropped below 35, even at 3am, which is usually slightly chillier than other times of day/night.  There wasn’t much wind; we had to motor all the way.  We are now anchored in the Santubong River, not far from Kuchin.  It is all very lovely but…sigh…no possibility of swimming because we are in the mangroves and yes, shades of Australia, there are crocodiles.

This wrecked barge was our landmark coming into the river

Tuesday 3^rd June

And now we are in Borneo…

Just like that out loud, as Pete would say.  I wrote the 31st blogbit as we were leaving Pulau Kapas but computer said…NO.

We are anchored right next to Mt Satubong

Saturday 31^st May

Apparently Felix, soon to be four years old, classifies people by their “type.”  He will see, for instance, a man who looks like Uncle Gavin and will say, Oh look, a type of Gavin!  This has become a very useful way of looking at people.  I am very grateful to Felix for his additions to my vocabulary.

When we were at the Terengganu museum, there were explanatory signs outside many of the houses and palaces.  (Not all of them…many things remain unexplained.)  I was tickled to find this sign:

Ah yes… Another type of verandah…Very helpful info!

Janice (SV Zoa) has just been to KL with Lyn (SV Out of the Blue II.)  I think those two had way too much fun… They are both very cheery and they made new friends everywhere.  Including in the Immigration office, where they had to spend quite a lot of time – Lyn was getting her new passport stamped and there were many difficulties because…the system was down.  In the course of their conversations, they discovered that Immigration officials in Malaysia get the princely sum of…6 ringgits per hour…That is approx. $2.01.  We must seem so fabulously wealthy, in comparison…

And now we are about to leave Pulau Kapas…my beautiful island full of coral, fish,  lalala…

I have just realised that I might be out of internet contact on the 2^nd of June… And that is A Very Important Day – Gavin’s birthday!  Gavin is a most excellent person; I am very lucky to have him as a son-in-law.  The two weeks we had with him in Langkawi were a real gift – he was such good company.  Kind, funny, helpful, unobtrusive – a houseguest (boatguest?) doesn’t get much better!  Apart from the pleasure of his company, I so much enjoyed watching him play and PLAY with Hamish and Angus.  Still not sure which of the three enjoyed it the most…often I thought Gavin was having the very best time of them all; what a wonderful thing to be able to say about a father.