Into Balambangan Island
31 October 2013 | Balambangan Island
Bill/Sunny and some breeze
Well, we upped the anchor again this morning and set off for Balambangan Island on the west side of Banggi Island. A trip that if we went by the route I put in the computer would have been 20 or so miles. We took a chance and cut across a reef between the islands at the southwest end of Banggi Island. Our charts said it was shallow as 15 feet. As we entered, we were at 150 feet. It slowly crept up to 100 and then up to 50. From there, it started dropping again as the charts said it would. As I went forward to check on the genoa sail, suddenly Tracy puts the engine into neutral and slows us way down. We were at 15 feet in an area where the charts said we should be not only past the reef but in 100+feet of water. We slowly glided over this shallow spot and the depths increased again.
We finally had a nice breeze over out port side so we hoisted the main sail and then rolled out half the repaired Genoa sail. We watched at Azizah pulled up their sails also. We were off and running for the first time in a long time under purely sail power!!!! Oh it felt so good to be moving without the drone of the engine not that I'm complaining. We love our engine. We sailed up the west coast of Banggi Island as always watching for trash in the water and fishermen putting out their nets. We arrived about 12:30 and slowly made our way into the bay. We'd thought it was going to be a bay with nice tall hills around it as the one at Banggi was but this is more like an atoll. Low lying bits of land making a nice long island. There isn't much protection from the wind but the chop is minimal with the land breaking up the power of the wind in stirring up the water. Anchors down and we are in. Probably stay for a couple of days and do some snorkeling. and diving.
We had a nice lunch of Trevally(it's a fish) that Richard and Semia gave us yesterday. Never had it before. A very mild fish with dense meat. Hard to describe the flavor it was so mild. We had some yesterday evening as fish tacos and more today as just fried fish with tartar sauce. It was very good. Unlike any fish I've ever had.
Once we got settled in, we had a bit of a blow and then more showers that lasted a short time. Once gone, the breeze continued(about 10 knots) and is still blowing. We launched Puff and grabbed our snorkeling gear and headed out to a shallow reef near Zephry. Shallow is right. Where we ended, we would have hit the sand and coral if we jumped out of Puff. We pulled in a bit on the anchor and got in the water where it was about 6 feet deep. We swam around for a while observing the coral and fish. Since we got to Malaysia, we have found that many of the fisherman use dynamite to catch fish. When we were diving around Mabul, we heard an explosion. The downside of "fishing" that way is that it is killing not only all the fish in the area, it's killing the coral too. We've seen numerous patches of dead coral during many of dives. It takes years for it to come back. We saw many black spiny sea urchins all over the place. Most with spines over a foot long. You don't want to come near this critters as they inject a toxin that burns and the spines break off in your skin. I speak from personal experience. We were careful around them.
On the way back to Zephyr, our outboard quit a couple of times. It didn't want to run. Would for a while and then quit. One of the problems we figured out when we got back to Zephyr is that the new fuel tank has to be stood up on end, not laid flat like the last one was. That could make a difference. Might cut off the fuel if the intake hose is above the fuel level. I'm going to read up on the manual and see if it could be anything else. Ah, the joys of boating. At least we are just 30 miles from Kudat should I need a repair that I can't do out here.
The picture for today is on the guard rail and post at the cave I wrote about a day or so ago. YUCK! Never liked roaches!