A problem with going into Labuan at night is that the navigation aids are poorly maintained. There are a few lights and an abandoned buoy that used to mark the portside entrance to the harbor. There’s a daymark lying on its side next to the unlit buoy, so it’s a double whammy hazard. We almost hit it, missing it mostly by chance, which didn’t improve my disposition. We tiptoed into the small boat anchorage, dropped the hook, and went to sleep. Tuesday morning we were up bright and early to make the ¾ mile crossing to the marina. 

The marina just gets worse and worse. The last time we were here the marina had just taken delivery of some new modular docks, apparently all steel, but they were not in evidence when we got there. We learned that the first storm after the new docks were put in broke them all, so back to the old docks which were shaky but usable. This is such a shame, and we hope that they can fix this marina to make it safe and comfortable in all conditions because Labuan is a pleasant stop on the way up or down the Borneo coast, and Eddie, the marina manager, is one of the nicest and most helpful of marina managers in Malaysia. 

Friday morning we set off, planning to make day hops until we were past Brunei and its oil fields. As with most of our plans, this one didn’t quite work out the way we had expected. The wind was behind us, almost a downwind run, my least favorite point of sail. But the wind was mild, the seas were flat, and we were sailing along so comfortably that when the first tenable anchorage was reached about 11 in the morning, it seemed far too early to stop. So we kept on, hoping that we could find something further down the coast. The seas were getting rougher, and the skies were clouding up and getting darker. At 5 in the afternoon we closed in on the coast only to find that the 2-mile long jetty we were aiming for offered absolutely no shelter and anchoring would have put us on a lee shore, and a lumpy one to boot. So we resigned ourselves to continuing down the coast. We were again running darn close to dead downwind with stormy conditions threatening. Peter reefed the main all the way down, and we sailed along, doing about 7 knots as it started to rain. This was far too fast for the conditions, wind of about 20 to 25 knots, pitch dark with nasty waves crosswise to the swell. We then reefed the jib down to practically nothing. That slowed us down to about 5 knots, but we were between a rock and a hard place. 

We couldn’t jibe and sail offshore because we would have had to thread ourselves through a large oil field. We couldn’t go in the other direction because land was only 5 miles that way. Both of us had to sit in the cockpit getting wet and miserable as the threat of rain became a reality. Downwind sailing in such messy and boisterous conditions is not a piece of cake. Although the autopilot steers the boat better than Peter or I could, if something happened it would take two of us to react – one to dive for the steering wheel while the other person disengaged the autopilot and grabbed whatever line would save us from embarrassment, accident, or worse. One of the reasons I prefer sailing on the wind: no matter what happens one person can usually sort it out because left to its own devices the boat will head into the wind and stop. We had to jibe several times to avoid: land; large oil rigs right in our path; and/or fishing boats which were flashing lights that clearly said “stay away from me!”  

After an hour of increasingly violent wind and rain we could not longer kid ourselves that this was just a squall. Our running downwind was taking us in the opposite direction from our destination and just prolonging the time we would be in this weather. As we both tired somebody was going to make a mistake, so Peter turned us into the wind and we started the engine to push more water over the rudder and make steering more effective. The autopilot could then be engaged, and only one person needed to be in the cockpit. We were both wet and cold, and once we had changed into something dry Peter went below to crawl into his bunk and warm up. I sat in the companionway where the heat from the engine could warm me. 

When you are wet and cold you tire much more quickly, and I couldn’t stay awake long enough to give Peter a long sleep after about three hours so I woke him us so that I could get some sleep before I made a mistake. We got through the night, and with the sunrise the wind shifted enough that we could again sail. 

We arrive in Bintulu, a newly built commercial harbor, at about 2 on Monday afternoon, about eight hours later than we had expected. The HAM radio net that morning confirmed what we had experienced. A lot of bad weather out there that was going to continue for another three days. 

As we motored into the harbor a Harbor Police boat met us before we had gotten very far. Harbor Control was trying to call us on the radio, but they didn’t use Channel 16 so we didn’t hear them. Peter got the frequency from the police boat, and the Harbor Master told him that we would be guided to where we could anchor. The fellows on the police boat told us to go down to the end of the harbor and there we would find a small basin where we could anchor. When we got down there, however, we were dismayed – the basin wasn’t big enough to allow us the swinging room we needed – we were going to bump into the rocky shore or the huge commercial dock opposite. We turned to come out when the police boat came back, encouraging us to go back into the basin and anchor, which we did with much concern. The fellows on the police boat then took a long line from us and tied our stern to the container ship dock. 

After a couple hours rest Peter blew up the dinghy and went over to rerigg the stern lines, attaching chain to the struts so that the lines wouldn’t chafe through. Over the next two days we went to Bintulu town to look around and to get a few fresh provisions, such as bread, onions, whatever we could find.

Part II 
Friday, March 09, 2001 
Well, we’re 0 for 3. We left Bintulu Thursday morning. Motored for about 3 hours until the afternoon breeze set in, and then we sailed. Really great sailing. About 10 knots of wind, flat calm, so we were doing 6, 6.5, 7 knots with really comfortable conditions. Sky was clear, a lovely day. About 3 in the afternoon the wind started to freshen, and Peter decided to put two reefs in the Mainsail. Even with two reefs in the Main we were doing 6.5 to 7 knots. Peter originally planned to reef the Main all the way down just before sunset, but at 5 o’clock clouds started to accumulate on the mainland, and I figured we would be wiser to reef the Main early just in case. We had set a course to keep us well away from land, but we were still running parallel to it. We had about 150 miles of sailing due West before the coast of Borneo fell away and we could turn South to head for Singapore. 

