Kudat is a pleasant, friendly, safe, quiet, picturesque fishing town, which luckily the main guides have managed to overlook –perhaps because it is missing a reggae bar—(?!?). Being a frontier town facing the Balabac strait (a main smuggler area) Kudat is populated by very mixed ethnicities: Malay, Chinese, Filipino, Indian, Bangladeshi, and Indonesian.
There are several fantastic restaurants, notably the “Dragon Lady” (Chinese); the mee-goreng place ran by Bangladeshi, a Golf Club where one can eat for 1 US dollar (to think that it is so common to associate Golf with expensiveness), and the Crown Café that stays open late. The hotel by the golf club lets cruisers use its showers and swimming pool for free, while for boats there is a fantastic boatyard catering to fishing boats mostly and a few hardware shops with some basics.
In Kudat also there is an unfinished marina that is still free to stay at, and there we have the pleasant surprise of finding two boats previously met in Puerto Princesa and another met two years before in Fiji!
One boat is Utiekah III, of which I have many photos and memories. Both I and my girlfriend decide it is a good chance to have a break and go back to visit home (February 2009).
Returned, since the boat was already on the dry in Penuwasa boatyard, we decide to redo the bottom paint, and after a few weeks of painful sanding and painting the boat is back in the water. In Kudat we are joined by Carlos and Jenny which both helped tremendously with the work and with which we had such a good time while in the boatyard and after, when, all charged up by the mounting desire to go, we finally set off. We round the tip of Borneo and have a first stop by Kulambok Island. At low tide Kulambok is joined to the mainland by a baring strip of white sand, making the little bay a very pretty sight to behold. There are several villas and resorts being developed nearby, but not being in operation yet the bay and white beach is still all ours and for the fishermen to enjoy.
When we feel like we rested enough and we’ve seen enough of Kulambok we set off for Mantanani Island. Quite pretty although not an easy anchorage, Carlos gets to perform for the village with a guitar, we enjoy more snorkeling, relaxing and discovering the island; the only negative aspect is that while the portion of beach being kept for the tourists (though we were there off season and were the only western visitors on the island) is spotless, the villagers think nothing of throwing all of their garbage right in the water, neatly packed in a plastic bag. Will humans ever learn?
From Mantanani to Kota Kinabalu via Usukan Bay and a visit to Kota Belud with its famous market. Carlos gets to climb Mount Kinabalu, Jenny goes to Thailand to spend some time in a “Silence Meditation Center”, wonder how much that cost. In KK we do some price research, eat plenty of Japanese food at the restaurants, sip plenty of Starbucks coffee while using the wi-fi, meet up again with Johnnie of Utiekah III. Then we move down to the duty free harbor of Labuan, shop for some cheap booze and smokes and go see Brunei.
Brunei is pretty nice, with diesel priced at 20 cents a
liter, great public transportation. In one day we get to see the capital, one museum dedicated to the sultan (everything in Brunei is about the Sultan), and charter a launch upriver to see the mangrove swamps and the proboscis monkeys and one humongous Monitor Lizard.
From Brunei next stop is Singapore, what better occasion to quit smoking?
All fueled up for the price of a few bottles of wine we set off one bright day for Singapore, 700 nautical miles away. We sail very little or nothing at all passing through endless oil fields crowded with rigs, platforms, production wells and other hazards sticking out of the sea bottom; it is actually a quite scenic and eerie scene all of those bright cities floating in the middle of nowhere and the flames on the horizon coloring the black sky in a red glow. We are not smoking and when the engine starts over heating we still don’t smoke. I figure it’s the heat exchanger getting plugged up like last time in Olimarao, so we clean it but the engine still overheats; it’s not the impeller either. We decide (like we have a choice) to try sailing no matter how slow, and even though we are moving at one knot for three days with the same islands always in sight in a flat calm hotter than hell…we still don’t smoke.
A little breeze picks up and slowly but surely as we approach Singapore, we start seeing huge bulk carriers anchored way offshore and the sea traffic getting more intense as we get closer.
Nighttime finds Keturah sailing (at one knot) right into the “traffic separation zone”. Carlos has the shift approaching Singapore, but I just need some sleep and leave it entirely to him to steer us in. When I wake up we notice how the cargoes are really coming close, all coming in our direction for some reason. Not lightly concerned, I fire up the navigation computer and find out quickly that we are sailing right in the middle of the opposite flow direction. Just our luck some current shifted unsuspecting Carlos exactly where we’re NOT supposed to be!
Quite huffed and fed up at this temporary lack of control over my own destiny, I decide to use the engine at least long enough to get us back in the right way. By late the next morning, after a pleasant day sail zig-zagging between cargo ships and oil platforms, we are safely docked in Sebana Cove Marina, exhausted but happy. We celebrate with a huge burger and plenty cold ales and toast to the fact that in spite of all these stresses and difficulties we managed to become ex-smokers.
