Terengganu to Tioman (22 September to 5 October 2009)
Tuesday 22 September to Thursday 26 September 2009
Today (Tuesday 22 September) was the day we were to clear customs and immigration and then get underway, but it seems that the Eid Muslim holiday does not in fact end until tomorrow. So, an extra unscheduled day in Terengganu. We are up early on Wednesday 23 September, eager to get the paperwork out of the way and head off to anchorages new. The whole process takes longer than anticipated and with time added for last minute fresh food shopping we do not slip our lines at Heritage Bay Marina until 16:00 (but I’m not up for another night here).
As an aside, just when we were leaving this marina on 7 August after our first visit, a magnificent luxury schooner with the rather uninspiring (and some might say pretentious) name of ‘Impression’ sailed in. In fairness, this 80-foot modern machine was impressive, and its crew must have numbered more than a dozen, six of whom arrived in advance at the pontoon in an equally luxurious tender to take the lines. I joked with them by asking how many people it took to tie up a boat (at least it got a laugh from the other yachtsman gathered to watch the imperious arrival of this yacht).
The yacht is still here six weeks later and one of the English girl crew (from Hamble as it turns out), who joined us on board Babadudu for a glass of wine, tells us that we are the first yacht to enter the marina since they arrived. She is incensed that having ‘signed up’ as crew, she’d done nothing more than an overnight trip to Terengganu from Singapore under engine. While she admits that the yacht is beautifully laid out, she says she’d do anything to come for a ‘real’ sail on Babadudu.
Our destination on Wednesday 23 September is Pulau Kapas, just 12 miles from Terengganu. We have seen brochure pictures of this island portraying a beautiful beach and classy resort, but on arrival just before dusk we are greeted by dark, towering cliffs rendered even more foreboding by a dark sky and choppy sea. We anchor in deep water, narrowly missing running over rocks rising steeply from the west of the island to within four feet of our keel and not shown on the charts (position: 05 deg 13’.333N, 103 deg 16’.335E). Shortly after anchoring we are surrounded by several large, dark brown jellyfish, their tentacles stretching beyond the visibility afforded by the clear water. We have not encountered this species before and the visitation puts an end to any thoughts of swimming.
With nothing to keep us here, the anchor is up early on Thursday 24 September and the yacht is on a course of 136 degrees towards the island of Tenggol just over 40 miles away. With wind and waves straight on the nose, we make slow and uncomfortable progress, dropping the anchor late afternoon on the edge of the reef in the attractive east-facing bay we had last visited on 1 August (position: 04 deg 48’.468N, 103 deg 40’.582E).
On the night of Thursday/Friday 24/25 September, a nasty storm rages above Tenggol sending angry waves straight into the bay and throwing Babadudu about in all directions. The anchor chain strains out as we are pushed back towards the reef and on switching on the depth sounder I see with horror that while we dropped the anchor in 50 feet of water, the hull now floats just 12 feet above the jagged coral heads below. First thought is to re-anchor, but with the violent motion of the boat, and the air filled with a mixture of driving rainwater and the spume whipped off the waves by a howling wind, I opt instead to monitor the depth until the storm abates – the engine keys ready in the ignition in case we need to move forward urgently.
The next morning (Friday 25 September) we awake to a flat calm, but I nevertheless re-anchor Babadudu in 75 feet of water in the middle of the bay. The snorkeling in Tenggol bay is just fantastic and we record several new species. However, while the day is spent enjoyably enough, we have a shock, when turning on the engine to re-charge the batteries, to discover that the engine starting battery is dead. The yacht actually has four batteries, three which run all the boat electrics (water pumps, navigation equipment, lights, radio/stereo), and one which is isolated exclusively for starting the engine. I am mystified at how this engine battery could have lost its power and concerned about how we might get it re-charged.
The luck which has so frequently graced this cruise again comes into play. We row ashore to the small dive resort with our ailing battery and the very helpful staff there hook it up to their generators. The next morning they deliver the battery to our boat and the engine fires up beautifully. I then work out why the battery discharged. When re-anchoring the boat using the electric windlass to first haul up and then re-set some 280 feet of chain, I did not run the engine at sufficient revs to generate the considerable power needed for the task. The windlass therefore took its power from the engine battery and I did not run the engine long enough after re-anchoring to recharge it. Another lesson learned and a sigh of relief that this problem didn’t arise at a remote and deserted anchorage.