The sky started to cloud over. With only two days until the Full Moon, the sky was very light, but too overcast to see moon or stars. Both of us tried to sleep, but we weren’t very successful. Finally, at about midnight, I insisted that Peter try to get some sleep. Well, of course as soon as he went below the wind died completely, which from the previous two nights meant that we were going to get hammered with a storm. I quickly rolled in the Genoa, told Peter to come up because I could feel the storm rearing its ugly head. He got up, started the engine (we’ve learned, anyway), and shortly after putting it in gear, the storm started. Not quite as violent as the last one, but nasty enough. We wanted to be facing the wind because that’s the general direction we were headed, and heading into the wind was less dangerous than trying to run with the storm – we would get through it sooner, and in this case we wouldn’t lose 6 or eight miles. Peter steered because the wind was too violent for the autopilot to work effectively. The strong winds (30 knots with occasional stronger gusts) kept Peter’s attention completely on steering the boat, leaving me to keep a watch out for any ships that might appear in our path. 

We got through it, and Friday dawned overcast but dead calm. This time the wind just didn’t come up at all, which turned out to be a bit more of our luck showing itself. 

I hadn’t had much sleep, and so when Peter came into the cockpit after sleeping, I told him I was going to sleep. Before I did that, however, Peter wanted to shake out the reefs in the main and get ready for any chance wind that might arise. However, when he went forward to haul up the main, he discovered that the cotter pin holding the pin of the gooseneck secure had worked its way loose, and the gooseneck was just barely holding on. In other words, the boom was set to break off from the mast with only a little encouragement. What a disaster that would have been had it happened the night before in all that wind! 

It took close to two hours to re-secure everything. We had to support the boom with the topping lift and the main halyard, immobilize it with preventer and main sheet, disconnect the boom from the mast, clean up the pin, maneuver it around to line up the holes so the cotter pin could be reinserted, and then the boom reinstalled on the mast, and then everything tidied up. All while the boat was motoring along at 5 knots. Dead calm was a blessing while this was all going on. 

Karma. That’s what it is. When we were in Labuan we were talking with the fellow in the slip next to us on a small (26’ or less) Wharram Catamaran he had built in the Philippines. He was a teacher in Brunei and was one of the teachers that has been cut back. He was in Labuan getting ready to sail singlehanded to Singapore and up to Phuket, Thailand. He mentioned to Peter that somehow his masthead light had broken, so he was not going to have any navigation lights (whoops!). There is no possibility of only doing day sails, and Peter was so worried about his not having any lights, that he gave him our emergency flashing yellow light which works off a 12V cigarette lighter plug. I agree with what Peter did, but I cannot understand why this fellow doesn’t make an effort to replace the masthead light. It would cost a few dollars to have a new light sent by air courier to him. But how much is his life worth? 

Sunday, March 11, 2001 

We are 1 for 5. Overcast Friday was uneventful. A few hours after the boom was fixed, the breeze came up and we were able to sail for the rest of the day and all night. No storm! First night out that we didn’t have a storm. Peter thinks that it’s because with the overcast all day the land didn’t heat up and so there wasn’t enough energy for a thunderstorm as things cooled down in the evening. Whatever, it was nice. 

The breeze continued throughout the night and Saturday. Saturday morning we had shaken the reefs out of the main, but about 3 in the afternoon things started to get a little boisterous, and there were threatening clouds all around us, so we decided to reef the main all the way down early, just in case. 

Some days we just do the right thing. The main was reefed all the way down by 3:30 in the afternoon, and the storm hit about 4:00. Not as violent as the other ones, it only packed winds of about 20 to 25 knots max. But again, torrential rains denied us visibility past the limits of the ‘Melon, and the wildly variable winds and lumpy seas made it necessary to start the engine so we could have some control and steer into the wind. The storm was over after a little more than an hour, leaving no wind it its wake, but miserably confused and uncomfortable seas. It was a bit like being in a washing machine, tossed from one side to the other, then back and forth, then swirl around a bit and then take off in a different direction. Very tiring. Rather than fight the discomfort, we just didn’t eat until about 8 that night when the seas had finally calmed down enough that pots stayed on the stove and I stayed with them. 

Sunday morning and the wind still hadn’t returned. We had to motor all day. Now I can be thankful that we got ten gallons of diesel when we were in Bintulu. We might need all of it to get to Sebana Cove. 

As usual, though, things still can’t go quite right. While we were motoring there was a slight noise and the engine slipped out of gear. We have been having troubles with the transmission for several months, now, but this was the first time something like that had happened. Peter got it back in gear and we motored along, but something wasn’t right. So once the wind had died completely and things were very calm, he stopped the engine and put on mask and snorkel and went over the side. And sure enough, we had picked up a chunk of rope that had slightly fouled the prop. So he cut that off, and got himself and all gear back on the boat. But unfortunately, when Peter tried to get us going again, the boat wouldn’t go into gear. Whoops! Middle of the ocean, dead, dead calm, and now what? First we had to let the engine cool off enough for Peter to even get in there to look at it. Some fiddling around, start the engine. Still no forward gear. Worrisome.

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