26th July - Kinabatangan River - the dinghy is dead - not sure if all photos will load...

Friday 25^th July

Co-ordinates

05 degrees 31.349N

118 degrees 17.801E

Depth 5m

We are anchored outside Kampong Sukau, a reasonable sized village on the banks of the Kinabatangan River.

Thursday 24^th July

The provisioners came back to 2Xs yesterday morning laden with more fruit, veg, fish, chicken.  Catherine and I decided to hang the pineapple, and also the ginger.  Both have proved to be irresistibly attractive to all manner of tiny and unwanted insects, if they are the least bit available.  This should stop them!

There were last minute internet session, while we were still connected.  Catherine was very patient and kind when I interrupted her for a photo;

John looked DAGGERS.

(Catherine and I find this photo far too amusing.)

We cruised up into the Kinabatangan river and anchored at 2pm.  We are surrounded by dense jungle.  Birds are tweeting, monkeys are calling.

I very excitedly took a photo of some birds in a tree, thinking they were hornbills but they were “only” cormorants.

I like cormorants too.

It was what I can only describe as stinking hot.  REALLY stinking.  I started to go into a decline and then I heard Catherine’s very welcome words – Big storm coming!

WEE HEE!!  Thunderbolts and lightning!  We took all the tarps down (four people are much speedier than two, I now know.)  And then we waited for the blessed rain.

We saw a lone macaque, with many more making a hullaballoo in the trees behind him, 

and a lovely wading bird,

with many more tiny birds busying themselves whistling and tweeting and darting about in the trees.  In the evening, we had a few fireflies to visit – it was just like having a few shy fairies on board.

We got up very early this morning – 6am is VERY early for Captain Pete – and made our slowly up the beautiful golden river.  Within about twenty minutes – a whole tribe of proboscis monkeys!  This made us very happy indeed as we sipped our cups of tea and wielded our cameras.

A few miles up the river we came to a small village, Kampong Abai. 

Catherine (VERY sensibly, as it turned out,) decided to stay on board and have some peace and quiet.  Pete, John and I had a village adventure.

We found a small shop, which sold nothing we could conceivably want – but the people were very friendly, and happy to have us gazing bemusedly at tins of Chinese corned beef and very dubious looking chicken stew.

I bought a very small crocheted box or Catherine.  It is made from recycled plastic.  The creator of the boxes is, in the is photo, leaning nonchalantly on the large skull of a very dead crocodile, which is holding in its jaws a donation box, some tissues and sundry other useful items.

The village obviously gets visits from tourist boats.

TOURBOAT

I hope they all buy a small box or two.

ABAI

We enjoyed our village walk and made our way nonchalantly back to the waiting dinghy…

2XS was not far away across the river but…

2XS

oh dear and oh no - the dingy sprung a leak which even the most assiduous pumping could not quell.  Fortunately (thank GOD) not far from the little jetty we sank, ignominiously.  We went right under but managed to save Catherine’s small box, clutched in my left hand, and my camera, held aloft like Excalibur.  John had arrived at the jetty and I handed it up to him just before I sank beneath the water again.  We were not really thinking of  having a swim but…swim we did!  I made the most of the refreshing wetness but was very happy to clamber out – the jaws of a giant crocodile were not far from my mind…

I made myself very useful holding a rope and moving back and forth as directed by Captain Pete and Sub-Captain John, while happily clicking away with my (SAVED!) camera…

I lost my sunglasses (not the Oakleys, the others,) and my shade umbrella.  John’s camera got drowned, as did a big wodge of Pete’s money, which is now drying delicately between some teatowels.

A kindly local man in a small wooden boat came to our rescue and took us back to 2XS.  It was deep enough for us to tie up to the jetty and haul the poor darling dead dinghy aboard.

BOATMAN

We are SO lucky the (*cough*) incident happened where it did… Imagine if we had been up one of the many small creeks leading off this big river… The boat would have sunk and we would have had to clamber onto the branches and shelter with the proboscis monkeys…

DINGHY ON 2XS

Saturday 26^th July

Saturday 26^th July

PROB

Speaking of proboscis monkeys…We saw another big tribe further up the river.  We were enthralled by their athleticism as they hurled themselves (noisily!) through the branches.

We meandered further up the river and anchored near Kampong Sukau, with the rest of the rally fleet.  Our friends…we were overwhelmed; within minutes we had offers of not one but TWO dinghies.  Apparently (some…) people carry spare dinghies on even the smallest yachts – who knew??  By the time we had dropped anchor, Patrick was on his way over from Labarque, where Elizabeth had blown up the spare (splendid!  big! solid!) dinghy with a small hand pump.

We are so very grateful… We can use this dinghy until we get to Tawau, by which time maybe we will have been able to buy a new one.  Pete is still keen to patch up the old one.  He does realise it is on its last legs (maybe even its last legs are a thing of the past…) but he can’t resist a last-ditch attempt to rescure the poor little thing from an ignominious end.