There are several fantastic restaurants, notably the “Dragon Lady” (Chinese); the mee-goreng place ran by Bangladeshi, a Golf Club where one can eat for 1 US dollar (to think that it is so common to associate Golf with expensiveness), and the Crown Café that stays open late. The hotel by the golf club lets cruisers use its showers and swimming pool for free, while for boats there is a fantastic boatyard catering to fishing boats mostly and a few hardware shops with some basics.
In Kudat also there is an unfinished marina that is still free to stay at, and there we have the pleasant surprise of finding two boats previously met in Puerto Princesa and another met two years before in Fiji!
One boat is Utiekah III, of which I have many photos and memories. Both I and my girlfriend decide it is a good chance to have a break and go back to visit home (February 2009).
Returned, since the boat was already on the dry in Penuwasa boatyard, we decide to redo the bottom paint, and after a few weeks of painful sanding and painting the boat is back in the water. In Kudat we are joined by Carlos and Jenny which both helped tremendously with the work and with which we had such a good time while in the boatyard and after, when, all charged up by the mounting desire to go, we finally set off. We round the tip of Borneo and have a first stop by Kulambok Island. At low tide Kulambok is joined to the mainland by a baring strip of white sand, making the little bay a very pretty sight to behold. There are several villas and resorts being developed nearby, but not being in operation yet the bay and white beach is still all ours and for the fishermen to enjoy.When we feel like we rested enough and we’ve seen enough of Kulambok we set off for Mantanani Island. Quite pretty although not an easy anchorage, Carlos gets to perform for the village with a guitar, we enjoy more snorkeling, relaxing and discovering the island; the only negative aspect is that while the portion of beach being kept for the tourists (though we were there off season and were the only western visitors on the island) is spotless, the villagers think nothing of throwing all of their garbage right in the water, neatly packed in a plastic bag. Will humans ever learn?
From Mantanani to Kota Kinabalu via Usukan Bay and a visit to Kota Belud with its famous market. Carlos gets to climb Mount Kinabalu, Jenny goes to Thailand to spend some time in a “Silence Meditation Center”, wonder how much that cost. In KK we do some price research, eat plenty of Japanese food at the restaurants, sip plenty of Starbucks coffee while using the wi-fi, meet up again with Johnnie of Utiekah III. Then we move down to the duty free harbor of Labuan, shop for some cheap booze and smokes and go see Brunei.
Brunei is pretty nice, with diesel priced at 20 cents a
liter, great public transportation. In one day we get to see the capital, one museum dedicated to the sultan (everything in Brunei is about the Sultan), and charter a launch upriver to see the mangrove swamps and the proboscis monkeys and one humongous Monitor Lizard.From Brunei next stop is Singapore, what better occasion to quit smoking?
All fueled up for the price of a few bottles of wine we set off one bright day for Singapore, 700 nautical miles away. We sail very little or nothing at all passing through endless oil fields crowded with rigs, platforms, production wells and other hazards sticking out of the sea bottom; it is actually a quite scenic and eerie scene all of those bright cities floating in the middle of nowhere and the flames on the horizon coloring the black sky in a red glow. We are not smoking and when the engine starts over heating we still don’t smoke. I figure it’s the heat exchanger getting plugged up like last time in Olimarao, so we clean it but the engine still overheats; it’s not the impeller either. We decide (like we have a choice) to try sailing no matter how slow, and even though we are moving at one knot for three days with the same islands always in sight in a flat calm hotter than hell…we still don’t smoke.A little breeze picks up and slowly but surely as we approach Singapore, we start seeing huge bulk carriers anchored way offshore and the sea traffic getting more intense as we get closer.
Nighttime finds Keturah sailing (at one knot) right into the “traffic separation zone”. Carlos has the shift approaching Singapore, but I just need some sleep and leave it entirely to him to steer us in. When I wake up we notice how the cargoes are really coming close, all coming in our direction for some reason. Not lightly concerned, I fire up the navigation computer and find out quickly that we are sailing right in the middle of the opposite flow direction. Just our luck some current shifted unsuspecting Carlos exactly where we’re NOT supposed to be!Quite huffed and fed up at this temporary lack of control over my own destiny, I decide to use the engine at least long enough to get us back in the right way. By late the next morning, after a pleasant day sail zig-zagging between cargo ships and oil platforms, we are safely docked in Sebana Cove Marina, exhausted but happy. We celebrate with a huge burger and plenty cold ales and toast to the fact that in spite of all these stresses and difficulties we managed to become ex-smokers.
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