Indonesia to La Reunion

11th August to 3rd September

Raffles (Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles) is best known as the ‘founder’ of Singapore, and is now a part of the Singapore brand. He was one of those incredibly capable, energetic, ambitious and visionary men who carved a place in history. 

He journeyed home after his time in the east over this same Indian Ocean some 200 years ago. 

He and his wife and two remaining children had set out from Bencoolen (now Bengkulu in Sumatra) on the Fame, bound for England. But less than 60 miles from shore the ship caught fire and sank.

They lost everything: all Raffles’ collections, writings, artwork, gold, jewellery, “135 hefty crates, apart from the live animals” (which included a living tapir, a new species of tiger and unknown types of pheasant). They were lucky to survive with their lives. Any further offshore and they’d have been unable to row back.

Remember, they weren’t sailing for fun or for adventure. They just wanted to get home. I don’t suppose they enjoyed it at all. But that was the nature of international travel until not so long ago: dangerous, uncomfortable, slow.

Eventually they found another ship, the Mariner, and left Sumatra in April 1824, reaching St Helena (Napoleon had died there three years earlier) in July, and England in August. Imagine rounding the Cape of Good Hope in mid-winter storms.

(While they were on their way home, the Treaty of London between the British and Dutch was signed. This ceded British stations in Sumatra to the Dutch, and removed Dutch opposition to the British in Singapore. Another bit of the colonial jigsaw was fixed.)

You may not find that bit of history interesting but I do. It puts our own Indian Ocean sailing adventures into perspective to realise how relatively easy and safe are our modern day travels. 

For me this was an unexpectedly long crossing, the bug having shut off stopping en route at Cocos Keeling (Australian territory – I was curtly told that to stop there I’d be contravening both the Customs Act 1901 and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands Emergency Management Ordinance 2012. Just imagine what horrors might await an errant Pom. I sense this guy was longing to clap me in irons.) 

And so it was just over 3,000 miles to the little bit of French territory, La Reunion. 

The Southeast Trade Winds are well established now and wind direction steady.

Where else can you sail 3,000 miles on one tack, reaching all the way, over clear deep blue sea, scarcely seeing another vessel, and with warm sunshine most of the way? It was the kind of sailing you might enjoy one day in fifty in Northern Europe. And it went on for 23 days non-stop.

The downside was that half of it was a bit rough and windy. The other half was very rough and very windy. Both Henrietta and I felt a bit bruised by the time we reached Reunion.

At an average of just over 1,000 miles a week (6 knots) in just over three weeks, it was my second longest non-stop solo passage.

Henrietta has performed well, of course. The mainsail has rarely been needed, just a reefed genoa had us zipping along for most of the time. Hydrovane self-steering never in doubt as we skedaddled down the deep blue white-crested waves.

A few seabirds appeared, some boobies, a couple of gorgeous tropicbirds, and shearwaters magically soaring and swooping over the waves, somehow travelling upwind into 30 knots of spumey sea. And suicidal flying fish occasionally end their days on deck.

It does occur to me sometimes that aeroplanes may be pretty dull and spew a lot of carbon dioxide, but they are oh-so quick and pretty comfortable too. They cover in less than two hours what takes most yachts at least a week’s continuous sailing. But aeroplanes make me nervous. Plus I’ve really appreciated no news, no contacts, no gloom, no land-dwelling anxieties, and none of the silly stuff we tend to live with for so much of our lives.

Above all, slow sea travel can bring you such fabulous happy feelings: the endless majesty of ocean swell, the unsullied ocean breeze, sparkling starlit nights; and then the heart lifting and body-tingling joy that comes with landfall after a long time at sea, the emotional high of a new unknown island. 

I approached La Reunion before dawn. There was indescribable otherworldly beauty in a town in the north (Saint-Denis, the capital) with its twinkling lights glittering like gold dust scattered up the dark dark grey mountainside, all set beneath the bright silver globe of a full moon. And little bits of phosphorescence flashed in the passing sea.

Arrival in Le Port, Reunion a few hours later was quick, easy and efficient. Though the port approach seems to be in an acceleration zone where wind was over 30 knots, the marina is calm.

