Moon – Koopmans 47 – 12,5t (16,5t equipped and full tanks)
East Malaysia – Borneo North West Coast
4 March – 2 April 2015
Wednesday 4 March, near Singapore
Weigh anchor in “normal” morning time, no reason to hurry, there where at least three days on passage ahead of us.
We started motor sailing to be able to stay north of the traffic separation until it angled a bit to the north, to get a better crossing angel. We are very satisfied with having AIS. Especially in this type of close encounters. When numerous of ships are travelling in both directions it’s not an easy task to find a space between them for our crossing. Thanks to the AIS it’s no longer guesswork as long as we can keep a steady speed and course. The wind was good and stable and we made 6-7 knots under sail managing not to disturb any of the ships. Even those guys have a big advantage of our AIS transponder.
They can clearly see our route and speed and make sure we will not be a problem for them.
After the safe crossing we could see that we where missing 10-20 degrees to get a close haul for Borneo, Malaysia. But ok it’s more than 350 nm to go, so eventually it will work.
We had a nice breeze, despite the direction, the whole day, and having one reef in the main we had a comfortable sail. We love to see the horizon unbroken all the way around Moon.
Late in the evening the wind almost disappeared. We furled the head sails and engaged the engine. Motor sailed the whole night compensating for the lacking 20 degrees during the day.
There where still a lot of anchored ships out in “the ocean”, 40 nm from the east entrance to Singapore. Again AIS was useful to decide if the ship was moving or not.
It was not fun to see some of the ships having put barbed wire around the ship to make it more difficult for pirates to enter the ship. Obviously Malacca and South China Sea is looked upon as a risky area, at least for big ships…
Thursday 5 March
Today we had to run the engine until eleven, when we got new wind, not as strong as the day before but unfortunately with the same unfavourable direction.
Full main and we almost got the normal speed out of Moon, in spite the choppy sea state. Unfortunately the current was not to our advantage any more. Against and the heading and course over ground (COG) differed 10 degrees. With these stable conditions it was an excellent time to, again, see what effect the centreboard might have.
Centreboard down 50% and nothing significant could be seen on the instruments in aspects of heading and COG. 100% down and the something happened. The only significant was a loss of speed! Almost half a knot was lost, and probably that’s why we couldn’t see any difference in angle. The eventually better COG was eaten up by the current and the lost half a knot.
So our conclusion still reminds; no centreboard when the wind is below 20 knots. Moon sails beautifully with her keel plank as the only adrift prevention!
5-6 knots the rest of the day. By now we had decided that Miri was too far and too much to windward under the circumstances. Kuching, in the south west corner of the Malaysian state Sarawak, became the new target. Still 300 nm to the east.
Friday 6 March
The only difference to the day before was that the wind that had been back around tenish was not there.
Lucky for us, Moon has big tanks… We have used the extended engine hours to use the bread maker (220v) and the convection oven (220v) to make bread and a nice cake.
Shortly before sunset there was wind enough to start sailing again. Not much, but we wanted to arrive to Kuching in daylight, so we where not in a hurry.
Ten o’clock, just before the moon lit up the scenery, came what we thought was a fishing boat perpendicular on port side towards Moon. Looked as he was clearly going to pass astern. 100m away he turned towards us as he was going to board us. Not fun at all. Björn tried to get Annika awake and dressed, but had immediately to start manoeuvring Moon to avoid a collision as the fishing boat turned right in front of Moon and it was clear that they where towing a net!
We managed to cross their tail 20m aft with the fishing boat accelerating to save their net. They could of course not know that Moon under sail was very unlikely to catch any net.
It’s sad to have to be afraid of their intentions… but it’s a bit odd that we have experienced similar behaviour from fishing boats in many places, not to mention Europe…
You think they would protect their equipment in the first place.
The night passed then very silent and slow under the moon and the current one knot against. Quite ok because it gave us a perfect timing for the arrival in Kuching.
Saturday 7 March
New wind early morning saw us heading for the cape between Malaysia and Indonesia. A lot of current giving us an extra two knots and a favourable “lift” towards windward. Not very often you have a better COG compared with heading in a closed reach!
Thanks to those circumstances we just managed to come around the cape, clearing the reef with some hundred meters. Tacking around against current hadn’t been possible so we where very lucky to have the elements working our way this time.
After the cape we had only 80 nm to go to Kuching river entrance, crossing a big bay, so in spite our slow speed we were to early (or very late). But some hours with very week wind made us again believe in an early morning arrival.
This night the week wind was exchanged to a brisk breeze. One reef in the main and the cutter furled saw us “flying” towards Kuching making more than seven knots. We tried the cutter instead of the Yankee and it gave us the moderate speed we needed, but with a very uncomfortable motion of Moon in the steep sea that hit us perpendicular. With Yankee speed the motion was very comfortable and Moon fast and stable towards the river-mouth.
