December 2006 Christmas newsletter

So here we are in Phuket and Christmas is fast approaching. Time for a newsletter. As I'm sure you all know we have settled in Phuket for a while as Liz has a Primary teacher's job at the British International School. As part of her package, the girls go to the High School section and we feel that this is an excellent opportunity for them.

Anna started her first year of high school in August (the school follows a UK/USA school calendar). She's settled in well and seems to have grown up both physically and mentally with the change to high school. Her first term report shows her being active in class, doing well academically and controlling her temper very well!

Courtney is in Year 10 and has started a two-year program that culminates with her doing the IGCSE, an international school certificate. She has taken French, Art and Drama which reflects the person Courtney is. The story-writing has taken a step back in favour of lots of drawing lately.  An interest in photography seems to be building as well. She posts her work on this website http://ralindir.deviantart.com/gallery/

Liz has had a very busy year at work. The school is very demanding so her days are long and unrelenting. Still she seems to be enjoying the work and gets great feedback from the parents.   She has joined a local book club and it's pleasing to see her reading her book instead of doing marking each night. 

I (Colin) have kept myself busy by going back to school.   I enrolled full-time in a Graduate Diploma in Information Technology with Charles Sturt University. Studying by distance, it is quite a challenge to keep focused and maintain the discipline of study. I quite enjoyed it and feel I have a fresh outlook on what's happening in the IT world. I finished the eight subjects required with six distinctions and two credits. I may continue into the Masters program (eight more subjects) but not at the same pace as I want to chase some sort of work this year.

This year we have been quite successful at getting value out of Reflections IV. In February we had a week-long break and sailed to the Surin Islands, which are a 100 miles north west of Phuket. This is a beautiful national park and we enjoyed very quiet relaxing days, interspaced with some great snorkelling and memorable diving at Richeleu Rock, where we saw large manta rays.

The term break in April saw us out again, and spent our time around the islands between Phuket and the mainland. Again it was just great to relax aboard. We did quite a few dives around the Phi Phi islands which are the perfect dramatic backdrop for life at anchor. We decided we wanted to use the boat over the July-August break and with the weather around Phuket being very poor that time of year, the decision was made for me to sail the boat to Borneo.

I enlisted a friend, Kelana, whose wife Margi works with Liz, to come with me and we spent four enjoyable weeks sailing the 1200 miles down the Malacca straits to Singapore, and then a long 600 mile run across the South China Sea to Miri in Sarawak. Kelana was an great crew member and kept an excellent watch, which allowed me to continue my studies while we went along.   Reflections was left in the newly built Miri marina.

Liz's father, Gil, came to visit in June and was able to see the girls at school and help Liz out in her classroom. Anna was particularly pleased to have Grandpa at her primary graduation ceremony.   With the school year finished at the June, we flew to Kuching, Sarawak and had a wonderful two weeks, exploring this excellent city. We visited a longhouse, hiked in a national park and went to an amazing world music festival set in the rainforest at Santibong. Kuching is a definite recommendation.   Gil returned home and we went on to Miri and spent the next five weeks having a lazy time aboard Reflections. We made our way from Miri to Brunei and then on Kota Kinabulu. The girls and Liz flew back to start school and I stayed on to get some study done and to sail the boat back down to Miri. I participated in the Borneo Cup yacht race, which was great fun and profitable as I was paid $US500 for entering Reflections in the races.

Reflections is back in Miri marina and in January I plan to take it to Kudat, at the northern tip of Borneo and lift her out of the water at a shipyard there. I will probably leave her out of the water til June, when we plan to return for the 'Summer/Wet' season break to explore the eastern coast of Borneo.
The first term of the new school year has now finished and we are in a three week break over Christmas and the new year. We plan to stay here for the break and maybe have a few day trips in the area.

