Cruising Log of "Sabbatical III"
It is 7:30 am Thursday morning in Singapore, and we will be departing for Port Dickson, Malaysia in about one hour. It is a two and one-half days passage up the Straits of Malacca to Port Dickson. We plan to anchor at the small island of Pulau Pisang tonight, at Pulau Besar tomorrow night, before arriving at the Admiral Marina outside of Port Dickson on Saturday afternoon.
M.
One of hundreds of billboards and banners welcoming “Sail Wakitobi Belitong”
“Mr. and Ms. Belitong”
Kite festival
Lunch given by the Regent of Belitong
Regent (in blue shirt) poses with us and Carmen of “Caminata”
Rambutan (“hairy fruit”) for sale in Belitong market
Three local schoolchildren whom we hosted on Sabbatical III
M.
Hannah prepares to be initiated into the Secret Society of Mariners who have Crossed the Equator on a Sailing Vessel
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We are in Singapore. We left Belitong late in the afternoon of October 11 for a 44 hour sail to Sebangka Island. We rested for the night at anchor at Sebangka and then day sailed to Batam Island, rested for the night, and then sailed the remaining 9 hours to the Raffles Marina in Singapore, arriving yesterday (October 15) in the afternoon.
At about 7 am on October 13, Sabbatical III crossed the equator just south of Kentar Island. The last time we were in the northern hemisphere was late March 2007 when we were a day away from the Galapagos Islands on the passage from Panama. It is a tradtion among mariners that those aboard must be initiated the first time they cross the equator by boat. At 7 am on October 13, the “tadpole” Hannah was initiated by King Poseidon (see photo below) and Queen Neptune (not shown as she was taking the photo).
Hannah is initiated by King Poseidon (who carries a monodent instead of the usual trident)
Also, noteworthy on that day is the passage of a waterspout (tornado over the water) that passed within a mile of Sabbatical III.
We will post photos from Belitong and blog about Singapore in the coming days.
M.
The boat has a big deck on top, open, except for a canopy overhead to protect you from the sun and rain, that was our private space while our “crew†including a guide, a pilot, a cook and a “boat boy†worked mainly on the lower deck to take care of everything we needed on the trip. The klotoks are very simple, but felt quite luxurious to us as we are so used to doing everything ourselves and suddenly we had people making us food, steering the boat, cleaning up after us, serving us tea, etc. The boat ride takes you up a narrow river, lined by thick vegetation up into the national park where the orangutans live. The ride is lovely with many types of monkeys in the trees overhead, tropical birds and even some crocodiles and large lizards. Our guide was named Seapon and he is a native Dayak (an indigenous ethnic group in Indonesia) who spent 11 years working at Camp Leakey (the main site for the orangutans).
We stopped at three places over the 2 days and hiked into the jungle to view the orangutans who come down to specific feeding sites. They were pretty amazing and we took lots of great photos. In between orangutan viewings we were entertained by our guide Seapon and were fed wonderful meals. We anchored in the river at night and the crew set up our beds for us – thick mats on the floor of the deck – and covered each bed with mosquito nets. The crew sat and fished from the boat while Mark and Hannah and I had dinner and just sat in the candlelight talking and listening to the wonderful jungle sounds. At dusk there were hundreds of monkeys in the trees lining the river – including the fantastic proboscis monkeys ( they have huge long noses) and then after dark the trees were just filled with fireflies. It was a terrific trip.
L.
Video:Â Alpha males descends from the tress to drink milk
M.