Category Archives: Labuan

Labuan, Malaysia

Weather glitch

Hi All,

  We had planned to be in Miri by now but bad cruising weather changed our plans.  We had rough but not terrible weather from KK to Labuan.   The marine forecast for the area has “20 to 30 knot wind on the nose” and 2.5 to 3.5 meters which is roughly 8 to 15 ft waves.  Too big to deal with.  Several other boats have pulled into the harbor here since we arrived.  Probably for the same reason or they are doing a booze run since Labuan is a freeport with cheaper alcohol.  Things should calm down by Wednesday so maybe we’ll leave by then.  Internet is too slow here to send photos. 

So that’s it.

Sox are hanging in there…..

Ru

Brunei, Labuan

Brunei

July 30th

Leaving Labuan on our way to Kota Kinabalu

Hi All,

  We’ll be leaving Labuan soon for our 2 day passage to KK.  We plan to anchor overnight near Tiga Island.  Customs and Immigration officials were all very pleasant and very efficient so it took relatively no time.  I say relatively since we had to water taxi ashore and go to 3 offices in two different buildings.  Our purchases in Labuan, 2 boxes of Cabernet Shiraz, Vodka, Scotch and 2 tiny bottles of Chardonnay for happy hours on other boats where you BYOB.  We skipped the beer.

  We had Chinese lunch with 2 cruiser friends, a short walk around town,  and Indian dinner with 6 other cruiser friends. 

  All in all a short pleasant stay.

Ru

 

Brunei

We had a really good time in Brunei. The activities were good, the food was good, and we got to know more of the Sail Malaysia cruisers. It was a little like being at “Club Brunei” with Allan Riches as the activities director. Allan had come to Miri to meet with us, see what activities we would like, deal with some of the paperwork we’d need to fill out, arranged for the fuel folks would need to get and the transport for getting it. He was even tour leader on our Brunei city tour which made it really great because he seems to know everything about everything about Brunei.

clip_image002 http://www.bruneibay.net/intrepidtours/staff.html

We were anchored out but the Royal Brunei Yacht Club had facilities for showers, a pool, washing machine and restaurant. They even had a small library. It was closed while we were there, but they had weeded many of their paperbacks and put them out for cruisers to help themselves.

clip_image004

Australians Anne and Brian Wilson from the Catamaran Hybresail at a table in the RBYC Serasa.

We had spoken to Anne and Brian other times during Sail Indonesia and now Sail Malaysia. I knew they had met when both of them were ball room dance instructors. But during the “Carvery” lunch at the RBYC Kota Batu location, we got to know more about them while we ate plates of carved lamb, beef, chicken and that’s why it’s called a carvery. This picture shows them at the RBYC Serasa location. You can see the stack of books Anne picked. Some of the stories they told could have been episodes of “Life on a cattle ranch in Australia.” And Brian built H really neat couple. And Anne has one of those voices that I could listed to all day, gracious, thoughtful and ladylike. Obviously we like them.

clip_image006

Food from the “carvery.” I had double helpings of lamb and skipped the roast beef and chicken. There was also spicy mint jelly and the bread in the corner is a brioche, I think. All of the meat is cut in very, very thin slices, but I did go back for more though with all of the sides of veggies and roasted potatoes and then the offerings of desserts, thin slices were enough. (I had the second helping of lamb for dessert. Not sure why I have become so addicted to lamb since we arrived in Malaysia. It all started with the limburger at the Sebana Cove Marina. Then it was lamb roti at the Singapore Zam Zam restaurant on Arab Street. We skipped the chance to dress up and have dinner at the Sultan’s Polo Club that evening; that would have just been too much food for the day and we have no dress up clothes and Randal wouldn’t wear them if we did.

We anchored at the Brunei Yacht Club Serasa early in the morning of July 25th. Our Brunei activities were:

July 25th… Check in with the marine officials that Allan Riches had arranged to come to the Yacht Club between noon and 2 pm

(eat a quick lunch to be ready for the City tour)

Discover Brunei. A 4 hour bus tour around Bander Seri Begawan to learn about Brunei lead by Allan Riches. This was a great tour. We visited the Jame’Asr Hassanal Bolkia Mosque, the largest mosque in the country. We were allowed to take photos outside and in the entry hall, but that’s it.

clip_image008

Lots of winding stairways outside and inside too.

clip_image010

More gilded stairways. One stairway had a stair for each sultan of Brunei so there were 29, I think.

clip_image012

Randal insisted I take a photo of him holding is foot?….? Men who wore shorts had to wear robes.

Only one man wore pants, but he wore a robe too, just for the experience maybe.

clip_image014

I love this photo. Of course my first thought was “The Supreme Court.”

Our short stay in Brunei gave us a chance to meet more people than we had during most of Sail Malaysia. I even got to know Emma, the 6 year old in the pink top and striped skirt. She was really very brave and polite and very mature for a 6 year old, I think.

clip_image016

There were also mirrors as well as stairways. I just like this photo of me taken by me. Makes me look thin!

Next stop The Royal Regalia Building.