Where have we been?

I guess it has been a while since my last posting. We have not gone very far but we have managed to keep ourselves busy keeping out-of-the-way of the crocodiles in the various anchorages and avoiding the pythons in those places where we have been at a marina. Seems crocs like cloudy water on the banks of rivers where mangroves run rampant. Pythons seem to like the warm wood the docks provide for sunbathing. I have to say though I think it is the pythons that concern me the most. That comes from having been to a museum in Bandar Seri Bagwan, Brunei where they had a stuffed python that had a head double the size of any self-respecting golden retriever. That particular python had been killed after swallowing one child and one male adult at one sitting!

Enough of that kind of stuff. There have been too many wonderful things we have managed to do and see to focus on what could be.

We moved on to Miri for Christmas.  A small town but with a marina where we stayed for the holiday season.  We helped organize a Christmas dinner on the docks for about 15 boats.  Even managed to find a turkey and everyone pitched in with traditional Christmas dishes representing the Philippines, Canada, United States, Sweden, France, Norway, Holland etc. etc.  I couldn’t believe there was even turkey left over which was great for us!

After feasting ourselves on Christmas goodies we stumbled out of the marina headed for Kuching.  It’s about a 250 mile journey along the coastline well-known for not having reliable winds.  We struggled along interspersing the sailing with a little bit of motoring. On New Years Eve day we were within telephone range of the shoreline to make a call to a friend already at anchor in the Santubong River.  Our french sailing friends Evelyn and Herve promised to cook us a New Years Eve dinner if we could make it in.  Having no wind we  decided to motor and 16 hours later made it into the anchorage at 1700hrs just in time for dinner onboard a 50 foot Dutch catamaran called Isis.  Again a mix of crew 2 boats from Australia, one French, one American, ourselves and then the Dutch.  Despite the pelting rain we had a great time staying dry on the back deck of the catamaran.

New Year’s Eve was  a great welcome to Kuching.  Kuching is probably one of the most pleasant towns in Brunei.  It’s population is about 150,000, situated on a river and has managed to build beautiful walkways along the river’s edge, has a stupendous parliament building as it’s the capital of Sarawak, one of two provinces in Borneo.  We spent out time there avoiding the rain, visiting museums and stocking up on food items for the trip to Singapore.

Our departure was delayed due to bad weather but 10 days later we finally set sail for Singapore.  Turned out to be one of the roughest and windiest passages but at least we sailed there.  We arrived at the north entrance to Singapore Straits at sunset.

OK – tune it for the adventure thru the Singapore Straits.  I don’t have time right now to finish this off and the next posting will have pictures…..till later