Staff and neighbours give warm welcomes and Henrietta is tied up in two minutes, customs officials arrive and clear me in five more minutes. All done. No charges, no excessive paperwork, no passport stamp (luckily Britain not yet sufficiently Brexitted for that)…just a freshwater shower…..and I’m off to a boulangerie and U Express supermarket down the road. Yum! ( N.B. If you sail here, you should submit paperwork before leaving your last port).

I’ll probably stay here a month or so. Lots to do……

Farewell Indonesia, Farewell Southeast Asia

4th to 10th August

A palm oil refinery, stocking up, last goodbyes, and papers

After over two years and a few thousand miles in Southeast Asia, over a year of which has been in Indonesia, it’s time to move on.

For me, and apart from Europe, this is the most wonderful region of our planet. A long and fascinating history, colourful people, sophisticated culture, a multitude of different languages, diverse religions, fine mountains, clear seas and overwhelmingly friendly people.

Little wonder that so many boats stay here for many years. Some come here and never leave. Were it not so far from my home, I’d stay longer. Were it not for the global bug, I’d like more travel on land.  But for now, and before it’s too late, I choose to move on.

The past few days in Belitung have been busy. Fellow boat owners will know the tasks involved in preparing for long offshore passages. The checks: engine, standing rigging, running rigging, shackles, cables, batteries. Cleaning: hull, inside lockers, fridge, windows, laundry. Shopping: spares. Last emails, weather forecasts, route planning, and so on.

…oh yes! Food for a month or more too.

Before leaving there was just time  for a visit to Belitung’s biggest palm oil refinery. William, the manager, has invited me to come and see it. It is a fascinating day out.

I’ve always loved factory visits.  I’ll not swamp you with palm oil technicalities (though my note book is crammed).

Suffice to say, 12,000 hectares of palm trees are grown from seed, transplanted till maturity brings the fruit, which is then harvested manually and trucked to the refinery in a constant stream of small lorries, and tractor/trailers – about one every seven minutes all day. The fruit has to be milled within a few hours of picking and goes through a series of heating, milling, cooling, heating processes and lots of computer-controlled pipes and tubes and tanks, to result in a list of end products that includes cooking oil, solid greasy stuff (for soap, margarine, shampoo, cosmetics, ice cream and lots of other things), plus biodiesel. Dry residues are used to fire the boilers to provide the plant’s electricity, and exported for cattle feed. Everything is used.

 

 

 

We go down to the jetty where the products are stored before shipping overseas.

The ship we see is typical of the global maritime industry:- Bermuda registered, Russian captain, Philippino crew, cargo from Indonesia, heading for Malaysia. They await papers and a pilot and high tide. Every month, I estimate 30-50,000 tonnes of the various products are exported.The EU has given palm oil bad press. Plantations have devoured many thousands of hectares of rainforest in Malaysia and Indonesia (though in Belitung, the native forests, where they existed, have long since been destroyed with tin mining. Soils are not fertile.)

I’ll not enter the debate as to the merits or otherwise of palm oil plantations. This refinery meets European standards. Working conditions for around 3,000 employees are good (play group, clinic, landscaping, housing, football pitch, indoor badminton, a mosque, everywhere clean and careful). William and the staff I meet are understandably proud of Belitung’s biggest export earner.

Next day passes with frantic foray to the market and local shops for enough food for several weeks. Guess there’s going to be quite a lot of onions and lentils with rice to keep me going. And some carrots and garlic and ginger and chillies (yum!) 

And finally there’s paperwork. Three young customs officials want to inspect Henrietta. They hadn’t travelled 500 metres of choppy water on an elderly Avon inflatable before. But with dampened backsides they were safely on board and thoroughly checked my cupboards, photographed lots of odds and ends and so on. I think they had a memorable half day out.

So, with more papers to allow my exit from Indonesia, I bid sweet sad farewells to some of those who’ve been so kind and helpful during my prolonged stop in Belitung. It has been one of my happiest, most memorable anchorages anywhere in the world.

There are lots of farewells! There are no fellow boats to say goodbye to, but local friends, and helpers, the shops and warungs I’ve come to know.