Love and best wishes to all
 Colin, Elizabeth, Courtney & Anna

There are a few web pages of the year at our web site – www.reflectionsiv.com


 Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,
Colin, Elizabeth, Courtney and Anna

2006 September Race week on Reflections IV

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Race week on Reflections IV

The story starts in Kota Kinabulu.  Liz and the girls have flown back to Phuket to start school, and I stayed with the boat. After two weeks working hard to catch up on my uni work I set out to Labuan, for the start of the 'race'.  Before we returned to the boat in Miri we heard from friends about a yacht race from Labuan to Miri and there was a $500 participant prize for the first twenty boats to register. I was quite unsure about this as I'd never taken Reflections in a race before and it didn't seem like 'my sort of thing'. Still the idea of the money was too attractive, so I signed up for the '3rd Borneo International Yachting Challenge'.

I assumed I would sail the boat alone but had invited Laura, who had sailed with us from Miri to Brunei, to come and was very pleased the day before I left for Labuan to hear that she would be in Labuan. With absolutely shocking weather the day before, it was quite a relief to see a clear sky in the morning as I left on the 70mile run to Labuan. Going along, motor sailing, I found myself trying to adjust sails and paying more attention to boat speed than we do normally. The competitive spirit was starting to grow.

After a beautiful night anchored off Labuan I came into the harbour the next morning to find lots of yachts anchored off the Waterfront hotel and many more tied up inside the remnants of a marina that had, in great Malaysian style, completely fallen down.  Anchored a respectable distance away from the others, I jumped in a passing dinghy and made my way ashore.

     

After living a bit of a hermit's life while finishing uni assignments,  I really wasn't prepared for the onset of people rushing around, directing me to Customs, Immigration, Ports, Race Registration, Yacht measurement, Hotel check-in and pre-race meetings. All this happening while trying match faces to names for all the different yachts that I'd met over the last two months.  I completely blew the yacht measurement as I didn't know any of the exact measurements and gave lengths in the same way I'd order rope -  a metre extra to be safe. So I ended with a big handicap and in the section with the bigger, faster boats. Seeing I hadn't cleaned the bottom for two months, and the sails are very old  & saggy, I could see a real embarrassing time ahead.

The first night was a buffet dinner, with a band playing good music so loud you couldn't talk. Outside offered the chance to meet a few new people. I was approached by Chris the editor of Fragrant Harbour, a sailing magazine in Hong Kong, to come with me on the overnight passage race from Labuan to Miri. The next day I woke early to get the boat tidy and ready for the first race - ever. Butterflies were working overtime!

So at the appointed hour, we raised anchor and headed out to the race start point. With a only a vague idea of where the start/course was, we decided to take it easy and hang back a bit. This was the strategy of most of the 17 cruising boats taking part so we were spread out for miles. The race organisers announced the start countdown and 5-10 minutes after that we crossed the start. With ridiculously light winds we slowly beat up towards the windward mark. Now it was really showing how bad a sailor I was, as most of the boats steadily left us for dead.  Luckily the wind shifted to our advantage and we made up lots of ground. Reaching out to the next mark the wind died, and whispered from right behind. Put the spinnaker pole out to hold the headsail out,  and we basically moved forward at a snails pace. Three hours later, and we were feeling melted by the heat. If wasn't for the fact that I had a visitor aboard,  I'm sure I would have completely lost my temper in the heat and frustration.  Eventually a whiff of wind took us to the mark, and we turned, feeling the wind almost instantly pick up to12 knots. We rocketed back to the second last mark, actually overtaking a smaller boat and feeling really great about the rush of air and speed. Crossed the line felt really good and sailed on to the anchorage,  happy with the day's outcome - Never hit anyone, and never got in anyone's way.

     

That night a bus trip around the corner to the first prize giving function, with lots of speeches and trophies. A dry night with the staff topping up the orange juice as fast as we could get it down - not a bad thing seeing tomorrow was the overnight race.