Ok now we definitely had to do a night approach. How difficult could that be in a river-mouth and harbour designed to take care of big ships? We had done this many times in the past, although with for us a very well known boat…
At twelve we started to count the first navigation aids, lit buoys, and the course was set for the next. The wind was dead astern and the sea building up against the river. A bit rolly, but doable. Lucky we had almost slack tide. In the spares moonlight we suddenly saw a shadow ahead! The second buoy was missing its light!! Thanks to the moonlight we saw it and could make a turn around it. What made this happen was the fact that the course between the first and second buoy compared with the course between the first and third buoy differed only five degrees, and we did not notice this in the lumpy sea, heading for the third green light… With intensive traffic of big ships you would think that this situation was not going to happen.
An hour later we were anchored in the river with no swell and well out of the fairway.
Sunday 8 March Kuching
Marina Kuching had an answering machine talking only Malay!
Obviously the marina was not manned on Sundays. We didn’t remember that Sarawak is not very Muslim and have Sundays closed instead of Fridays.
We had information to not moor in the marina unless it’s slack water. The current runs fast through the marina. We arrived at slack water and had no problem what so ever to moor. An hour later we fully understood the warnings…
There was water on the pontoon but no electricity since a couple of weeks… and a long way to town. The rest of the day we spent trying to get Moon tidy and cleaned. Amazing how fast the stainless get stained in this heat and no rain. But some hours with fresh water and scotch bright makes wonders.
9 – 13 March Kuching
We have solved the problem with the since yesterday non functioning fridge!
First we followed Nigel Calder’s recommendations to measure the resistance between the pins on the compressor. If 0 ohm the compressor was supposedly dead.
The local fridge operator seemed to be knowable enough and had the same opinion about the conclusion of our readings. But they had no 24 volt compressor for sale which in the end turned out to be to our advantage.
Back in Moon we e-mailed fridge people back home and the answer we got back encouraged us to re-measure and oddly we now found readings that pointed to a working compressor! It turned out to only have been a lack of contact between the electronic part and the compressor. After some adjustment of the conductors, the fridge is now working as fine as ever!
But we had three days without a fridge and with a lot of thoughts how to solve this problem in this part of the world.
Monday – A long walk into town from the marina far out in the suburbs, checking in to Sarawak (still Malaysia) and at the same time checked out from Kuching to Miri (in Sarawak further north-east). There are obviously some flexibility in the administration…
We continued after that into town where we became “normal” tourists, had lunch in a small Chinese can-tine for almost no money.
Visited the Information Centre, where we got information about where to see the Orang Utan. Hired a car for two days and drove back the long way to the marina, where our new Ossi friends served us dinner in their power-cat.
Tuesday was spent in Semenggoh Wild Life Centre, where they used to “repair” Orang Utans. Today the surrounding forest is not big enough for more Orang Utans. Until now they have brought 26 animals to a life in freedom and because they need a huge area each, the rehabilitation is now mowed further North West.
But the now wild Orang Utans sometimes comes back to their old feeding table, especially when it’s not fruit season in the forest. We where lucky to see six Orang Utans swinging down from the roof of the forest to take their part of the fruit table. Not so lucky with the weather. Rain and overcasted sky made photographing with long tele-lenses quite a challenge. But our new Canon 7DMkII where able to help us cranking up the light sensitivity without losing much quality and we got our photos.
In the evening we used the rented car and brought our friends for dinner at the riverside in town.
We where only two live aboard boats in the almost deserted marina.
Wednesday our friends joined us for a trip to the new place for the rehabilitation of Orang Utans, Mutang Wild Life Centre west of Kuching. Here all Orang Utans we saw where in some sort of enclosure, some very big and some smaller. This day even more rain.
It’s sad to see animals behind fences, but in this case it was probably justified by the goal to save the animals. All animals where either taken from people that illegally kept them as pet, or borne in the Centre.
In total the two visits where well spent time. A visit to Borneo without seeing Orang Utans is definitely missing a big part of the experiences you can get from this part of the world. Orang Utan means “forest man” literary translated from Bahasa, the language spoken in Malaysia and Indonesia.
On the way back to town we did some stocking up, not knowing that we soon would have a working fridge again.
Thursday, we had planned to leave. But the weather conditions were not to our favour, so instead we did some boat work. Meaning fixing the fridge. Annika had a ride with Graham on his motor bike in to town for some more stocking up. Now when the fridge was working we of course got some new needs…
Friday March 13
Paid the marina fee and at slack water we left and motored down the river. We anchored at the same spot as when we arrived, only to wait for the tide and the swell to settle at the river mouth.
The plan worked ok. Still quite a swell against. The breeze had a direction that allowed us to motor sail. Tacking in the narrow and shallow channel was not to think of, and on top of that, the wind was not strong enough to get us through the swell under only sail.