Thank you to everyone who has helped make my days here in Belitung so full, friendly and comfortable (fairly comfortable). Especially, Erfan, Fenny, Eddy, Johnny, Erne, Muramotosan, William, Alex, Rosa, Bambang, Cecilia, Frankie, Yvonne and everyone else (whose names I’ve forgotten.)

Final enquiries and phone calls to people in specific countries mean I’ll now head for La Réunion – a little French island east of Madagascar and southwest of Mauritius. If Mauritius reopens in September I’ll aim to go there instead.

 I write this at a peaceful little island in the Sunda Strait, Pulau Sebuku, not far from Krakatoa.

The two days and nights sailing from Belitung left me weary. It’s through an area that’s too busy with shipping and fishing, and oil fields to allow much rest!

Local fishermen have just come alongside and given me some fresh fish. I’ll leave tomorrow for the long sail to La Reunion, around four weeks, all being well.

 

(A bit of internet here may let this post be published, but maybe not)

 

I’ll be out of contact for a while. Best wishes and safe sailing to many sailor friends who’ve made different plans, and of course I’ll hope to see many of you again.

 

 

Belitung and Jakarta 2

1st July to 3rd August 2020

Getting to know Belitung, local friends, a new passport

Henrietta and I are not accustomed to long stays anywhere. We like to be sailing. ‘Rolling stones gather no moss’ (or, moving bottoms gather no weed) is our mantra. To stop is to stagnate; the mind grows dull, the body weak; not to mention poor Henrietta’s nether regions. 

In the five years we’ve been together, we have never stopped for more than a month anywhere – until now.

Now, things are rather different, as we all know. We’re seriously restricted in how we follow our desires and dreams, wanderlust suppressed, plans tattered. Apart from one sail to Jakarta and back, and, for me, two flights to Jakarta and back (more later), we have lived in Belitung for over two and a half months. When you reach an age where you know that life is finite, that’s much too long a time. 

And yet, and I stress this because it has surprised me, I have really enjoyed a more settled existence. It has been a rare pleasure to appreciate a slower and less demanding pace. I am happy. This is especially so as Belitung is friendly, fascinating and often fun; and central to this, it is open to free movement, albeit usually masked.

I’ve become a ‘local’ in as much as any Westerner will ever be local.

Folk know or know of the ‘strange Englishman who’s living on that sailing boat out there’. (Henrietta is prominent as the only boat anchored in a wide bay off over a kilometre of sand and coral).

I have my favourite local shops and ‘warungs’ for lunch or coffee, begin to know my way around the capital (40 minutes motorcycle away) and have explored much of the island. Even the local turtles seem to come and check up on me. (We share advanced distaste for the passing jet skis, their dangers and the noise – their insistent angry growls and roar – and the wash) 

Belitung’s wealth, such as it is, derives from tin mining, palm oil, kaolin and sand export (good building sand is barged to Jakarta), fishing, boat building and, in more normal times, local tourism (when over 2,000 visitors, Indonesian and a handful of foreigners, fly in each week on up to a dozen flights a day).

It may lack the spectacular volcanic mountains of Java, Sumatra and Bali but the beauty of its beaches, clear seas, unique rock formations had it strive for recognition as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. (It lost out to Langkawi in Malaysia). 

Given a healthy historic mix of peoples from all over Indonesia (including Malay, Java, Bugis, Sumatran, Chinese), and a handful of resident foreigners (at least a dozen), there is a happy acceptance of everyone.

One incidental outcome of this tolerance is Indonesia’s largest selection of beer (ie. fizzy lager), and Franky’s wife runs a small bright bar at their hotel that has stocked over a hundred varieties from around the world.

People have, almost  without exception, been friendly, polite, inquisitive and helpful. Locally, Erpan and his wife Penny have helped with taxi services, rental motorcycle, laundry, and all round advice and information. Johnny in the capital helps with visa paperwork and officialdom. 

More than anyone, the lovely local businesswoman Erny and friend, Muromotosan, have always included me with outings around the island and paddleboarding (or for me, kayaking) to nearby islands. It has been a treat to meet so many of their friends, and see places I’d never have found were it not for them.

