Tarakan, North Kalimantan, Borneo, Indonesia

Children on cart selling durian fruit

03° 017' 094N
117° 35' 098E

For the time being, we have bid a fond farewell to Malaysia as we crossed over the Sabah border into North Kalimantan, Indonesia where we immediately noticed the difference again. Indonesia is definitely the poor cousin with regards to the infrastructure and general standards of living. 

What makes this rather surprising when looking into the history of Tarakan, our first stop, is that  Tarakan is one of the major cities in northern Borneo and was once a major oil producing region during the colonial period.  When one compares the almost obscene wealth of Brunei on the same Island, the poverty here comes as a bit of a shock.

Early in the 1900s, oil was discovered which eventually produced of over 5 million barrels a year. Unfortunately, this made Tarakan an obvious target for the Japanese during WWII along with its strategic position from which to launch further attacks. The Tarakan inhabitants suffered greatly under Japan's occupation until Allied forces, centred around the Australian Brigade, made it less attractive by destroying the island's oil production and storage facilities and ousting the aggressors.

 

We visited one of the many bunker and gun sites overlooking the harbour area as well the Australian War Monument and a round house used by the Australian forces, now a small museum housing war relics.  Several of the Aussie cruisers had relatives who had fought in the two major battles of Tarakan so this had great meaning for them.

Our city tour also took us to a mangrove reserve where we saw a troop of proboscis monkeys high in the trees.  Sadly, they also had caged fish eagles which wasn't so nice. There are just so many of these eagles around which makes us wonder about their thinking behind caging some.

 

Most of our time in Tarakan was centred around paperwork.  Indonesia is, by far, the worst and most complicated country to enter with a boat.  Last year we paid through the nose for an agent to apply for and process reams of documents to allow us into the country and even then it was somewhat of a nightmare.  This year we were invited to join a rally where the prime document, the CAIT, was offered free, sponsored by the rally organisers, a great boon to all of us but we still had all the formalities to endure.  It's definitely a case of the right hand not knowing what the left is doing. They could take a big leaf out of Malaysia's book; short, sweet and absolutely free!  Fortunately, this hasn't cost us anything this year apart from the visa which is the only reason we've returned. 

Don't get me wrong, we loved our time in Indonesia last year and look forward to visiting some new locations this time around.  Sometimes the poverty can be a bit overwhelming but the people are always such a delight which makes it a wonderful country to visit.

We were hosted to a dinner after the tour and each given a delightful stuffed and furry toy, the town's mascot, a proboscis monkey.  Too cute!  They will now join our other stuffed souvenirs e.g. the koala from Oz and toucan from Panama.

Our next stop (we're off tonight) is to a group of islands about 85nm south of here where we live in hopes of getting in some decent snorkelling and maybe even a dive or two.

PHOTO ALBUM:

Mom & baby

Fixing nets

The very poor living conditions

Accepting gifts from Tarakan's mayor

Our gifts

 

Pulau Gaya

Back into a paradise.  Pulau Gaya is a marine park which is usually off limits to visiting yachts but the rally gave us the opportunity to anchor right inside the large lagoon.  It had never been a destination before as permission hadn't been granted previously so they weren't to know that it was actually too deep to comfortably drop anchor just outside the marine office, over 22 metres on a broken coral bottom which is never good holding.  However, as long as we didn't get a squall, it shouldn't prove too much of a problem.

Crystal clear

On the first evening we all got together with the Maritim Malaysia and Marine Police officers for a pot luck dinner in a gorgeous setting just on the park's pier.   

The following morning saw us up bright and early to climb to the top of the cliffs for the most spectacular view.  Definitely well worth the effort.

 

 

The outer reefs also gave us a wonderful opportunity for snorkelling and diving where we found new fish and corals and lots of turtles.  Our schedule and stopovers hadn't given us the chance to do much in the way of underwater investigations; the town waters are too dirty, the rivers had crocodiles and due to the security issues, we were rushed through a lot of the small islands, so this was heaven to those of us who'd been longing for coral reefs.  The waters were clear, warm and teeming with life, nothing big other than the turtles but always such a thrill to be down there.

Our next stop was again up a river but a few of the deeper keeled boats such a Calypso, had to drop anchor on the outside of the sand bar at the entrance to await higher tides and even when we finally felt it high enough, we scraped through with barely and inch to spare.