The next saw Chris and Laura aboard, and we approached the start with dark skies around. A light wind start followed by a strong wind on the nose and we started to charge across to the Borneo mainland, toward Brunei. With Reflections heeled over and sails in tight, we were charging along, holding our own on the rest of the fleet. So we get ready to tack, and Laura notices the headsail is starting open on a seam - bugger. Not wanting it to rip it right open (been there, done that) I rolled it up and we came to a crawl while I rigged the much smaller cutter sail, and sailed way off the wind at 4 knots. After a few hours the wind died down and, with so little sail area, we assumed a snails pace. The rules allowed us to motor with a time penalty, so we started up and continued to motor for the rest of the 100 miles. Such a shame, but most other cruising boats did the same, as the wind collapsed for most the night.  It turned out to be a very enjoyable trip with a brilliant moon, and very enjoyable conversation with my two crew (pretty sure I talked most of the time).

   

So we motor-sail into Miri, and as we approach I can't see many masts. Fear starts to set in that we may be first. While it was legitimate to motor - no one wants to cross the line first by motoring nearly the whole way. Our saviours were Alistair, Vivienne & Russell on Largo Star (NZ) who won our bet for a beer to the winner between us, and got all the glory. The press arrived, and not understanding about yacht races, assumed they were the winners.  It was with great amusement that we watched the press crowd around them. All in good fun. As the other boats arrived, each being greeted with a case of beer, a party developed.  Sailing all night and then drinking early in the morning is a dangerous mix, but everyone behaved pretty well. I had an absolute ball that day.

That night was aboard the boat, then a lay day to recover, and check into the Park City Everly Hotel for two very comfortable nights.  The last race out of Miri went quite smooth and with a little wind we went around the buoys OK.  On the first of these nights we were taken up to the local Boat Club at the other end of Miri for an excellent night, and the last night was Chinese banquet and full on prize giving, traditional dancing and lots of speeches. Dancing in the small bar of the hotel till early morning, and the race week was done... and I had US$500 in my pocket!  This whole thing was quite a local event and there were lots coverage in the newspapers.  I even got my head in a couple!

       

 

Laura and Christine from Augusta (Norway) had birthdays, so the final celebration was a pot luck party on the jetty the next night. Quietness has now settled as we all start fall back into more sustainable routines.

  

I so wish that Liz, Courtney & Anna could have here for this crazy week, but that wasn't the way it could be. But I was very fortunate to have such good company aboard and would them have them back again anytime, especially this young lady from the US, with which Anna became such good friends.

  

from Laura's blog:

Here is my new best friend Anna. She is the bosom buddy I’ve always wanted. We’ve had hours of conversation paddling all around the Marina.

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August 2006 Miri, Brunei, Labuan and Kota Kinabulu

Miri International Marina

Quite a name, and one day I am sure it will be as glamorous as the name implies.  Part of a massive reclamation project the owner Troy Yaw, part a Chinese Malay family who dominate Miri's business scene, has a passion for sailing and puts his money were his mouth is.  I first heard of Miri Marina from Jo and Noah off Cetacean, who left their boat here.  The marina has been built for two years but there has been no progress on the on-shore facilities, so at this stage the marina is still free. This was a great enticement to sail Reflections 1200 miles to this coast and leave her here for us to return for the July/Aug holidays.  It was a good move as it really attached me (Colin) back to Reflections and I feel that we are still getting value from her, although she isn't our home for now.

Miri town itself isn't much of a town from a sightseeing point of view, but it has lots of shops (shoppers from nearby Brunei frequent Miri) and has a bit of wealth from the oil industry as Miri is a major supply centre for the onshore and offshore oil industry. But to be honest it was nice just to be aboard Reflections and take things easy for a while.  The inevitable problems with 'restarting' a boat you live on took place. Putrid water in the tanks exacerbated by a failed freshwater pump. We spent two weeks there before moving on to Brunei.