Travelling alone on rented motorbike, or with Erny and Muromotosan by car, I’ve rarely had time to fester or succumb to melancholia.

Rather than give you day-by-day accounts of what’s gone on, here are a few odds and ends, edited as I feel necessary. Much of this would have been tricky without the contacts, and the energy, enthusiasm and encouragement of Erny: –

Seeing with Franky the undeveloped southern parts of Belitung. A tireless young businessman, his interests include tree plantations for plywood production, land speculation and development, a hotel, an eco-resort, herb production (whenever he talks I learn of another venture.)

Regular visits by paddleboard and kayak to Kelayang Island where we feed bananas to the one resident macaque, fatten ourselves with hot banana fritters, and swim and snorkel.

Pizzas and happy family gatherings with Alex, Rosa and children, Bambang and Cecilia. Alex is an enthusiastic, patient and knowledgeable animal-lover who’s made Belitung his home.

Hydroponic salad eco-farming

Honey production at Hendra’s home.

A palm oil refinery, where William, the general manager, explains the processes between harvesting from 30,000 hectares of palm trees to shipping processed oil and other products to China, Myanmar, Bangladesh, South Korea from their own shipping jetty…..He’s been in charge for nearly 20 years of this 24 hour, 365 days a year operation that employs around 3,000 people. Fascinating and he’s going to show me around the refinery later this week.

A day out on the private island of Leebong, where luxury villas are available for those more affluent than me. Now of course deserted apart from the owner’s family and friends.

And then, to test my stamina and powers of patience, I’ve been ‘getting-a-new-passport’, the old one unexpired but after five years rapidly filled with stamps and visas that accompany sailing around half the world. I cannot even leave Indonesia without a new one.

Should I or should I not castigate the UK Foreign Office in this post? An open letter to the Foreign Secretary perhaps? I’m tempted – but you don’t want to read a grumpy man’s rants.

Passport application processes are aimed at people who live more normal lives: those who travel overseas to work or for holidays, for example. Us sailors are clearly not considered normal; we don’t usually have a local address, or local British professionals to vouch that the photo is of us, or even know where we are going next, or even when we may go! And we often don’t live in places with reliable postal services. Our homes are our boats.

Of no interest to most of you who read this stuff, I’ll just tell you that wherever you are in the world, U.K. Passport renewal is done in Britain. In Indonesia an agent in Jakarta handles it. First trouble arose when I found that the Passport agent was shut for three months of Jakarta lock-down. (i.e.passport could not be renewed. You’re stuffed)

The Embassy doesn’t want to talk to anyone unless ‘emergency’. Phone calls to local Consul refer you to Britain where, even if staff have heard of Indonesia, they do not know anything of local realities. Enough…my little bit of hair turns grey, blood pressure off the scale.

And so, to spare you sharing any more of my grumpy-man anguish I’ll simply say that once Jakarta lockdown ended and the agent reopened I was obliged to invest in two return flights to Jakarta.

That’s four flights, two covid blood tests (needed before all flights), 14 taxis, two nights in hotels…..But at last, after all that and with a wallet that’s very much thinner, I have a new passport (big thank you to the staff who actually do the work – which does not include Foreign Secretary or embassy – and turned it round in three weeks).

In theory I can now move again.

I cannot do anything about the sad fact (sad for me anyway) that  the new black (hint of blue maybe) passport is one of these half-hearted ones with a new title –  it reminds us we shall no longer enjoy the privilege of unfettered travels or life or work in the EU. (But I shan’t start on that source of anger and irritation. Also, I do wish to remain friends with some lovely folk who think quite differently from me.)

This is turning into another ramble of ill-considered thoughts, so I’ll stop. As I said, I’m happy and healthy, and consider I’m very fortunate to be in Indonesia. I hope to leave in a week or so.

Langkawi, Penang, Pangkor, Phnom Penh, Siem Reap

17th January to 22nd February

Islands and mountains, temples and tuk tuks

A rather overwhelmingly busy month, of the best kind. You don’t want to know all about it. Even if you think you do you won’t. 

So I’ll just touch on some titbits of NW Malaysia and Cambodia.

