CHECKED OUT

Anchored 06° 53.42 N  116° 51.73 E

Three weeks and no blog activity. I must be slacking. So now as we have moved further along the coast of Borneo to the town of Kudat and actually checked out of Malaysia, here's a bit of catch up.

First my compass repair has failed! The threebond gasket material did not hold up to the long term immersion in the karocene. The card does rotate and you could if necessary use it to follow a course but a new rubber diaphram is now on the shopping list.

Our next anchorage was near the city of Kota Kinabalu, the largest city in the Malaysian state of Sabah. We had a reasonable anchorage off Taujang Aru. Where there was a pier to tie the dinghy and easy bus transport to the city itself. The buses were cheap only 1 RM or about $.33 US. and they ran to all needed locations.

OFF TO SHOP

As always we had some necessary boat fixes to do here. I finally found a good repair shop to have both the watermaker and washdown pumps motors fixed. They are now working. This is especially good news for the watermaker as it has been a thorn in my side for quite a while.

GREAT SUNSETS

THE DINGHY MAKES A FINE LAUNDRY TUB

GRAVITY FEED TO FILL OUR PROPANE TANK

Along much of the shoreline in this part of Malaysia the houses are built off the land and right over the water. They have piped in water and power, quite a few had satillite dishes for TV. We saw no sewage lines as both gray and black water just go stright down.

 We departed Kota Kinabalu on the 25 th of September enroute to our last stop in Malaysia, Kudat. We spent a couple of nights anchored in a nice spot about 30 miles further north and the a long day, 70 miles, to Kudat. It was not planned that way but the weather dictated that we should just "keep on truckin". We made a forced nighttime arrival in the main harbor of Kudat. We had an almost full moon and managed without a problem.

The next morning we moved down to the area where we presently are and met up with old friends on the "Katie Lee" that we had not seen since 2009 in the Marshall Islands.  We were able to exchange information as they are headed east and us to the Philippines where they had spent the last 2 years.

NOW THESE ARE PRAWNS!!!

A day after our arival here in Kudat, our friends from "Dreamweaver" arrived. It was John's birthday so we had a bit of a gathering aboard their boat, several blenders of Margarita's and then out to dinner.

BIRTHDAY BOY

We have now been in a Muslim country on and off for the past two years and along with finding a beer in a restaurant pork is rarely seen. This area of the market had plenty. The butcher even threw in a slab of liver which the cats have very much enjoy.

HARD TO FIND A BEER WITH LUNCH THOUGH LOTS OF ACTIVITY AT THE SNOOKER TABLE 

AN OLD CHINESE PHARMACY

Our weather lately has been unsettled with lots of wind. This has been caused by two different typhoons
that are spinning away on either side of the Philippines north of us. As we wait for a weather window to head north we continue with our daily activites. In preperation for heading north I cleaned the bottom today and having caught rain water last night Kathy was able to keep up with her never ending laundry.

We have gotten some Philippine pesos and are ready to move as soon as weather allows. It may be a while until we have internet again but I will try to update as we go with text and then fill in photos later.