During that time we got to know several other boats. Augusta with Cato and Christine aboard, had kept an eye on Reflections for us. Cato is a writer and it was wonderful to see the connection build between him and Courtney.  A large timber boat, Contessa had a large group of young people aboard.  Johnny Ambon the skipper from Indonesia , Jeremy, Aimee & Laura (USA) and Eddie from Fiji, were delivering the boat to Pattaya in Thailand.  While we were there Crystal Blue's owners, Neil and Ley, returned from Australia and Largo Star, with Vivian and Alistair from NZ, came in.  It was such as nice thing to be around other cruising boats and getting back to this lifestyle.

While Courtney seemed to hit it off with Cato, Anna became good friends with Laura, with the two of them spending hours out on the wave ski paddling round the marina and chatting. One of the truly pleasing things of this trip has been to see how well the girls can converse with adults and children alike.

     

Niah Caves
One of the main attractions near Miri is Mulu caves, but the budget had been knocked about after our stay in Kuching so we passed on Mulu, but hired a car and drove 100kms down the coast to Niah Caves. This is a huge cave that is one of the largest in the world. A long boardwalk brought us to the caves and it was neat, but a little eyrie, waking through the caves often in complete darkness. in the middle of the largest cave the sunlight giving a breathtaking sight.

       

Brunei    
So after a few weeks in Miri we realised we needed to move on. On the day we checked out, Laura asked if she could come with us to Brunei. She seemed easy going so we said yes.  We spent three very relaxing days making our way from Miri to the main harbour of Brunei. Easy 30 mile hops each day with a stop in the Kuala Belait the first night, a huge breakwater surrounded harbour built by the sultan's brother the second night and then into Muara to anchor off the Brunei Yacht club at Serasa on the third day. We even caught a nice Spanish mackerel on the first day. It felt so good to be cruising with the family again. And because we had a visitor, we behaved impeccably.

Brunei is a different place to visit. First up, there seems to be a different set of immigration rules for every country. US citizens (Laura) get a three months stay visa for free. Australians get a maximum of thirty days and pay roughly a dollar for each day you stay. Every other country gets a different deal,  and it seems to be the whim the sultan. The sultan of Brunei is the supreme ruler of the country. No democracy here. But the people appear happy with the situation as the oil money flows in, all citizens get free school, health and public servants get a very impressive pension. It seems that all work is done by Indonesian or Filipino guest workers. It was an enjoyable place to see but a place I don't think I'd ever really 'love'. The yacht club was 'the' ex-pat hangout, as it is the only place in Brunei where you can drink in public. They don't sell alcohol, but you turn up in the evening with your bottle of gin, and the staff cheerfully sell you your tonic, lime and ice. Over a really nice meal you can reflect on the day as the sun goes down. Most ex-pats  teach English in Brunei state schools, or work in the oil industry.

   

The capital of Bandar Sri Bandawan is dominated by two large mosques, commissioned by the present sultan and his father.  A huge water village occupies the other side of the river the city sits on.  It was the sultans 60th birthday a few weeks before we arrived so the city was still adorned with huge posters of his royal 'richness'. But possibly the posters are up there all time anyway.

   


We waited in Brunei for some mail to arrive. We went to visit the amusement park in Jerungdong, which is huge and full of great rides that sadly don't work any more. We knew this beforehand, but it seemed like a reasonable evening out and it was. Pretty sad really when people spend so much money to build such a good park and then just let it go.

   

Labuan and Kota Kinabulu
From Brunei we sailed across to Labuan. An island straight off Brunei but part of Malaysia, and duty free. So time to stock up on alcohol and chocolates! This Mosque in Labauan was described in the guide book as Darth Vader's summer house.  When we left Labuan the weather forecast was not great with storm cells about. An hour or two out and a nasty squall got us unprepared. Unfortunately the wind came up very hard before we could roll the headsail up and I had to winch it in while it flogged madly and opened up lots of seams. A repair job was done in Kota Kinabulu and all the seams were reinforced with an extra row of stitching. The sailcloth on the outer edge  is too far gone and either we do another repair or get a new sail soon.  The original intention was to stop at Tiga island on the way but the rotten weather kept up for the next two days as we headed to Sutera Harbour in Kota Kinabulu, Malaysia.



