Fusion

Cont..... Wow, what a special place! We had a great time on the Kinabatangan: we could almost kid ourselves it was deep jungle and not a stretch of regenerated bush a couple of hundred meters wide each side each side of the river. As environmentally reprehensible as this is (you could park by a seemingly intact piece of forest and hear the plantation machinery working behind the trees) it does have the effect of concentrating the wildlife in a narrow area. The river was easy to navigate - broad and deep once you passed into the main river. During the day we would meander slowly up it (not

Another Update from Jill and Bruce, .. but still with my paddles from PNG & the Solomons! After various delays of the mechanical kind, we finally made it to the Kinabatangan River, the longest in Borneo, 360km of river winding through jungle (and palm oil plantations -grrrrrr- thinly disguised as jungle). Check our anchor spot on Google Earth at N05'40.8", E118'22.8. So far the river has been easy to navigate, with plenty of depth, but it was just getting across the 5 mile wide, less than 2m deep bar entrance that took many years off my life, but no major dramas, fortunately. The Kinab

Hi Jill & Bruce I vet them all first. Only left in the fun stuff

Up Date Hi all, This one is for all those of you who keep telling us how jealous you are of us (OK, that's the two people who write to us; we're just giving the rest of you the benefit of the doubt and presuming you're dead of swine flu*) - read it and smirk with schadenfreude! We have just had the trip from hell down from Kudat to Sandakan. It can be done in one hit as an overnighter or at a more leisurely pace by sailing for 4-5 hours each day and anchoring overnight, which takes 4 days. We chose the latter, after waiting for a week for the wind to die down enough to poke our nose o

Update: Well, we are now firmly ensconced in pirate-land. I seem to vaguely remember saying before we left, "Oh no, about the only place there are pirates is the Sulu Sea, and we won't be going THERE!", and have been trying to ignore the fact we have been cruising about the Sulu Sea for the last month or so. Fortunately most of the bad stuff took place over the other side by Mindanao (and we're not going THERE - at the moment) but the area we are in at the moment, Balabac, does have its warnings attached in the cruising guides (not in the Lonely Planet, because NO tourists ever make it dow

Update: Yup, we're aliens, illegal ones as of yesterday. Our visas have expired and there is nowhere to renew them until we reach Puerto Princesa, in another couple of days. However, the local bureaucracy is pretty lax on these things (we were in the country for 3 weeks before clearing in), so there may be some "fees" but shouldn't be a problem. According to the Immigration website the fee for overstaying is the same as for a visa extension anyway. Please visit/send care parcels if it all goes horribly wrong. As you can tell from the above, we are a bit behind schedule. I finally got a

Update Having a Coron-ary... .. which is a short break in Coron while I get my last assignments for my Semester One papers completed. Coron is a lovely wee town on the island of Busuanga in the Calamian Group, north of Palawan. (N 11"59.7" E120'11.8") It is predominantly a dive place, but there aren't many tourists here, and none of the retired alcoholic sex tourists so prevalent in Puerto Galera and Sabang: much nicer altogether! The town is quite amazing - whole neighbourhoods of it are built on stilts over the water, which solves the wastewater plumbing, but means we don't swim! They h

Well, as they say, we have traveled far and seen terrible things. And some pretty amazing ones as well. Our "boat holiday" (Large beds! Showers! Meals cooked by other people!) to Luzon, the main island of the Philippines, was full-on; a total reversion to our 20-something backpacking days. We had been reading up on the travel (& other) literature before we left and were somewhat apprehensive: "Cryptonomicon" by Neal Stephenson - "Filipinos are a warm, gentle, caring, giving people, which is a good thing since so many of them carry concealed weapons." (True, on both counts. Manila Doctors'

Up Date Greetings from Puerto Galera on north Mindoro (N13'30", E120'57")! Well, we made Marinduque in time for the Easter celebrations and it was certainly worth it! What a party! After a couple of long days sailing from dawn until dusk (night sailing is out around here - the waters abound with small unlit fishing boats, unattended fishing nets and many, many FADs, or fish aggregating devices, which can be buoys, drums, rafts or poles, all unlit and haphazardly placed EVERYWHERE) we arrived at Port Balanacan at dusk, and as we dropped anchor, our jaws still grazing the deck at the sight

I post them because I am sure I am not the only one living vicariously through friends adventures.