With newly modified body parts, viz. eyes minus cataracts (after 60 years with glasses it’s magic without), nose (minus unwanted bit), teeth (a few added) I can keep going forever. (It brings to mind a silly and rather rude little schoolboy rhyme that went something like:

‘Eyes, nose, mouth, chin, 

Walking down to Uncle Jim…’. 

…Chin and Jim are fine by the way.)

…where was I?

Ah yes, I sailed north from Penang to Langkawi (to order new sails, Henrietta’s wardrobe now in a worn out state is deemed unfit for blowy oceans ahead). Langkawi also plays host to several fine friends and it was very good to see them again, and Armelle came to stay and it was very good to see her again. All this around Chinese New Year. So in the morning we tossed food in the air with giant chopsticks (for good luck, great fortunes, health etc) and in the evening had a banquet.

Armelle and I spent a few days with rented motorcycle on Langkawi (an island that’s fine in its messily developed way but, in my view, overrated as a tourist destination) and we at last managed a mountain walk without getting lost, up Gunung Mat Chinchang, a very steep sweaty scramble up 700 metres (yes, you’ll need your hands much of the way).

This takes you higher than the popular cable car/gondolas that might swing you sweat-free to the top of an adjacent peak, but doesn’t give the smug sense of one-upness you get by walking. As there were ropes most of the way it was difficult even for us to get lost.

Joining a crowd of Chinese tourists for the Ecological Organic Fruit Farm tour (forget it’s real title) next day was an eye opener on quintessential Chinese tripper trips but start-to-finish dreadful – ‘nil pointes’, as you’d say for an appalling Eurovision song. Cannot and will never know what’s in the minds of face-masked Chinese tourists, but we tag along obediently.

We then sail back south. Next stop 60 miles south, Penang again.

Another hill walk where Armelle and I do get lost. Rather, we don’t get lost but the path on the map ended abruptly at a very high security fence. We crawl underneath with hungry mosquitoes rapidly draining our tasty European blood and find ourselves in Penang’s largest adventure park (I think that’s what it said in the brochure) with the world’s longest water slide – over 1 km (which is what Guinness Book of Records says). Security staff spot us in no time, say we shouldn’t be there. We do know we’ve been naughty so look contrite. Staff promptly stick us on the chair lift to glide serenely back over the tree tops and down the mountain. And kindly firmly guide us to the exit.

We walk a well worn path through the shade of tropical forest in the Penang National Park instead – and don’t get lost.

And after all that we treat ourselves to Snowy Ice Mountain puddings, sometimes called ABCs (air batu campur) – these probably the best in the entire country!

Armelle left from Penang. I’ll miss her energy, allure and colourful temperament (but seasickness can be a seriously troublesome beast). I’ve learnt something of the utter predictability and pathetically shallow dignity of the male of the species (myself included) when confronted with intelligent mischievous wide-eyed, long-legged Gallic flirtatiousness, all with the figure of Aphrodite. Ridiculous.

And so I sail another 70 miles or so south to Pangkor, and the friendly and beautifully managed boatyard that is Pangkor’s prime attraction for yachtsfolk .

Henrietta is due for some work that I can only do on land. 

So she is lifted out of the water ….and I go to Cambodia

Sometimes it’s good to try out a little bit of life on land.

Cambodia has over 16 million people and is the poorest country in Southeast Asia, its GDP per capita a quarter that of Thailand’s. It is overwhelmingly Buddhist and yet has a history that within my lifetime has seen as much horror, bloodshed and pain as anywhere on earth. In quickly reading something of the Country’s history and politics, I find also that it ranks second to bottom in the world for the Rule of Law, read here if you want more.

Yet I, as a comfortable western traveller, loved the little I saw of Cambodia, fascinating, energetic, industrious, proud and very thought-provoking. I simply ‘did’ some standard hasty tourist sightseeing of Phnom Penh and Siem Reap.

You first need to find out how to spell Phnom Penh. Then you can go there.

Once there you are in one of the most chaotic, curious and extraordinary capitals of Southeast Asia.

This is where Cambodians seem somehow to retain relics of French colonial buildings, Buddhist temples, and a scattering of skyscrapers, among poor crumbling local shacks, all plonked in a grid network of pot-holed, litter-strewn hot dusty streets that are constantly crisscrossed with anarchic tuk-tuk, motorcycles, cars and trucks. People jostle boldly with traffic and at their peril, pedestrians a poor last in terms of street space (although I gather the rule is that whenever there’s an accident, and there are many, the larger vehicle is always ‘in the wrong’).

Next on the tourism list is the horribly atmospheric Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, S-21, one of the Khmer Rouge detention and torture centres; and then Choeung Ek ‘Killing Fields’, one of many where in total a quarter of the country’s population were murdered and buried between 1975 and 1979 under Pol Pot’s regime of terror. You’d be a very insensitive and amoral soul were you not to be moved by such vivid memorials.

It was Valentines Day which of course I’d forgotten, and it is bittersweet irony that I shared that gruesome trip in a minibus with nine cheery young women staying in my hostel. None of us had a candlelit dinner that evening. A Valentines Day to remember.

 

 

 

Next day, (oh dear! This is getting to be another tedious travelogue), I hire a bicycle and join a small group to chance our luck on Phnom Penh’s backstreets, take ferries across the Mekong and meander along rural lanes to silk farm and fruit orchards.

Next thing….this is easy…I do what most ‘young’ travellers do….I take a bus for the six hour trip to Siem Reap…find a cheap and convenient hostel….and then after brief sleep, get up well before dawn to visit Angkor Wat and other temples.

Angkor is, according to UNESCO, the world’s largest religious monument. It covers 163 hectares. The most visited temple is Angkor Wat itself and over two million people come every year; most of them it seemed on the same day as me.

Walking briskly over the floating causeway to Angkor Wat in the cool pre-dawn light you feel you’re part of a massive excited crowd herding to a premiership football match. Others can tell you of the history and scale and marvellous detail of this fabulous temple, and other temples nearby.

For me it was wonderful and I enjoyed the entire hot day ambling among the ruins, some restored most not, of this huge peaceful area, largely lost in drowsy daydreams, a tuk-tuk to help travel between the many sites.

We are reminded whilst here of recent and current Cambodian life with landmine victims who play their timeless Khmer music at the entrances to some of the temples, ill-fitting prosthetic limbs and crutches propped beside them. Sadly the country has an appalling number of limbless people, dreadfully hurt by the indiscriminate murderous landmines.

My holiday over and with mild hangover (led astray on the last night by young companion from the hostel)

I head back to Pangkor and my home, Henrietta, a quick detour by public transport to Penang on the way (need another Indonesian visa). There’s a lot to do but I’ve enjoyed a stimulating break and holiday from life afloat. Ah! It was especially nice to sleep in a proper bed in Cambodia’s hostels – with air conditioning too. The heat aboard boatyarded Henrietta could readily cook meringues. Boat life can sometimes seem austere. It just suits me better than other ways of life – most of the time. (Sorry folks! I seem to have rambled on with this blog update for a lot longer than intended – too lazy to cut it down.)

Kota Kinabalu (Borneo) to Penang (West Malaysia)

Ships and sailing, plus scalpels, stitches, spectacles and more….

6th December 2019 to 16th January 2020

Nice bits first.

Leaving Labuan and the fleet of oil/gasfield support vessels

By early December the N.E. Monsoon winds had arrived over Borneo. Sailing from Kota Kinabalu, Sabah’s capital near the top of Borneo, to Singapore area about 800 miles away, was wonderful after so much motoring a few months earlier:- fast sailing, mostly reaching, all the way, just one stop at the island of Labuan (a bit of sightseeing missed last time and duty free drink – of course).

Coastline North Borneo

Not much sleep though. The sea in these parts is pretty busy with oil and gas rigs, tugs, coastal and long-distance shipping, and fishing boats in many shapes and sizes.

Tug pulling gas rig – very slowly

 

Shipping lanes off Singapore

On Christmas Day, six days later, I anchored off the little Indonesian island of Tolop. It’s a convenient spot before crossing the frantically busy shipping lanes around Singapore, and with adverse spring tides and getting dark with drizzle, I’d decided to pause. Alas, although I’d anchored here before with no trouble, this time the Indonesian navy who have a little base on the island decided to visit. First visiting sailors were friendly, no problems. 