The marina in Sutera Harbour was really nice. It is a no discharge marina so valves are shut or holding tanks used so the marina has the clearest water I've ever seen in a marina pond. We enjoyed the last few days of the family holiday here before Liz and the girls flew back to Phuket to start the new school year and for Anna, the start of High School.  I stayed on for two weeks at Sutera, doing uni work, before heading back down for the start of the yacht race.

 

July 2006 Kuching - Bako National Park & Rainforest World Music Festival

Photos on Flickr - Bako     Photos on Flickr - Music Festival
Kuching - Bako National Park

After the long house visit (Kuching - City & Longhouse Visit) we had a night back in Kuching before heading out for a three day stop in Bako National Park which is 45 minutes out of Kuching on a headland. After spending some much time in Thailand it is natural to compare the two countries - Malaysians drive at a much more relaxed pace and generally the 'oh my god we're gonna crash' event is much less common. We caught a mini bus as the deal was only slightly more than the bus and no wait for the next bus. Safely delivered to a jetty we hopped on a long-tail style boat but with a quiet outboard. Long-tails in Thailand are very unique and culturally significant, but so bloody noisy!  15 minutes later we are wheeling our suitcases, backpacks and plastic bags along the path looking for the parks office. Sounds like an ordeal - 200metres dragging bags in the sun is!  We booked a lodge which was sort of clean and sort of tidy and many of the lights worked - but nice to be in a detached house surrounded by forest with a nice view of Mt Santubong in the distance across the bay.

The national park is home to lots of animals and macaques are very common as are proboscis monkeys and some sort of wild pigs that are particularly ugly.



The main activity here is walking, then recovering from the walks.

First day we had a short walk of an hour and a half in the late afternoon to small beach and saw lots of proboscis monkeys and generally enjoyed the walk. Hot and sweaty at the end of course. Next day a much bigger walk, with a long climb at the start, a long walk to several lookouts and a long section of dry light forest, many unusual pitcher plants, then a seemingly never ending, climb down.  Absolutely buggered at the end! A really still day didn't help for tropical bushwalking.

     

After three enjoyable days at Bako we headed to Santibong for a taste of luxury as we stayed at the Holiday Inn - Damai Beach.  These photos are of the rooms on the headland. We stayed down at the beach level and we only 300metres walk from the Sarawak Cultural Village - venue for the Rainforest Word Music Festival.  We had been told by Michael, one of the teachers at the school, that he had gone last year and enjoyed it so much he was coming again.

After three wonderful days we wholeheartedly agree with Michael's comments. If circumstance allow, we'll be back again next year. The cultural village is set around a small lake and .has a several longhouses built to demonstrate the way the different local groups of Sarawak live. These longhouses became the venues for daytime workshops and a natural amphitheatre, with a high forest backdrop was the venue for the concerts each evening. The workshops were a mix of individual bands demonstrating their musical styles and groups together who explored a certain aspect of the commonality of their music. For example, in one workshop a  musician from Madagascar demonstrated how the local instrument from his country has its roots in a musical instrument from Sarawak. Trading across the Indian Ocean must have taken the instrument to Madagascar centuries ago. Another was a "Bollywood" style dance lesson with an Indian-Malaysian drum band.  This was great fun. We all enjoyed the three days and found we went our separate ways to attend different workshops that interested them.

   

So for three days we stayed in the luxury of a five star detached villa, ate excellent buffets each morning & evening, and spent our days at a truly memorable world music festival. good stuff!

 

After the festival we spent a few more days exploring Kuching, and discovered the old town much more, especially the Chinatown streets that are closed to cars for most of the day. Gil flew home on the last day of the festival and we feel sure he enjoyed the whole thing as much as we did.