A long and tiresome night, followed by a morning with no wind. Thankfully the swell had settled to almost nothing. We had by now done 70 nm and where almost out of the bay where we could turn to a more easterly heading. A river mouth looked tempting and allowed us a detour inside an island, 28 nm long. We could sail for three hours into and up the river/channel, before the wind died and the current got to strong. The idea was to go around and anchor behind a small island on the east side of the big island and in the morning hopefully be able to sail towards Miri. Some hours without the noise from the engine was a blessing, but with no wind and the current against, between one and three knots! the engine had to be engaged again. When we came to the connecting water between the two rivers we expected the current to change, but obviously the river we came from was much deeper and wider so water from the easterly river was not only floating towards the ocean…
We anchored before dark between the rivers leaving another 15 miles of river for the next morning.
A very luxury salad dinner, topped with fried bacon. It’s very luxury with a working fridge, especially the first days after the last shopping.
Sunday March 15
After a quite refreshing night we weigh anchor early morning to sail the last day to Miri, we thought. It turned out to be almost two days.
This river was shallower than the first, and the fairway was quite narrow. No navigation aids and the three charts we had showed different pictures. On one we were crossing dry land, where the two others showed water enough for us. Unfortunately the “dry one” was the latest printed…
A river mouth with moving banks and charts that doesn’t show the same picture, this was a bit intense… Luckily there was very little swell during the long 5 nm out to see after the last island. The depth was 4- 5 meters for all the way…
Finally, 10 miles offshore, we got deeper water now exactly where the chart told us it should get deeper, and could start sail for Miri. But after three hours the wind died and the engine had to come to use again. The whole night and until lunch time Monday the engine was running. Then nice wind with moderate strength saw us sailing in full speed. But as usually in lack of 10-20 degrees to keep the course to Miri. Ok the wind will die in the evening and we can compensate those degrees when motor sailing towards Miri.
The pattern from the last weeks was today exchanged by wind blowing most of the night, still in the unfortunate direction. When we late evening had only 40 nm left for Miri we where in shallow water and had to tack out to sea. Three to four hours later we tacked again, now 41 nm from Miri, but now with a course direct to Miri, arriving eight o’clock in the morning. Perfect under this circumstances.
But the wind eased and turned more to the east! Steep swell on top of that! We where now heading almost to the same spot where we tacked five hours ago…
Later the wind died almost completely and we furled our head sails and motor sailed towards Miri, arriving just around nine o’clock.
Sailing in these waters close to the equator is not easy…
We got almost one day longer trip, but in exchange we got a morning arrival.
1200 nm from Telaga, Langkawi, to Miri and 150 engine hours…
17 – 23 March Miri
A week in Miri marina, at least two days more than planned.
When we tried to check out of Malaysia on Saturday, we where remembered that Sarawak isn’t really a Muslim area. All administration was shut down on Saturday and Sunday, but open on Fridays!
Ok there was plenty on the “to do” list to take care of, so no lost time…
We also discovered, reading the noon web site, that it will probably be difficult to get diesel in Kota Kinabalo. So we made three runs to the petrol station with our rented car and that gave us just over 400 l to the nice price of 2 RM per litre.
We have now finally been able to calculate our Perkins consumption of diesel. Just above 2,5l/h at 1500 revs, giving us 5,5 knots in calm conditions. Our range under engine, if the design drawings are accurate, will hopefully be 2000 nm, quite good for a sailing boat.
Tuesday March 24
We left Miri for Puerto Princesa in the Philippines, 450 nm to the north east early morning after en intense Monday with getting 400 l diesel in jerry cans by rented car from town. We checked out from Malaysia and were then ready to go.
No wind in the marina, but just outside the piers there was an east- north east breeze. Expected as this was our direction for Philippines…
But first we had to sail straight north to be able to come around the cape north of Miri.
The course was pointing at Hong Kong, 1000nm to the north. Tempting…
Annika did a weather routing using the valid 8 days grib file. Yes it was possible. But the number of reefs we were to pass on the route through South China sea made it critical. In fine weather it’s doable, but under rough conditions it might get dangerous with not enough sea room to leeward. Better keep to the original plan and sail a loop around these dangers.
During these “calculations” Moon was called on the VHF. We had passed a working boat and were obviously getting into their underwater area. We were asked to go east. Ok no big deal, we were going that way anyway, but later when we could sail around the cape. Now we had to turn earlier and because of that we had to use the engine and motorsail to be able to stay out of shallow water and head for the cape.
Two hours of motor sailing took us around the cape and then we could turn to a more easterly route which together with a wind shift to more northerly made it possible to sail again.