Second visiting sailors were friendly and courteous, but firm upholders of Indonesian security; big problems. I haven’t cleared in. I’m illegally stopped in Indonesia. I should not be here. I should not have anchored. I must leave immediately. They mean it. But I plead fatigue (After six days I am indeed knackered), cannot face ships in the dark, the tide is against me, and to cap it all, I’m a hopeless old  Englishman etc. And it is Christmas Day (albeit in a predominantly Muslim country). My papers (lots of them) and passport are scrutinised, every page turned, and photographed. Long pauses. I smile nervously. There’s talk of fines. I anticipate Christmas in handcuffs. They phone the commanding officer. We wait for response. I offer tins of beer. It gets dark. At last. Phew! It’s OK as long as I leave before dawn. I promise I will. I mean it. 

But as they leave me in peace with a tin of beer, I think of how illegal arrivals might be treated were they to arrive and stop unannounced off the shores of England (or America or Australia for that matter) and feel slightly ashamed. I leave well before dawn and am in amongst the ships as the day breaks. It’s Boxing Day. But global shipping recognises no holidays, and it’s very busy.

Efficient, zealous, polished, multitudinous Singapore patrol boats police their waters. The boat that approaches me probably hasn’t told anyone what to do for an hour or two, so they politely say ‘hello’ and order me to go back in the shipping lane. I comply.

Just for the record, I had not strayed into Singaporean waters. But it’s best not to argue. I dodge ships and they dodge me.

 

Needing exercise, I walked up Penang Hill; and down again – funicular train not working...

Since then, I’ve sailed up the Malacca Straits to Penang. I was here less than a year ago. I.e. After sailing over 7,000 miles in the year I’m back more-or-less where I started. Which goes to prove, if you were not yet convinced, that life is about the journey not the destination.

Part time crew – she’s not very energetic, just nice

And it’s about the people you encounter on the journey. It has been a privilege and a joy to meet and get to know so many fascinating, kind, friendly, resourceful, generous and adventurous folk. Most cruising sailors and most local Malaysians, Indonesians and others seem to be content with what they do have, not fretting too much about what they don’t.

The not so nice bits of the month? Well, it’s in poor taste to dwell on health stuff.

I’ll just say that after nose job, eyes fixed, teeth in hand, a few other bits fixed, I’m as good as new. Malaysian medical staff and services are fantastic. Professional, helpful, quick. And you don’t need to rob a bank to get it done.

The Henrietta maintenance list is a bit longer than my own.

Chinese New Year is coming up soon. It will be the Year of the Rat (the white metal rat).  Local radio tells me that this signifies Good Luck and some Bad Choices, which if you think about it must cover most things.

The Philippines

Lovely people, lousy food and loads of churches

3rd November to 5th December

With Jenny as crew we left Halmahera (a big Indonesian island) for a four day sail to north Mindanao (yet another big island, this one in the Philippines).

Then followed a busy month that took us through about twenty different anchorages on a dozen of Philippines’ 7,000 odd islands. Just a taster of a giant country. (But then most of this voyage has been a series of tasters – a mere glimpse at a scattering of the world’s lesser travelled outposts.)

I knew nothing of the Philippines, and right now still know next to nothing, so take anything I say with heaps of salt. I did know that Ferdinand Magellan was the first European to visit. He was killed here too.

That was in 1521. The islands were named by a Spaniard a few years later in honour of King Philip II of Spain. Spain then retained it as part of its Empire for over 300 years, before selling it to America who kept it, apart from the troubled invasion of Japanese in WWII, till 1946.

There are now over 100 million Filipinos in the country, with some 19 accepted languages and ten ethnic groups, and at least 10 million more who live and work overseas (and provide a huge chunk of foreign earnings for the nation).

I found people to be universally delightful; laid-back yet quietly industrious, and compared to others in SE Asia, reserved, even shy – though not shy enough to cease some painfully discordant karaoke singing!

The selfie culture that’s become a plague elsewhere, seems absent in the Philippines. (Though keep in mind that I only saw a part of the country.)

