Picture: Oil rig tenders anchored next to a rig, a common sight in the land of "black gold".

At Miri we rode our bikes to town and did our usual paperwork; checked out of the port at the harbor master's office, Immigration Department and Customs Office. Fortunately immigration and customs are in one building and the harbormaster was only next door. The gatekeeper told us where to go and was kind enough to watch our bikes. After completing the "check out" tasks, we went to the marina office and paid our bill. We appreciated our bikes otherwise we would have to take taxis everywhere. When we got back to the marina, we did our last minute chores for departure, such as filling our water tanks and stowing our bikes away. We waved goodbye to our fellow cruiser/friends and off we went toward the open ocean.

We had favorable wind but still we had our motor on because we wanted to get to the next anchorage before dark. When we left Miri, we had two choices; one was to stay way out in the ocean, further out than all the oil rigs and sail all night and get to the main port of Brunei the next day. Or, we could sail close to the coast and anchor in the Belait River, Brunei, overnight and still make it to the main Brunei port the next day. We chose the latter. We left Miri around 1:00 and arrived at Belait around sundown. From Miri to Belait, was only 31 nautical miles. Jo and Joe from S/V Jubilee went there from Miri by taxi to renew their visa and it only took them an hour to get there and back. It was fortunate that we did not arrive after dark because we had to go up the river. I called on channel 69 asking for permission to enter the river because there was a lot of traffic; barges, oil tenders, tug boats and fishing boats. Besides, it was difficult to tell if the machinery operations strung along the waterfront were on shore or in the water. We anchored on the other side of the river from town, near a nipah palm grove. The night was humid and we could hear and feel mosquitoes, so I quickly lit a coil. We saw something blackish in the water floating toward us. We knew it was not a log because it was moving against the current and changed direction towards the wooded bank when I shone the flash light at it. We could not tell what it was but we suspect it was a crocodile. All and all, the water was calm and we had a reasonably night's rest.