At midday the wind had increased to 12 knots and we reefed the main. Close haul, Moon sails faster with a reefed main in wind above 15 knots and the heeling decreases from 15-20 degrees to 10 – 15. She is almost too well balanced around 10 degrees, making it a bit difficult to steer, especially at night. With her long keel plank the result from a small rudder adjustment takes a while, and waiting for that it’s easy to do another adjustment and then comes the result from both adjustments together which of course then is to much. But we will learn!
The wind and direction kept the same to sunset, then the wind turned more easterly, and we had to tack when the water become to shallow closer to the coast.
After two hours there was not much wind left and we started motor sailing, turning into the remaining wind. Until eleven the next day we used the engine.
During the evening and night we passed a lot of oil rigs outside Brunei. No problem except from some ugly, big mooring buoys. Daytime no problems, but unlit they where quite a hazard at night. Radar was the only solution for that.
When the wind came at around eleven we were able to sail on course towards our chosen anchorage.
The wind increased and for once turned in a favourable direction. Moon thanked for that and speeded up to 7 knots with a little eased sheets, in 10 knots of wind 50 degrees apparent.
Amazing sailing, in spite the swell. With the more favourable apparent wind direction Moon was not slowed down by the swell, a very nice experience.
Wednesday March 25 Tiga
Three o’clock we were anchored south east of the little island Tiga. We were now back in Malaysian waters after having sailed past Brunei, this time in the state Sabah.
150 nm and 32 hours, 16 under engine… Not very efficient. But current, swell and often no wind, and when we had wind it was often in an unfavourable direction. When using the engine we run Moon in only five knots due to the rough and step swell.
The anchorage offered both a fantastic holding and a nice swim. This time in a little bit chilly water, 26 degrees.
Due to the late arrival of wind each day and only 30 nm to Kota Kinabalu (KK) we had a relaxed start on
Thursday.
No swell at all on the south side of Tiga, but around the reef we met the “old” tiresome swell again.
The wind came around 12 o’clock and made life much easier. We got a nice sail for several hours all the way into KK, the capital of Sabah.
We anchored in front of the stilt village with KK skyline across the water.
Silent night but a lot of smoke from town and the burning forest. They are obviously still cutting down and burning the rainforest to be able to plant oil palms.
Friday March 27 Teluk Usukan
We woke up to the call from the local mosque. Sabah is more Muslim than the state Sarawak. The two small villages next to us had three mosques what we could see.
Smog and no wind made life depressing in the heat. On top of that the water was full of floating garbage as far as we could see.
The plan was to make a tour to Mt Kinabalu 4095m to get some nice sunrise photos. But the smog and humid weather put a stop to that.
We left after lunch and sailed in a nice breeze, only to, again, meet rough, lumpy swell and an easing wind. Very uncomfortable and slow progress. Motor sailing the 32 nm to our next anchorage where we arrived just as the sun was going to disappear. We put out 30 m of chain and then we admired an extra nice sunset, before we let out 20m more and reversed the engine to set the anchor. Again a very good holding.
Talking about sunsets, in this case the smog is an advantage. The sun looked like a big big orange slowly sinking into the water.
Now we were fed up from the swell and according to the grib files the swell will come down in a few days. Guess what, we will stay here, relax, fixing items on the “to do” list and wait for the new weather coming next week.
Saturday
Early morning it cleared up and we could see Mt Kinabalu from the anchorage. To far away and to humid to get any photos of the rising sun, reflecting on the mountain. You can barley see something reed in all the grey, but at least we have seen the mountain.
We have used “some time” to watch films we got from friendly sailors.
Tuesday March 31
Finally after four nights at the same spot we made an early start and were on our way shortly after seven. Mirror like water and a weak swell met us after leaving the anchorage.
No wind so we kept motoring, aiming for the next cape 30 nm to the north east.
At nine the wind picked up, but of course in the wrong direction… We made a six hours tack out at sea. As we reach the oil rigs we tacked back to land.
We had a fine day with full sails set and anchored in the bay Tambularan.
47 nm trip, but only 30 nm along the coast of Borneo
Wednesday April 1 Teluk Lung
Started even earlier and surprisingly the wind came already at eight. Motorsailing at first but could sail until after lunch. We had by then left mainland Borneo heading west of the two northernmost Malaysian islands. The plan was to continue north into Philippine waters, but we met a very confused sea and the wind picked up quite rapidly. Change of plan – we went in between the two Malay islands instead were we had a nice anchorage about four hours ahead of us.
The sun was in a perfect position from behind to safe get into the anchorage between the coral heads and reefs. The three sets of electronic charts all showed the reefs in different location. Luckily our plotter charts showed all shallows and reef almost spot on in their right position.
Hopefully we can set of for the Philippines tomorrow.
The wind kept blowing most of the night.
Next logbook – The Philippines
Annika & Björn
Moon
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