We're all checked out.
30 December 2013 | Out at anchor again away from the big city
Cloudy and windy
We have checked out of Malaysia with a couple of days to spare. Of course those are holidays so we had to get in before they delayed us and made us late for checking out. We've heard the Malaysian government officials don't like that and get q bit huffy when it happens. The man at Immigration even got a calendar to check how many days we had gone since checking in back on October 4th.
We'd dropped anchor just off the closed marina and settled into the VERY busy harbor. Lots of ships, both big and small as well as several ferry boats passed right by us in the anchorage. They all kept their distance but boy do they have noisy engines.
We got us this morning and made plans to get not only checked into Labuan from Kudat but also checked out of the country so we can head to Brunei. We called for a water taxi to take us to the ferry dock. No answer. I finally called the Harbour Master and asked for his help. He advised us to call on VHF channel 67(which I had already done) and he would also call for us a water taxi. Well, 30 minutes later, still no taxi. We got lucky and a couple of oil workers that were on their way to one of the boats to take them to their rig would send back their taxi and he would take us where we needed to go. He returned to our boat about 15 minutes later and off we went for the Ferry Dock. It took all of about 5 minutes in his big power boat. Once ashore, we checked in the Ferry Terminal with the Customs folks and they directed us to the building that houses the Jabatan Laut-- the Harbour Master. He took our paperwork from when we left Kudat and gave us new paperwork showing us checking out of Malaysia. Back to Immigration to get the passports stamped and then to Customs for the final checkout and more paper to give to the officials in Brunei. We were done by 0915.
Off to the local Tourism Board building to get maps and info on Labuan and Brunei. Got a bunch to get us up to speed on what to expect when we get there tomorrow. Brunei has plowed a ton of their national income into building huge ornate building and giving their people free health care and a free education. Apparently they don't send a bunch of their money over seas to other countries, they keep it for their own people. What a unique concept(hey US wake up).
Once we had the maps and info about Labuan, we headed to the big shopping center in town. What a mess. Poorly laid out and with not a bunch to offer. Even the "Giant(name of the company not the size) Super Market" had far less than what we had expected. Not much selection in any category of food. We headed away from the center quite unimpressed. Even the lunch we had at Pizza Hut was a let down. Labuan is a "duty free" island. That means that booze and cigarettes are duty free along with a bunch of other things. By far the best buy was Bacardi Rum at under $8.00(US) a fifth. With the limits that are placed on boats entering Brunei(one bottle per person) we didn't bother to get more.
We headed back to the water taxi stand at the ferry dock and got a taxi back to the boat. Both cost us 7 ringgits, about $2.25US. Once back on board, we started up the engine and took off out of the busy harbor. We headed back to where we were on Saturday night. All alone in the anchorage with a nice 15-17 knot wind keeping our wind generator spinning like mad. Tomorrow, we are off for Brunei. A new experience and a new country. Should be fun.