UpDate Mabuhay! Well, at last we have made it out of the Pacific - bet you all thought it was never going to happen. The trip from Palau was mixed - the first couple of days was absolute heaven: we couldn't keep the smiles off our faces, and we did our best-ever day of 155 miles. Then the squalls hit... the next few days we a bit untidy, lots of rain and bursts of wind in the squalls. This was particularly unpleasant at night, as it was so overcast there was not enough light to see the squalls coming, and we got hit by one with 40 knots of wind which over-powered the self-steering and cra

Update Hi all, Well,the time has come - we're hauling up the hook (well, dropping the mooring actually) and heading off to the Philippines tomorrow morning, After a couple of decidedly dodgy weather days, today was a scorcher and we got all our boat chores done in time for farewell drinks at the yacht club There are three of us leaving tomorrow and one the day after, so the cruising fleet will be very diminished - I foresee redundancies at the yacht club bar! OK, better sign off and get some sleep before it all turns to chaos in the morning, Palau having bureaucracy down to a fine art

Update Hi all, Still in Palau - we enjoyed it so much we extended our visas and have been getting all our boat chores done and hanging out down in the Rock Islands. The weather in March has been superb, much better than in February, so the place has been even more spectacular than ever - it really is a yachty's paradise. The islands are all close together, so a couple of hours gets you from town to a deserted island of your own, especially after 4pm when the dive boats go home. The reefs aren't nearly as scary the second time out, as you have some idea of how accurate the chartplotter is

Hi all, Yes, it has been a while, thank you for reminding me so often! We are still in Palau, just blown away by the place - and to think we nearly bypassed it! We finally dragged our consumer-satiated asses out of Koror (bars! shops! museums! restaurants! supermarkets with real food (OK, American & the veges are shipped from the US via Guam, so are either frozen or sludge when they arrive - the tomatoes actually peel themselves after a day in the fridge. Gross)) and have made it down to the Rock Islands, which are pretty damn spectacular! We are currently anchored in a very cool lit

Hi all, We arrived safely in Malakal, Palau after a 15 day trip - the longest distance-wise and equal in duration to our ill-fated Fiji trip (where we spent several days hove-to in gales). Even managed to arrive Friday morning to avoid the swingeing overtime charges for Customs, Immigration, Quarantine, Health and Transport, so that was a relief! The trip was pretty good - the last day out was horrible, with squall after squall coming through all day, with the wind reaching 35 knots then dying to nothing in the accompanying downpours, and shifting direction with each phase of the squall.

Update Jill & Bruce have updated the site with photos. http://www.yachtdaemon.co.nz/2008_cruise.htm

Happy New Year to you all! We are currently anchored in a bay on Tsoi Boto, in the East Island Group of New Hanover in PNG (02'.27"S, 150'27"E) having a quiet day. We got bored witless in Kavieng waiting for our mail and other stuff, and after nearly murdering a couple of shop assistants when we tried to buy an icecream (you couldn't imagine how such a simple exercise could be turned into a textbook case of customer frustration), we decided to break free from the cruising pack and go out on our own. Although it is enjoyable to meet up with the others, traveling in a pack means you don't get t

But thank you all for your concern, and yes, we are aware that a certain amount of cannibalism is still in existence in PNG, but that is mainly in the Highlands, and we are out in the northern islands, and everyone here seems pretty friendly. The horror stories of robbery, rape & murder are mainly from Port Moresby, Lae & to a lesser extent, Madang, the people here are very proud of being honest. As one guy told Bruce, "One man tries to steal your wallet, the man behind him punch him in the face!" Despite this, Bruce did end up on the wrong side of the law, and nearly spent a night in

Update. So Long to the Solomons! Well, been there, done that, got the t-shirts and sure as hell want to go back there. We had no idea what to expect in the Solomons when we planned the trip, but we had a great time and met some great people. After my last email we refueled at Noro which was great value. They're geared up to large cargo ships so the fuel was good, cheap and when pumped in the tiny amounts needed for yachts, had a seriously under-reading measuring system. After that we headed around to Gizo, the second largest town in the Solomons, and my, what a complete shithole it

Daemon Websit updated with Solomon Island photos http://yachtdaemon.co.nz/solomon_islands.htm

Update form Bruce and Jill I know, I know, no emails for weeks - what do we do all day??? Well, we've been bloody busy despite the fact we calculated we had moved just over 80 miles in a month! When I last emailed we were at Uepi Resort in Marovo Lagoon, having a ball, swimming with sharks, manta rays etc and generally relaxing. When we left there we picked our way through the reefs in the lagoon to the village of Sasaghana on Marovo Island.(S 08'30.6", E 157'58.6") We had no particular reason to stop there, except to say hi to a carver I bought a head-hunting axe from for Bruce's birt

Update: .. and I know it is going to bring me the usual hate emails, and Bruce has just called me a bitch, but for once we are actually living how you imagine we are living, so I need to confirm all your prejudices. We at the most beautiful place we have ever seen, Mbili in the Morovo Lagoon(8'39.7"S, 158'11.24"E). The sea is calm and turquoise, the sky blue and cloudless and the huge lagoon is spotted with hundreds of tiny jungle-clad emerald islets. At night the sky is stunningly clear, with millions of stars and a very bright moon. Last night we had yellowfin tuna chasing little fis

FYI from Jill and Bruce Hi all, I have just republished the website, but we have a new web address - we are now www.yachtdaemon.co.nz NOT .com - some bastard flogged that while we were out of touch and unable to renew it. Cheers, Jill