Hi Everyone,
We struggled to leave Bali. Yes I really mean struggled, as we went north through the Lombok Channel we had up to 6 knots of tide against us. Fortunately we had good wind and with the all the sails up were making 7 knots through the water. This meant that we only went forward at 1 knot at times, which is soul destroying. Watching a tree on the land and it takes forever to pass it. But we did pass it and eventually got out of the tide and were on our way to Kumai on Kalimantan (Borneo). We stopped at Keangean Island, which was 142 nautical miles from Bali just to break the trip. We arrived at Kumai after a few stressful moments as we navigated the river entrance. The whole reason for this diversion was to go see the Orang-utans. We organised a 2-day adventure and on the 29th August our boat 'The Spirit of he Forest' picked us up from Jane-G and left a young lad to stand guard for the 2 days in the cockpit. There were 3 crew: - a guide, a cook and a captain. We travelled 54 Km up the Sekonyor River to Camp Leaky. This is a research station set up in the 60's to study orang-utans to re-introduce orphan orang-utans into the wild. Most were orphaned because their mothers were killed so that the babies could be sold as pets. As we walked into the camp the heavens opened and we dashed for the museum to read all about the Orang-utans and their personal history. As the rain eased a former dominant male, Krisner, came in for shelter under one of the buildings. He was enormous and so hairy. Because of the deforestation over the years there is not enough food to sustain them all year so they are fed once a day with bananas. We had a 15 minute walk to where they were being fed. So did the 40 kids on a school trip! We seemed to have picked the wrong day. The kids were as fascinated and as quiet as we were as the mothers and babies came in to be fed. They came in via the trees by swinging from branch to branch or using their weight to bend the branches nearer to the next tree. One female and her baby just walked right through the visitors and after she had had her feed came and sat on the bench, arms out stretched watching us.
We travelled down river and stopped for the night on a dock at the next camp. Early in the morning we walked along the boardwalk and saw a young male not more than 50 metres from the boat. He slowly made his way down and began to eat the young shoots alongside the river. We watched until we were called back for breakfast. The orang-utan then watched us as we ate our breakfast, probably wondering what we were eating.
We walked for about 30 mins to the next feeding area and arrived early. A big male came to see if food had arrived and when he saw it was only us started to almost play with us by coming towards us. These males can be aggressive and unpredictable so as he would come towards us the guide would say "move, move" and would I move fast, always making sure the guide was between me and the orang-utan. Again just as the feeding was about to begin along came the 40 school kids and their guide. This time the orang-utans were a little more cautious and always kept an eye on the crowd. The final feeding was to be the best. The orang-utans were the nearest to wild ones in the park. They had to be called in and came very slowly always watching us. They would get on the feeding platform and try to carry as many bananas as possible in their hands and in their mouth befor heading out to eat in peace. This time it was just Clive, myself, our guide, the park warden and the orang-utans - no school kids! On our trip back to Jane-G we were lucky to see long tailed monkeys and Proboscis Monkeys with their long noses and white tails.
When we arrived back at the boat our 'guard' was pleased to see us. Apparently mosquitoes had bitten him all night.
We left Kumai on the 2nd of September and had a great sail to the small island of Serutu.
About 3 hours away from the anchorage we had thunder and lightening around us and it eventually caught us with a tremendous down pour, unfortunately on my watch and it made the island completely disappear. Fortunately it cleared as we made final approach and we anchored safely. A little later the rain started again and continued all day. We were glad we stopped and stayed dry. The next day we motored out of the anchorage and within and hour was sail again. We crossed back into the northern hemisphere at 18hrs 32min. 35sec on the 6th September at position 106deg 16.000 East and as the sun set so the wind disappeared and we had to motor all the way to Singapore.
We were concerned about having to cross the shipping lanes on our approach to Singapore. The shipping lanes are like a dual carriageway with constant traffic and we had to cross it at right angles. It was a case of waiting until a ship passed us going east then nip behind his stern and as quickly as possible get to the centre 'no mans land' and wait until a ship passed us going west then nip behind his stern before the next one ran us down. The traffic was constant with about ¼ mile between ships. Our timing was lousy we did cross just in daylight but it meant we had 60 miles of the Singapore Straits in the dark. We have never seen so many boats moving or anchored in our life. It was just a sea of lights and we had to work our way through the anchorage keeping a good look out for any ships moving. There was also up to 3 knots of current against us so it was taking twice as long as it should have to get clear. Needless to say neither of us slept that night. Fortunately it was a clear night, at least until 0530 when we had a lightening storm pass directly overhead and we lost all visibility at the narrowest part of the strait. To say we were concerned is an understatement. With the rain, thunder and lightening we just went round in small circles hoping that any ships would see us. We were lucky; a yacht about 2 hours in front got hit by lightening and lost all his instruments.
We were really pleased to arrive at Raffles marina on the west coast of Singapore, tie up and enjoy Singapore. We have passed through on our way back to the UK several times but not really taken in the island. The island appeared to be one giant construction site. Everywhere there were cranes for high rise buildings, all very efficiently with little disruption to the public. We visited Little India and China Town, walked the streets and several gardens. The best was the Chinese Gardens as they had a Festival of Lanterns. The theme was water based and there were lanterns as small as 6 inches and as large as 10 feet. It was beautiful strolling around in the dark with all this colour surrounding you. There was also a Chinese Troup giving an acrobatic display and one guy changing his face mask in less than a second and we could not see how he did it even when he came down into the audience and did it feet from us.
When you enter Singapore you only get a 2 week visa and so after 12 days we decided to move on to Malaysia.
I will post this now and bring you up to date shortly on Malaysia.
Take care everybody and we will talk to you soon,
Jane and Clive