Monday 11th August
Co-ordinates
4 degrees 15.465N
117 degrees 53.476E
Depth 3.5m
(Just off Tawau Yacht Club)
Pete and I were
immensely relieved yesterday in the late afternoon to discover a beautiful
swimming pool just behind the yacht club.
With shady trees, and deck chairs – somewhere comfy and cool for Lindsay
and Emma to hang out!
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| This is at midday so NO shade...but most of the day it is lovely |
They both work
long hard hours in London and they really need opportunities for relaxing. On the boat there are very few shady spots,
and, at the moment, no opportunities to swim so I am very happy there is a
pool, with a shower block right next to it. Lots of hydrotherapy for them!
We haven’t explored
downtown Tawau very thoroughly yet, but there are rows of orderly houses along the
waterfront – no doubt built by the government, for the Malaysians. The government is BIG on subsidized house, in
neat straight rows.
Last night we had
dinner at the yacht club – our last one with John, who was staying in a hotel
nearby.
Today has been a
day of ups and downs…early in the morning I awoke from a slightly disturbing
dream (yes I KNOW other people’s dreams are excessively dull, but…bear with
me!) involving rats. There had been an
infestation of them on the boat, and I was trying to hide this fact from our
visitors. Fortunately I woke just before
I had to decide what to do with the plastic bag I was clutching, in which several
rats were squirming energetically while I tried to look nonchalant.
As we were getting
ready to leave 2XS for the fleshpots of Tawau around 10am, Emma called me in to
their cabin to look at some suspicious
bits of chewed wood in one of the cupboards. And…she thought she had seen something…furry. I alerted Pete, who was very busy and who
didn’t really believe a single word we were saying. Finally he and Lindsay came to investigate
and…a medium sized rat leapt out of the cupboard and rushed for the other
cabin, brushing over poor Emma’s bare foot in its haste. (She was VERY brave!)
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| We were SO close to the walkway... |
Oh dear and oh no…
It must have boarded when we were tied up so cosily to the jetty in
Semporna… We are NOT happy about this
and we have to take steps. I am all in favour of borrowing Snoopy, the
beautiful big black cat who lives on Keris, anchored nearby. But maybe Snoopy doesn’t want to leave his
owners and his familiar haunts…
Mishap #2…In the
early afternoon we decided to go into town, about ten minutes walk. Lindsay hadn’t even left the pool precinct
when he doubled up in pain. REAL pain;
agony in fact. We were all very anxious
as he writhed on the ground. Pete went
back out to the boat to find indigestion medication, but I encouraged Emma and
Lindsay to go straight to the hospital, which is less than 100 metres from the
yacht club.
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| Em out of focus but...here is Lindsay on a drip! |
They put Lindsay
on a drip and various medical staff members hovered around and then he was
released back into the free world, cheerfully pain free. We were all exceedingly relieved…
And Chapter #3 of
our ups and downs involved The Dinghy Saga.
A week or so ago Mr Tan, the efficient manager of the Tawau Yacht Club,
had told us on the phone that there might be a dinghy for sale at the
club. So the first thing we did when we
got here was to go hunting for what we thought might be the last dinghy in
captivity. It was an amazing boat…It had
obviously deflated and split at the seams, and somebody had filled it with
expanding foam. It is now rock solid and
unsinkable. But…not very pretty…
I was wildly
enthusiastic and started to direct a flow of love towards this rather ugly
boat. Pete put in an offer to Mr Tan,
who had to refer it all to The Board.
They wanted 5,500 ringgits for it (approx. $1800. A LOT of money for a virtually unsalable
item; but beggars can’t be choosers.)
But…while we were wandering around town, we ran into Mr Tan who told us
that The Board had said NO. No sale, not
at any price, so no point in us even beginning negotiations. I was, as they say, totes devo…Pete rallied, as he does, and made his way into the hinterland
of Tawau with grim determination. I had
to go back to the yacht club with food for Emma, and maybe for Lindsay, if he
was feeling better. (He was indeed
feeling better and he ate it all while Emma went searching for a knife and fork
– she is a very refined girl…Poor Emma was left just a bit hungry.)
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| I asked Lindsay to pose triumphantly with the dinghy |
I went for a swim
and a shower and when I got back to my breezy cool table overlooking the water,
there was Pete, in a ute, with…a gleaming brand new aluminium dinghy! The one and only one for sale in Tawau! (And…it only cost 1,800 ringgits – approx.
$600.) he is SO resourceful! Next thing he just has to get rid of the rat
and all will be ticketyboo on 2XS!
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