Our biggest disappointment came at this point as one of the selling features of this rally was diving at Sipidan, one of the world's most beautiful dive sites.  Only a very limited number are allowed at the site each day and permission has to be sought well in advance.  For whatever reasons which remain a mystery, this permission was granted but the trip never materialised.  Unfortunately, there were insufficient divers to really create a fuss but I, for one, was desolate;  not a happy camper.

Our security detail came to an end once we arrived in Tawau, our last stop, and sadly, the night we were all at our farewell dinner, 5 boats were vandalised which left a slightly sour taste.  None were serious, just cut and removed furling or davit lines, but the Minister of Tourism was so embarrassed that he handed out $100 to each boat as compensation and had some serious words to say to the police department that was meant to be protecting the anchorage.  Just a pity that a wonderful trouble-free rally had to end like that.

Our time in Malaysian Borneo has come to an end.  We now head back into Indonesia to wend our long way back towards Singapore.  Last year we had no winds to take us through all the Indonesian islands.  This year, we hear that the winds are excessive - perhaps we'll find the happy medium in there somewhere.

PHOTO GALLERY:
(Underwater shots & photo of Calypso courtesy of Ocelot) 

The fleet arrives in Pulau Gaya

Looking up and....

....down

Paul enjoys his free-diving

Juvenile Angelfish

Feeling special and very safe

At the end of last year while in Langkawi, we enjoyed a firework and techno light show each evening for two weeks put on to celebrate the opening of a massive campaign to introduce the "Visit Malaysia in 2014" promotion.

The government must have spent more than a small fortune in their efforts to bring more tourists to this magnificent country all to be dashed by firstly, the disappearance of flight MH370, followed by the downing of flight MH17 and, possibly not so well known, an attack on a prime resort in Sabah Borneo where a policeman was killed and another kidnapped as well as several incidents of wealthy businessmen taken hostage and held for ransom all by Filipino pirates.  The southern islands of the Philippines lie within a few short miles of the eastern coastline of Borneo and these have been the launching pad of such attacks.  

Now, as luck would have it, we are part of the Passage to the East Rally sailing these exact same waters and heaven forbid that anything should happen to one of us.  With this in mind, we have been given a security detail that would let the President of the United States sleep soundly at nights.  We have high speed gunboats of various shapes and sizes shadowing us, 24 hour surveillance circling us even while at anchor, helicopters passing over from time to time and some of the nicest marine, police and coast guard blokes one can imagine all ensuring nothing untoward gets near to us.  

These chaps weren't taking any chances

A dusk to dawn curfew has been imposed on the entire east coast which must make it very difficult for the fishing boats that regularly fish at nights but it has been so strictly enforced that a large number of boats have been confiscated and their crews arrested for breaking that curfew. There has even been a 'shoot to kill' command issued with zero tolerance for any suspicious vessels but little evidence that this will actually happen unless they are attacked first but it just shows how seriously the authorities are taking the situation.  
 

We have day hopped all down the coast while travelling in a fairly tight convoy with our wonderful escorts darting around us.  Suffice it to say, we feel very very safe and once we pass south of Tawau, we'll be far enough south for it to be of no threat at all.  It seems that the kidnapping incidents are not random but rather 'kidnap to order' where an insider has targeted a wealthy businessman or the like. The pirates then rush in, grab their target and dash back across the waters quickly.  If they ever do any research on the cruising community, they'll soon learn that there's no profit in grabbing one of us.

Even in the most idyllic settings, we were escorted by small gunboats

Our sincere thanks must go out to all those chaps who are looking after the fleet.  When we were told we'd have protection, we never expected anything quite like this.  We are very impressed and very grateful.

Guests with smiles and M16s

Watching over us

Kinabatangan River trip

Time to leave Sandakan.  We had been warned that the waters of Sandakan were heavily fouled with dumped wrecks, artillery, machinery or whatever dating back to the Japanese occupation during WWII.  Well, we were to find out first hand.  Over a period of a few days, one by one the rally boats left the anchorage but, when it came to our turn - yup, you guessed it, we were well and truly stuck.  What is it with us?  Ots & Lil, don't laugh!  Crossing the Pacific, we endured a bit of a reputation for having to dive our anchor so often to the point that some cruising friends would say that if they wanted to be sure to well and truly set their anchor, just drop it where Calypso did; guaranteed holding.

