Sunday 15th Dec '24

Photos below are from when were at the fuel dock before we left KK yesterday and after we had filled up all the tanks. We ended up taking on just over 8,000lts.
Even with all that we were still a slightly above the boat’s water line.

The trip up the west coast was not pleasant. There was a good size moon so visibility was pretty good but the sea conditions were not which had us slowing down considerably and zig zagging to try and find a reasonable angel to the waves. This went on most of the night

The other issue we had was fishing boats! Plus some of the fishing boats have mini dugout canoes that wander off, so their thing and return to the mothership once they’ve finished. BUT, you can’t see them as they don’t have nav lights and they don’t show up on radar. When they realise you are there, normally really close, they shine their very bright torch at you, which doesn’t help your night vision.
On my watch around 3am we must have gone through 20 or 30 of them. As soon as one shone the touch at me I would change course abruptly only to get another torch in the eyes. In the end I slowed down and soundedi 5 blasts on the horn every few minutes so if they were facing away from me at least they would hear we were coming and I might get a bit of extra warning from the torch! This lasted about 30mins. Boy was I glad to see the back of them.

We are currently going across the top of Borneo trying to keep to the shipping lanes as hopefully the fisherman we stay clear of so they don’t lose their nets. It will take about day and a half to get through all these shallows, sand banks and islands.

I also had the pleasure of trying to decipher a conversation I had with a Malaysian war ship radio operator. They called to ask a bunch of questions and wanted all our details