Most of the islands seem unvisited by tourists. Tourists appeared, predominantly Korean and Chinese en masse on the little island of Boracay, where around 2 million visitors go each year, dwarfing the local population of 30,000; and there are also many foreigners who go to the big island of Palawan. Everywhere else seemed very traditional with small communities making a living with fishing, copra and small scale agriculture.

Boracay is a gem of an island (white sand, clear seas, hills), but was deemed so polluted in 2018, that the President had it closed for six months! Sewage systems were improved and plastic cleared up, and I’m happy to say it seemed spotless, safe and a delight – though anchorage decidedly exciting, rolly and deafening as tripper boats and sailing prahas and bangka roared and growled past.

If like me you are vegetarian or veggie-inclined the food is a disaster. Apart from a few pleasing exceptions in tourist places, it appears that pig, chicken, fish and cow plus lashings of oil and dollops of sugar are key ingredients of most dishes.

 

One consequence is a plethora of health clinics (diabetes a common ailment), beauty parlours, fitness and massage dives.

I could  go further and say, at risk of hurting American feelings, that the Philippines displays the worst of American culture (poor food, soulless shopping malls, donuts and fast food, rubbish telly, polluted city streets) without the privileges of American choice and wealth. 

And another thing that it shares with America: loads of churches, chapels, cathedrals, Adventist, Evangelist, Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, plus some whacky ones….I don’t know what it all means but you can walk down a little street in Limasawa (a small island where the first Philippine Christian service was held nearly 500 years ago) and see at least half a dozen different places to pray, in less than a mile. The singing sounded beautiful – much better than any karaoke.

My sailing plan had been straightforward. I like things simple. I’d go north from Indonesia to the Philippines with last of the SE Monsoon, then south back back down to Borneo with the start of the NE Monsoon. That’s more-or-less what happened. It’s just that weather doesn’t follow a precise calendar, and round these parts there are typhoons that whistle in from the Pacific so you keep an eye on where they are. (A typhoon is the local name for hurricane and cyclone)

But overall, it has been good to have sails set most of the way…..and enough heavy rain showers to keep water tanks topped up.

Jenny joined another boat in the Philippines (thank you Jenny for sharing all those watches and some memorably delicious cooking). I sailed on single-handed again and arrived back in Kota Kinabalu, North Borneo, a couple of days ago (Last here in July). 

About 1,500 miles in the month and I’m weary as I work through that interminable list of boaty chores, and catch up with personal stuff. Christmas is never far away. (Nor another UK election – but I shan’t offer an opinion!)

Halmahera to Raja Ampat, West Papua

1st October to 2nd November

Magical islands and wondrous underwater life, Eastern Indonesia, ….

“There is no greater cruising ground than Indonesia….18,000 isles cover some two million square miles of pristine tropical waters and a rich and vibrant local culture…..300 different tribal communities, 735 local languages…” I quote from the introduction to the Cruising Guide to Indonesia, a marvellous book yet one that scarcely scratches the surface of an amazing country.

Though I spent a few years working here when very much younger, I saw little of the outlying islands. The seven months over the past 18 months that I’ve spent here with Henrietta have opened my eyes to a country and society that I love. Nowhere on earth will you find such colourfully diverse, warm-hearted, happy, forgiving and beautiful people. Superlatives fail to do justice to such wonders and such a large and fascinating place.

The past month took us across a mere two hundred miles of Eastern Indonesia, from Halmahera to Raja Ampat. You may not have heard of either of these places unless you have been here or, in the case of Raja Ampat, you are a keen diver and underwater enthusiast. Look at the map.

 

For now while there’s an internet connection I’ll just show a few photos. (Lots of things to do before sailing off tomorrow)

 

The pond ‘marina’, Tanpa Garam, Sorong and nearby vast deserted swimming pool (a bit murky)

And of course, we snorkel everywhere, water usually crystal clear, and a huge range of corals and fishes…photos with thanks to Jenny..

 

And now it’s time to move on..Henrietta and I look forward to the Philippines – probably….Sad to be leaving Indonesia, yes, but if we delay much longer, the winds turn against us…