Sunday 27 September to Monday 05 October 2009
By midday on Sunday 27 September we are on our way to Pulau Tioman – one of our favourite islands on the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia. Wind, waves and tide are again on the nose and our speed over the ground is consistently less than five knots. There are two instances which make the night passage memorable. The first is at dusk when a school of dolphins finds us and for some 30 minutes enthralls us with a dazzling display of aquabatics. The second, considerably less enjoyable, is during my 2am-5am watch when, while stretched out in the cockpit, I am slapped in the face by a flying fish which takes off from the crest of a wave across the deck. It certainly snapped me out of my reverie, but I console myself by being thankful that the fish was not of the larger, jagged tooth variety. On the afternoon of Monday 28 September we anchor in Pulau Tioman’s Tekok Bay in the same spot as two months earlier (position: 02 deg 49’.146N, 104 deg 09’.101E).
With an ‘action replay’ of what happened to us a few days earlier in Tenggol, our first night at this now familiar anchorage is heralded by a massive squall with more than 50 knots of wind turning the bay into a ‘boiling’ cauldron. The following day when we go ashore to clear customs and immigration, the small village of Tekok is agog. Trees have been uprooted and several roofs have been damaged. One ‘old salt’ tells us this was the worst squall he has witnessed in the region.
A couple of days later – on the night of Friday 2 October (four months since we set off) – we are again unwitting players in a scene from the Tempest, our anchor and full extent of chain working overtime to keep us rooted in deep water and well clear of the reef at our stern. After this, we consider relocating to the sanctuary of Pulau Tioman’s marina, but I resist this temptation, for there is nothing more invigorating for the spirit than to climb on deck in the morning and take in the scene and salty scent of a serene anchorage. Our forbearance is rewarded by several days of complete calm.
We spend a total of eight days on Tioman, mainly relaxing and snorkeling around Renggis Island, where, on one visit, we have four sizeable (but ‘harmless’) black-tipped sharks swimming around us. Some work also gets done, notably an engine oil and filter change. We hook up with Lilibert – the Filipina hairdresser who we met on our last visit – and together we enjoy an evening at the Bejera Hotel where we meet up again with ‘Jezebel’, the outrageously camp lead singer with the house band. Jezebel (who we introduced to sailing two months ago) invites us for lunch at his chalet a few days later. We are joined by the two sexy female singers in the band, although without their stack-heeled black boots, micro-dresses and skimpy tops they didn’t look as I’d fondly remembered them!
An unusual (for us) phenomenon encountered on several consecutive evenings at exactly the same time after dusk is the attempt by several giant fruit bats to perch atop our mast. Aside from not wanting bat droppings over my deck, I am afraid these ‘fliedermice’ might damage the mast-top instruments which measure wind speed and direction. To discourage the damn things, we shake the steel backstays which support the mast at the stern and this sets up a vibration which after about 20 minutes does the trick.
Pulau Tioman to Port Dickson (6 October to 19 October 2009)
Tuesday 6 October to Monday 12 October 2009
With Babadudu re-fuelled, re-watered, fully provisioned, and with our passports stamped out of Malaysia, we begin what is intended to be the start of a passage more than 400 miles east across the South China Sea to Kuching in Borneo (Sarawak). The launch point for this epic crossing is the island of Pulau Aur, 40 miles south of Tioman, and it is to here we head on Tuesday 6 October.
We arrive at night without the benefit of moonlight and after some anxious moments skirting the fringing reefs we anchor in 70-feet of water in the channel between Pulau Aur and Pulau Dayang (position: 02 deg 27’.917N, 104 deg 30’.123E). We awake on the morning of Wednesday 7 October after more than 12 hours sleep and, beholding our surroundings in daylight, see that we have picked a pretty safe spot in which to anchor.
The two islands either side of us are magnificent, but strangely different. Pulau Aur has a clean stretch of beach overlooked by a sail-like rock not unlike that in Thailand’s Similan Islands. Across the narrow channel, Pulau Dayang boasts sheer, flat-topped cliffs which plunge into the sea along the island’s entire length. Along the top of this ridge is a line of coconut palms which, silhouetted on the skyline, seem somewhat incongruous so far above the shore. We stay on an extra day and explore both islands in the dinghy.
When raising the anchor to mark the start of our intended crossing to Borneo, Marivic’s eagle-eye spots not one, but two broken links in the anchor chain. I am horrified to think that during one of the major blows we have encountered in recent weeks our chain might have parted, consigning Babadudu to the mercy of a coral reef or rocky shore. If this had happened at night, the yacht would at best have suffered serious damage and I don’t want to think of the worst that could have occurred. We set aside 90 feet of the 280 feet of chain we carry and replace one of the broken links with a heavy duty shackle. I resolve when this voyage is over, to replace the entire anchor chain with high spec imported chain (rather than the China-made links which I was assured were ‘top quality’).
On Thursday 8 October at 09:00, with the full mainsail and genoa set for a beam reach, Pulau Aur falls astern as we set an easterly course for Borneo. The portents for the three-day and night passage are good: 10 to 15 knots of wind from the south, a relatively smooth sea, clear skies and an upright sail averaging 5.5 knots. By 15:00, the wind has moved mysteriously to the south east and has strengthened. With one reef now in the mainsail and the boom winched in amidships, we are close-hauled and heeling increasingly to port. An hour later and the wind is blowing at full gale force (35 knots) and we have rolled in our genoa down to a ‘handkerchief’.
Commensurate with the fast-rising wind are steepening seas and the realisation that our Borneo quest will be at best exceedingly uncomfortable, offering little chance of sleep between watches, or the chance to prepare a decent meal. As the sky turns evermore leaden, concern for comfort turns to fear of danger, and with just a couple of hours to go before darkness falls, we make a decision (at position 02 deg 26’.645N, 105 deg 02’991E. We swing the yacht hard to starboard through the wind and set a new course for Singapore 18 hours away.
After a bumpy overnight sail we round the south eastern tip of Peninsula Malaysia as the sun rises behind us on Friday 9 October. At 11.00 we are on Singapore, swinging on a mooring buoy outside Changi Yacht Club near the island nation’s north-eastern edge.
Singapore, being the bureaucratically ‘correct’ place that it is, we are informed by the very helpful ‘Ronnie’ at the club’s reception desk that we are not permitted to land on Singapore without first clearing immigration and customs (on our last arrival here these formalities were handled at great expense by Raffles Marina). This necessitates a one and a half-hour sail back the way we have come to a designated anchorage a few miles off Singapore’s shores, where we are visited by an immigration/customs launch which processes our arrival at no cost.
Given that we visited Singapore on the way down, we are not inclined to stay long, but in the end we give it four nights, visiting downtown Singapore a couple of times and enjoying Changi Sailing Club’s pool, restaurant and other facilities. We also take the opportunity to replace the heavy-duty zip on our sail-furling bag which was irreparably damaged in the heavy weather in the South China Sea. A good job is made of this by ‘Brad’ of Volution Sails at a fair price.
Tuesday 13 October to Monday 19 October 2009
We are underway before sun-up on Tuesday 13 October, our intention being to clear Singapore and its heavy shipping during daylight hours. We also enjoy a favourable tide as we pass west along the Singapore Strait, and by the time the sun sets, we have rounded the south west tip of Singapore and are heading north east up the Malacca Straits. At 03:00 on Wednesday 14 October, just before handing over the watch to Marivic, I note that we are low on fuel. To avoid the risk of running the tank dry, and therefore having the difficult (for me) task of bleeding the fuel system while at sea, I decide to pour in 40 litres of fuel from two jerry cans of ‘spare’ fuel which we carry. This turns out to be a very shrewd move.
An hour later, I am awoken by the sound and sensation of a yacht slamming hard into head-on waves – a mystery since the wind and waves ‘should’ be from the south, at our rear. I stumble on deck where Marivic – already wearing her safety harness and lifejacket – is battling to keep the yacht on course in northerly winds of over 30 knots.
The sea builds up surprisingly fast sending cascades of green water sweeping across the decks as Babadudu see-saws before a head-on onslaught. Yacht speed is down to around one knot and there is no doubt that had we not refueled hours earlier, we would now be tossing powerless on the waves with little hope of getting diesel from the jerry cans into the fuel tank and re-starting the engine. With visibility measured in a few feet, and with shipping on all sides of us, we rely on radar to steer a course through the maelstrom. At daybreak, the storm is still raging, but at least we can eyeball other shipping. By 08:00 things start to calm down and at midday we are sat on a pontoon in Admiral Marina at Port Dickson on Malaysia’s west coast.
Soon after, we are sprawled by the splendid pool surrounded by the Mediterranean-style architecture and gardens of Admiral Marina with a cocktail in hand and musing on how there can be few activities which pitch one through such a gamut of emotions in such short timeframe.
We stay at Admiral Marina for six nights – four more than intended – which says something about the attractions which make it hard to leave. We enjoy days by the pool, a ‘Diwali’ Indian lunch on 17 October and drinks aboard ‘Skylark II’ with Desiree and Chris who later join us for dinner aboard Babadudu. We go twice into Port Dickson which is a small, tidy town boasting the amenities we need and efficient immigration, customs and harbourmaster offices.
Steve Lawrence 