LWH – Week 3 : Ambong – Kudat

Saturday 21 July – Ambong – Kudat
06⁰56.455N / 116⁰50.608E
Just after we sent the blog last week, we were sitting on the deck watching the soccer game which happens on the beach every afternoon after the tide goes out when five young men (ages 12 – 22) came out in their boat and asked if they could come aboard. Two of them did and we sat and chatted as best we could with their limited English and our limited bahasa – though the skipper is getting better with the language. The other three mucked around and had a swim and sat on the transom, then sat in their boat beside ours. The boys explained that this village is called Bura Bura (or something like that!) and it is an entirely Filippino muslim community and they are all fishermen. We found it surprising that they are all Filippino. He said they go back to the Philippines every five years but they can’t get passports. They were really interested in a passport to go to England. We don’t think they actually realised what a passport was. Sad really. After a while we told them we were getting dinner so they politely shook our hands and left. We were sorry we hadn’t met them on our first visit here instead of our last.
We got up in the dark trying to get the internet to work to get an updated weather report. Took ages but we got away around 6.20 just after Suspense. It wasn’t the best day but we’ve had worse. We ran the motor at 2100 and put the headsail out to try to get round the Tip of Borneo before the 20 knot winds came in. It was very swelly and not terribly pleasant but we rounded the Tip at 3pm and came into calm water. We then had a lovely sail down to a bay before the town of Kudat and anchored at 5pm. We are so pleased to have that leg out of the way. It was very blowy but a calm night.
Miles: 64 TTT: 282

Sunday 22 July – Kudat
06⁰53.412N / 116⁰51.598E
We had an easy start to the morning then upanchored around 8.45 and motored to the duckpond and haulout facility. We were a little dismayed to see three yachts anchored there so we anchored too and the skipper took Bob to do a reccy. It is very sheltered from the wind here but we are in the channel to the haulout facility. Haulout set for 7.30 tomorrow. The other boats are not waiting for haulout yet. The fishing boats coming in and out managed to go around us all and we had a good night.

Monday 23 July – Kudat Haulout
We were up early and could see the travel lift wasn’t in place so called them up and they said they were ready so in we went and the crew threw the lines to waiting hands and they soon had hold of us. Then the travel lift came down - there was no opportunity to get off the boat so the crew stayed below until we were chocked up on the hard outside the office held up by eight large concrete blocks. There is a breakwater around the facility which might just be short of a few blocks!! It looks a bit iffy but it seems to work. We had to ask a couple of blokes for a ladder as we were stuck up the top of the boat. This is a ship building yard for the fishing fleet though there are quite a few yachts and cats scattered around the place. There is a resort at the top of the duck pond so it is quite a pretty outlook but we have decided to stay on the boat. We have a key to our own shower (a dribble) and toilet so that is ok. The day was spent cleaning and sanding the bottom of the boat which actually wasn’t too bad – a few barnacles though the prop was pretty fouled. There is a very slight movement in the prop shaft but the skipper is confident it will get us home. The skipper managed to get the first coat of antifoul on and has cleaned the prop beautifully. We then went to the golf club just down the road for dinner.

Tuesday 24 July – Kudat haulout
The skipper put another coat of antifoul on and some more on the prop and we took the short walk to town to check in. We found Immigration and Customs but the Harbour Master was more problematic - was located up some grotty stairs on an indescript street. I noticed that most of the names of the people working there had the word ‘bin’ in it so asked about it. The name before the ‘bin’ is their first name and the name after the ‘bin’ is their father’s name. We walked through the market and the shops and the people were very friendly and welcoming (this is the place where we were robbed – I keep looking for my prescription sunglasses!). We had lunch – I asked for spicy and it was! We checked out the marina across the other side of the duck pond but t it appears to be owned by an unknown Chinese man who doesn’t want yachts there and is planning on bringing in a barge to dredge there – it doesn’t actually look very sturdy. The skipper did more work on the boat while the crew took the sheets and towels to the laundry – time for a good wash! The Tuesday market was set up by this stage so I spent an hour or so wandering through looking at all the interesting food they were cooking up and all the different species of fish they were selling. We went to the Golf Club for an indescript meal.

Wednesday 25 July – Kudat Haulout
We could have gone back into the water today but decided to wait till tomorrow. The skipper put fuel in the tank then we went to the market and bought fruit and veges and then had lunch. I collected the laundry – couldn’t believe how clean and soft it all was – comes up so much better than handwashing! We asked the waitress where we could get a taxi and she just waved down a bloke in a car who took us to the boat then took the jerries to the petrol stations – you can only fill two jerries at a time. We then went to town and bought some takeway – it is Ramadan so they have heaps of food stalls in the evening.

Thursday 26 July – Kudat
They lifted us up at 1130 so the skipper could antifoul the bits we couldn’t get at then at 1.30 we hopped aboard and travelled in the yacht by land and were placed very gently back in the water – no trouble at all. In fact it was one of the best haulouts we have had! We anchored back where we had been and cleaned the decks . We really enjoyed being in the yard watching all the fishing boats being hauled out and worked on. We even saw one of the very long skinny fast ferries lifted out – so interesting. And everyone very very friendly.

Friday 27 July – Kudat
Rubicon star came in so we had morning tea with them. Then we went to town for lunch and the skipper had a haircut. We went with Rubi to the Golf Club for dinner

As I am typing this, we are pinned down here with some bad weather which looks as though it may go on for some days – more on that next week. We also had an email from Suspense who went into Sandakan that they had had their outboard stolen even though it was locked on to the dinghy which was in the davits very high up and they had alarms in their cockpit – they still cant figure out how they got it. We may just give Sandakan a miss and not even bother going in there.

Anyway love to you all.
May the winds soon calm down
Dell and Peter