   

We stayed at an expensive hotel for a few days, due to a earlier panic session over accommodation, but then moved to lovely cheaper guesthouse call Singgahsana which was much more our style. We left Kuching feeling very pleased with our discovery of this excellent city to visit.

Next we flew to Miri to rejoin Reflections. Miri, Brunei, Labuan& Kota Kinabulu or Home

2006 July - Kuching - City and Longhouse Visit.

Kuching City photos on Flickr
Kuching - City and Longhouse Visit.
So here we are in Kuching in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo, on the end of school year holiday break. We have Liz's father Gil with us and the plan is to stay here in Kuching for 11 or so days and then head to Miri at the other of Sarawak to hop onto Reflections which is sitting in a marina there waiting for us.

Kuching is quite an interesting little city set on a river just a little inland. The history is based around an Englishman Charles Brooke who came and, with the help of a gunship, established himself as the 'white rajah' and had control of the area until it was ceded to the British and then became part of Malaysia. It's a small enough town to walk around and take in the sights, mainly an excellent cultural museum, and arrange plans for the rest of the time here.

Heres a bunch of photos of around Kuching. Kuching means 'cat' in Malaysian hence the multitude of cat statues around the town. Click on the photo for a larger copy - press back on your browser to return.

Dancers on a river cruise...

After two days we had found our bearings, planned out our stay and took off on the first leg.  This was a trip to a longhouse. On our way we stopped at Orangutan sanctuary. Only 20 minutes from Kuching it was very impressive to think that such animals were able to live in the wild so close to humans. A large reserve area houses them where they are free to go as they please. Each day food is laid out for them as a supplement. Even though there were many people there it was an excellent viewing set-up and worth going to.  Memories of our river trip in Kalimantan to the national park to see these and many other animals came flooding back.

The large photo on the end links to a QuickTime movie - it will take a long while to load and only suitable for 'broadband connected types'. (7Mb)

Further along the way to the longhouse we stopped at a market for a rest/drink and a look around. Having been to many markets in SE Asia, this one stood out as particularly clean with a tiled floor and decent roof and ventilation.

Next stop on the tour a pepper farm where we learnt a bit about how pepper grows - on a vine around a pole standing on a dry sloping hill. The spiral mill was neat how it separated the good from the bad peppercorns by centrifugal force. Apparently the only difference between white and black pepper is the husk is removed from the peppercorns to make white pepper. You learn something new every day.

So after four hours we reached the end of the road and a short walk led us to the longhouse.  The traditional lifestyle across the region is to live in a longhouse. These are often over a hundred metres long and many families share the house, each with their own living space behind a door which opens on to huge long common area. The one we visited held 28 families. The one we visited was traditionally built timber structure which are steadily being replaced with concrete ones. Interesting that as they 'modernise' they still follow the same housing practices.

The longhouse we visited was an Iban village with sea faring and hunting practices traditionally followed.

Generally people eat separately and look after there own section of the house, getting together for special functions.  Our accommodation was a longhouse of a kind with cubicles with beds and a verandah to eat on.  In more remote areas, visitors are always welcomed and housed in the communal longhouse, but this is a fair enough compromise with a constant flow of tourist traffic. In the evening there was a short traditional dance, a traditional 'get the tourist to join in and feel stupid' session, and then we sat down and drank some locally brewed rice wine and rice whiskey. The wine was OK but the whiskey was true firewater.






Next and final day of our 'well orchestrated but enjoyable all the same' tour, saw a demonstration of cock fighting (no knives attached and care to ensure the cocks didn't get too agro on each other) and a demonstration and a turn at using a blowpipe. We all managed to shoot a dart into the tree and some even hit the target.  The trip back started with a boat ride down the river in the long slender canoes which shot along in the shallow water with the aid of an outboard that the driver lifted up constantly to skim over the shoals.

Quite a lot packed into a two-day trip. Not something we've done a lot of before (package trips) but all in all it was worth it. After a night back in Kuching we went out to Bako National Park for three days.

Time for a new page Kuching - Bako National Park. or Home