Taiwan to Kudat, Malaysia

Its been a while since we updated our blog so here goes.

Whilst in Taiwan circumstances developed that meant we would have to fly home for a month or two. As Charioteer needed to be lifted out for new antifouling. we could leave her in Taiwan or head for Kudat, Borneo Malaysia again.Though it would be against the wind we opted for Kudat.
The weather was okay heading for the Philippines, but only for a few days. Just short of Subic Bay it became impossible to make headway so we took shelter in a large bay. Our new Air Marine (AIRX) wind generator is supposed to shut down when winds get up to 30knots. But it spit the dummy here and would not shut down. so it screamed away with winds up to 46 knots. We eventually made it to Subic Bay for fuel and marina rest.
The officials here have joined in the corruption big time...now charging $USA 50.00 for each visit. This could come to $USA 250.00 plus the harbour board charge of $USA 15.00 for each harbour entry and exit. !!!!!!!!
We got away with paying $USA 115.00 and escaped early in the morning.
From there to Kudat was easy going, except for the last fifty miles.
Lift out at Kudat went well. We now learnt our New Zealand crisis was no longer a crisis and we did not need to fly home.
Oh well...clean and repaint the antifoul, repair a seal to the windlass motor in the hope it would help it continue to generate,and we were ready to head for Johor Bahru via Brunei,and Miri Malaysia.
Malaysian diesel was cheap so we stocked up, before heading to Brunei.

Brunei has a yacht club not far from the main harbour, but we understood a further yacht club was up the river near the city.
So off we went, getting right into the city and not finding the club.We flagged down a passing police launch, who gave us an escort back to a small dinghy pontoon by the Royal Brunei Yacht Club. Actually, its a Memembers Only set up, which happened to be closed for maintainence. However we could anchor and use the dock and use our bycyles to look around.
Diesel is cheap here.....30cents a litre, but for foreigners it cost .80cents. We were very lucky and did manage to get some diesel at the locals price.