How NOT to plan epic adventures

Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. 

What a mellifluous mouthful. The place is almost as exotic as it sounds - beautiful beaches, high mountains in the distance, palm trees everywhere and some headhunters still showing off the spoils of their ancestors' traditions! Jungles filled with orangutans, proboscis monkeys, pygmy elephants and the world's largest flower - the Rafflesia. Having spent over a month hanging out in the admittedly stunning, Sutera Harbour, I was more than ready to go for some land adventures when Petrina and Madara arrived. We had to first sail the boat along the coast from KK towards Kudat (some 14hours) around the northernmost tip of Borneo, help with the haul-out before we disappeared into the jungles for seven incredible days of exploration. 

For some reason, the group decided it was a great idea to rent a car to explore this vast expanse of area (over 70,000km²), which meant a trip back to KK would be necessary. 

Here are some quick tips on renting a car: 

1) Don't get the cheapest car. It's obviously the worst. Which means that when you're travelling over all those big Bornean rainforest-covered mountains your car will not do so well. 

2) Check the car works. Try running the A/C, radio and driving uphill (at the same time). If the car struggles with this, it is going to be an issue. 

3) Shanghai a Polish guy that knows a) how to drive and b) how to make a terrible car drive. You should ideally kidnap him for about a week (he might have to miss a couple of flights, but he'll appreciate his sacrifice in the end). Thanks Vtec!


4) Car alarms just don't like some people. It's a fact of life. Sorry Petrina.

5) The point is... When explaining mechanical failings of terrible cars, the point should be reached as quickly and painlessly as possible. And should also not be mentioned to the rental company before the deposit has been returned!!!! 

When you have selected your car, don't bother with a real map. If the roads are not so developed there won't be too many options anyway (we used a free tourist map that had little detail, but conveniently marked tourist attractions on it). Also, we found that often the best adventures happened like this:

Driver: Could you take a look at the map and check we're going in the right direction?
Co-pilot: No.
Driver: Can I check the map?
Co-pilot: No.
Driver: Where are we going?
Co-pilot: Turn left HERE! This road looks fun!
Driver: silently fuming

Which actually turned out for the best. In the above example, we went for a swim in the river, spent the night sleeping in hammocks and Madara enjoyed an early morning ride on on the longest zip-line in Borneo. 


The other advantage of not doing research, not planning and not arriving anywhere on time is that you can change the plan ...or the one you didn't have. Our first night's lodgings were procured through making friends with a Malaysian (Dr El, the local director of English Education) who led us to a guesthouse where they never normally allowed white people apparently because they didn't want complaints about their standards, although for us, this was not an issue* which was much cheaper than anything we saw in Lonely Planet, and much more fun - the four of us shared a room in comfortable double beds (apart from poor Vtec, who had a mattress on the floor).

 What else did we get up to? Well, one night we stayed at Poring Hot Springs Park, where everything was shut down by 7pm. Naturally that led Vtec on a quest for alcohol (OK, I joined him) and we began a dangerous night hike through the deep jungle (read: chasing fireflies along a paved road which bordered the jungle). Feeling guilty by the amount of fun we were having, we stopped back at the room to collect the rest of the team, and now with flashlights, we led them further along the same path. We progressed more slowly as we could hear a noise from ahead - over the gentle trickling sounds of a stream there was a louder roaring sound. Somebody eventually voiced their fears of being eaten by a clouded leopard, or trampled by a pgymy elephant until we stopped in our tracks, and huddled together in the middle of the road. Everyone was petrified of making any movement, should the unidentifiable beast come out of the bushes to attack. Madara was on the verge of hysteria. For four sensible adults, with a combined age of 112, it should not have taken us so long to realise that the sound came from a SPRINKLER. Or rather, a broken pipe - sporadically spraying water on nearby vegetation. 

The highlight of my trip was later the same night, when fueled by adrenaline from our brush with death and local rice whiskey, we decided to explore the closed park by night. A gap in the fence made this fairly easy, and we stealthily sneaked into the compound to look around - until we found the hot springs - and so our brief adventure as David Attenborough wannabes ended. Petrina was in her element; skinny dipping in the hot springs and playing with friendly cats after. It was so great to be there with just the group of us, that we didn't really see any point in going back in the next day (although we had tickets this time) - the place was an absolute zoo with all the tourists absolutely crammed into the pools. Although we did look at the butterflies.

All in all, we couldn't have planned this trip any better than it turned out. Which is why I'm glad we didn't try.

* I've been in Asia for so long that when I went into the bathroom, I noticed the tap, bucket and scoop and began having an Asian shower - I only found out about the actual shower head higher up on the wall because someone mentioned it later. 

The next adventure

The next adventure came sooner than we would have liked – sailing from Kudat towards Kota Kinabalu around the northernmost tip of Borneo in the South China Sea.