On this occasion, it was a bit deep to work while free diving (18 metres) and revoltingly dirty waters so we shuffled back, forth and sideways for an hour and a quarter, but eventually managed to free it.  It was obviously wrapped around something metallic, we could see shiny scraped patches all along the chain.  We'd had another bad squall a couple of nights before when several of the boats dragged and we prided ourselves on the fact that we had 70 metres of chain out so didn't budge.  Well, no wonder!  Every day is an adventure.

Our next destination was a trip down the Kinabatangan River and the timing of our departure was fairly crucial as we had to get to the river mouth sand bar at high tide (preferably a rising tide) in order to make it over the shallows.  We were now running late and the tide had turned, however we crept over slowly with less than half a metre under our keel in a few spots and met up with Saol Eile who had anchored a bit further up to wait for us so we dropped the hook behind them.  However, our troubles weren't over just yet as a little later, we wanted to move a couple of miles further up the river.  Saol Eile went ahead while we fiddled around with a few things but when we went to turn on, nothing, dead, nada, zero, zilch.  This has happened before and Paul simply cleaned up the fuse, replaced it and 'A' for away but not this time.  He went through everything, replaced the fuse, it popped, put in another, it too popped.  Damn, stranded.  Putting two and two together and coming up with five made us think that we'd possibly blown a couple of diodes in the alternator when we were trying to extract the anchor earlier.  Not good.

However, as luck would have it, we got onto the radio and discovered that Mick off the Australian boat Zoa was an electrician and after discussing the various symptoms, he agreed to hop into his dinghy in the morning with his magic box of tools and come back down the river to see if he could assist.  

He was with us before seven the next morning so we had the coffee on and the chaps got to work.  A couple of hours later, we were back in business.  Thank you Mick, thank you so much.  He determined that there was nothing wrong with the alternator but was puzzled as to why we kept blowing fuses.   In the end, it was a simple matter of the original fuse's natural attrition and our replacements were too small.  What we thought were 75 amp fuses were actually only 7.5 amp.  The old eyes aren't quite what they used to be and we couldn't see that damned little dot between the numbers in the dim light of the engine room.  He cleaned things up and replaced it with one slightly too small but sufficient to get us over the hurdle until we can find the correct ones in the next town.  We had visions of being stranded up a rarely travelled river deep in the jungles of Borneo with no motor and certainly no wind, but we were on the move again, thank goodness.

The Kinabatangan River is a winding, shallow and muddy one and we had to zigzag our way up to avoid the many sand banks and massive floating logs.  We anchored at half a dozen spots to simply enjoy the atmosphere and look out for proboscis and macaque monkeys.  Fireflies also added to the evening ambiance.  These little fairy lights twinkled in the trees as though someone had decorated them with strands of LED Christmas lights; magnificent. 

One objective was to go in search of pygmy elephants.  The vegetation further up the river is thick rainforest and the bird sounds are quite amazing.  We saw rhinoceros hornbills, storks, cranes and beautifully coloured kingfishers as well as a many eagles and other raptors but, sadly, no elephants and no orangutans.  At one point, we dashed over to where another boat had sighted a couple of elephants but past experience has taught us that, despite their size, they are capable of hiding behind a blade of grass.  We could hear them crashing through the shrubbery and a lot of trumpeting but couldn't quite catch a glimpse of them.

A side trip by dinghy up an oxbow river took us into a placid lake with dozens of proboscis monkeys playing in the trees.  We took our evening drinks and drifted around to watch them vying for whichever branch they'd chosen to settle on for the night.  It seemed that the least comfortable branch was the most sought after.  How they sleep like this is beyond me.

Although we'd have loved to see more wildlife, we had no complaints; the trip up was absolutely gorgeous, wild and unique.  The varying vegetation included vast areas of nipah palms, mangroves and thick rainforest growth.  The beauty of this meander was in the serenity of the scenery with all its wonderful sounds, far from the madding crowd.  Another great pro was that the barnacles on our hull must have had a bit of a tough time.  The upper river was primarily fresh water which is not quite their cup of tea and every once in a while we touched bottom, sure to give those on the keel a bit of a fright.  

Now to head back to civilisation (of a sorts).

PHOTO GALLERY: