WEEK 18: Sandakan to Kudat

Sunday 14 August – Sandakan
Shopping, looking around, wet market then dinner at the Yacht Club.

Monday 15 August - Sandakan – Pulau Tikiis
06°04.238N / 117°57.344E (5m)
We all went to the Harbour Master to check in and check out. The others all went in a taxi to check out at Customs while Judy and the I did some shopping. It was then back to the boat and upanchored at 12 noon. We sailed quite a bit with good breeze and went past Pulau Liberran and anchored between an island and the mainland. We had to reanchor twice to get it to set. We could see a huge front with clouds full of lightning way over the land. Went to bed and at 11 the wind blew in from across the bay and a huge swell came in with big waves. The skipper did anchor watch and sure enough we were dragging again!! At 1am we pulled up and reanchored and the wind finally started to ease. Not a nice night at all.
Miles: 27 TTT: 2,415

Tuesday 16 August – Pulau Tikiis – Tanjong Kinulubatan
06°38.183N / 117°30.325E (4.3)
We all upanchored at 6am and we motor sailed and went past Pulau Lankayan around lunch time. We went in and had a look. It is a beautiful tropical island but given the weather of last night and this island having no shelter and to anchor and have a snorkel would have made us too late we kept going. We had some very good sailing – best for ages and went through the reef to arrive at the safe anchorage at 5.45
Miles: 56 TTT: 2,471

Wednesday 17 August – Tanjong Kinulubatan – Pulau Banggi
07°06.852N / 117°05.459E (12m)
We were supposed to leave at 7am but it was so peaceful and still and raining lightly we finally got away at 7.20. It turned out to be a long boring day – took shortcut through the reef and then beat into the weather for hours till we reached Pulau Banggi at 6pm. We came in from the other end of the village last time and didn’t like the look of it but from this end it actually looks very interesting. We had to anchor 3 times before we could get it to set. Some children came in their row boat from the bigger boat where they lived so we gave them some food – they couldn’t understand English or Malay.
Miles: 46 TTT: 2,517

Thursday 18 August – Pulau Banggi – Kudat
06°52.588N / 116°51.261 (14m)
Would have liked to have stayed a day to have a look around – maybe next time. We left at 9am and beat into the wind and sea all the way. Seemed to take a long time. Finally arrived in the harbour off the town of Kudat at 2.20pm and anchored in 14m. We went ashore around 5pm just after I had fortuitously downloaded all our photos off the camera. We had trouble finding somewhere to leave the dinghies but a lovely young fish farmer allowed us to tie off his jetty. We had to walk around the edge of the fish farm (lovely big fish) and then onto a raft which he then pulled a few feet across to stairs at the bottom of his house (room) built on stilts and then jetty to the shore. We looked around town and went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. We sat outside and a cigarette smoking lady took our order which went from 25RM for the 6 of us to 15RM each when we said we wanted individual dishes! It was quite a nice meal but very expensive and when we were leaving we saw the actual dining room which was air conditioned and had fancy tablecloths etc – very fancy and we had just been charged the fancy prices! We came back to our boats after dark – our little fish farmer seeing us safely past the guard dog to our dinghies. Peter locked our door and went to bed. We had decided to leave the hatch above our bed open for air and had locked the motor to Bob and chained Bob to the boat. The chain of course made a clanking noise. I read for another hour or so and went to bed at 10. At 12 we were awakened by VHF radio by Cilantro saying they had disturbed an intruder on their boat. Peter immediately said where is the spoltlight torch which he had put on the table 2 ft from our sleeping heads and then where’s the yellow bag and then we realised that we had been robbed and we said how did he get in – we both then looked up and the back hatch was wide open and we couldn’t believe it. I had presumed Peter had locked it and he thought I would close it!! The thief had even put the stick holding it open back in place but sideways. The waterproof yellow bag had my camera, my prescription sunglasses, my phone and Peter’s wallet and he had also taken my wallet. We found the inverter on the deck – it didn’t have the wires connected so he left it. This person had been 2 ft from our heads, got our stuff and back up through the hatch and we hadn’t heard a thing!! Peter spent an hour on the phone to ANZ cancelling our credit cards and was put through to America to get them to issue an emergency card. Unfortunately the girl seemed to be a little slow and Peter had to spell everything – even Peter – and the address in Miri was very long. We then called the police (and went through 3 people to get an English speaker) and around 2.30am we had a police boat with 6 policemen alongside, 4 of whom came below and all of whom could speak English. Peter meanwhile found my wallet on a towel in the cockpit minus cash but all cards intact. The police were lovely and took the inverter away to get fingerprints. After they left we found Peter’s wallet – minus cash (we lost around $400 in RM) and with all cards intact except Amex and the thief had left a 10RM note – on purpose. He had sat in the cockpit and sorted his booty. Meanwhile unbeknown to us at 1.30 Braveheart disturbed him on their boat and he off into his canoe rowing furiously against the tide and Judy took a couple of photos of him. Unfortunatley it was too dark. Its not a nice feeling but it was our stupidity and we were just grateful he didn’t take the computer which was under a cover on the nav station as were the binoculars and other equipment and we were not harmed.
Miles: 22 TTT: 2,539

Friday 19 August – Kudat
The boys presented themselves to the police station 5km out of town as instructed and spent the morning being interviewed. Sgt George drove them back at lunchtime so we all went ashore for lunch. It was then that Cilantro discovered that the thief had tried to take his outboard or fuel tank as he had bent the new connection they had just put on. Had lunch and did some shopping and all returned exhausted to our boats. We had tied off to the fish farmer’s stairs this time so we knew our dinghies were safe. Actually the town is very friendly and the majority of the people nice. Sgt Geroge had solved a small mystery for us about the people who don’t seem to understand English or Malay – they are in fact tribal people and there are 23 different languages. The family living on their boat at Banggi are of a particular tribe and live on their boats and have no need of money. They didn’t seem to know what a book was when I gave it to them and this would explain it. He also told Peter there are more crocodiles at Banggi than Kudat (James dived on his prop at Banggi!!!).

Anyway our carefree innocence of life aboard has evaporated. In all our time travelling this is the first time we have ever had to really lock up. Whenever we left our boats we would leave them open – not any more. Now we have bolts and padlocks on everything. We still feel safe in our boat but will be much more security conscious in the future. It was nice to see the police boat go past late in the afternoon.

More dramas since then but you will have to wait till next week to find out!!! But we are safe and well.
Still keeping on keeping on
Much love
Dell and Peter