A small problem of the engine completely stopping, whilst in rough waters…also with a squall, giving us 45knots of wind to go against. And to make things even more interesting, we were drifting uncontrollably whilst perilously close to a pinnacle that jutted out of the water, some 50metres away. 

Honestly, I don’t make this stuff up. 

An image of the squall on the radar which we were right in the middle of. Everything yellow is lots of wind, rain and big waves. Plus the rocks to the left, of course.

Luckily for us, Furthur is installed with a ‘Get Home’ system – or APU which allows the propeller to be run by power from the generator, rather than the engine in situations like ours. In flat, calm waters it should manage around 4knots – or about half of what we’d normally cruise at.

In this mess, we found the system worked, although a bit slower than promised given the conditions. We quickly devised a system – as soon as the engine ignition switch light went off, the engine would stall, (despite our threats and pleas) which meant Brian would run down to the engine room to turn on the get-home while I waited to steer the boat as soon as we had power. Emily watched the small engine ignition switch light like a hawk, and would shout out the second the light came back on - the engine would run again. This happened somewhere between 15 and 20 times throughout the rest of our 70 mile journey to Kota Kinabalu. Every time the light came back on, we’d be back to battle stations – Brian in the engine room, turning off the get home (you can't run both systems simultaneously), and me at the helm, trying to avoid the worst of the 3-4m swells and re-starting the engine.

Emily decided that bed was the safest place to be in the rough stuff!

Some 14 hours later, we limped into the most beautiful marina I’ve ever seen – Sutera Harbour Resort, which is just what we need for a month of well-earned R&R. 

A spectacular sunset from the marina

If you need me, I’ll be at the pool.

Life at sea is always adventurous!

Life at sea is an adventurous thing at the best of times - but especially at 2am when a huge squall hits the boat out of nowhere.

The last two nights have been pretty eventful here on Furthur. I wish I meant that we'd been busy partying into the small hours, but unfortunately everyone is sleep deprived for all the wrong reasons. Everything that could have possibly gone wrong recently, has.

The first night we were anchored way off the coast of Borneo, in about 70ft of water. As we were starting to think of going to bed the wind really picked up, basically from nothing. All of a sudden there were 20mph winds - and waves to match.

We were unfortunate that the hatches were still open - Siem was woken by a face full of cold sea water. I tried not to laugh. We staggered around the boat in the swell - picking up the objects that were flying around the boat, and wondering how Captain Brian was still managing to sleep - or if he'd hit his head on something and had been knocked unconscious. Eventually he showed up, and we decided the best thing to do was to leave earlier than planned, as no one was able to sleep anyway.

As I was at the bow of the boat, pulling the anchor up, the chain suddenly popped out of the windlass (the mechanism that slowly pulls up/releases the anchor chain) which meant the chain was in an unstoppable free fall from the boat. I immediately moved away and called Brian - we spent a frustrating couple of minutes trying to slow the chain by jamming a pole into it, so that the safety hook could be flicked on but were not successful. The chain stopped - eventually - as all 600ft of it was already out.

The next several hours were spent in a state of exhausted tension as we watched (through our fingers) as Brian and Lo braved the elements outside and tried to hand pull enough of the chain up to get the hook on. With a few scary moments - the chain ripping loose from their hands and narrowly avoiding pulling Brian into the water with it, we had the chain secure. The force and speed of the chain coming out had knocked the stripper (pulls the chain off the windlass and guides it back into it's locker) which meant I was up at first light, helping Brian to hand pull up all 200m of the heavy chain and feed it into the locker below. Enough exercise for the day!

The following night, already exhausted, we were unfortunate enough to be hit by a second squall - this time whilst we were anchored out of Tawau (the first Malaysian town where we'd just checked into the country). The storm came around 11pm - again from almost no wind to gusts of 35knots+ with big waves. Brian came up relatively quickly to check the boat was secure - and promptly went back to bed despite having a wet bunk (courtesy of another open hatch!).

Lo and Emily in a much less stressful situation

Luckily for everyone, Siem and Emily were not completely distracted by the wifi we were in range of - they noticed that we were a lot closer to a docked cargo ship than we had been - and that all the other cruiser boats had apparantly moved around. Fortunately we'd managed to avoid hitting any of the boats as we'd dragged anchor, and moved at least 150metres. Apologies to Jellyfish and Mind The Gap for the scare! We got the boat moving in double quick time, although still plagued by anchor troubles (electric shocks coming from the chain/hand rail when pulling the anchor up).

It's rare on the boat to see so much exciting action - especially so close together. With a determined captain and competent crew we were able to deal with both situations with as little danger as possible to ourselves or the boat.

Here's to the next adventure!