Then the South Koreans were prevented from coming, which meant almost no tourism. But it worked and we had no coronavirus in Sabah for weeks. Then on 12th March, Sabah…
followtheboat
Followtheboat: Millie the boat cat is very ill
Little did we know we were in for the long haul and for many more visits over the coming months to a total of four different vets. While we waited…
Followtheboat: 24hrs before coronavirus lockdown, borders closing all around us
To renew a visa in Malaysia you have to do a ‘border run’, but what happens when the borders are closing? Sailing to the Philippines is no longer an option…
Followtheboat: Going off-grid in a Malaysian national park
We spent three days walking through the tropical rainforest of Sarawak in central Borneo at the UNESCO site of Gunung Mulu National Park. It was the perfect place for some…
Coronavirus: How will COVID-19 affect sailing and cruising?
Maybe the best thing for each of us to do is take our sailboat out to sea or to anchor off some remote, desert island? The disease is spreading across…
Followtheboat: A new country and a new project
But first we must navigate for the next 22 hours through oil and gas rigs. And we need to time our arrival at Miri Marina just right because the sand…
Followtheboat Q&A: “Real sailors do not use marinas” So why do we?
Two old salts in the marina where we are currently berthed give us their opinion of marinas and why they sometimes find themselves berthed for longer than intended. Shot on…
Followtheboat: What we learned from our worst storm in 13 years
Miri Marina, our destination, is notoriously difficult to enter. There is a long, shallow sand bar on approach and a narrow channel into the marina only navigable at high tide.…
Followtheboat: How we sailed through three lightning storms at night
This episode is all about sailing as we make passage from the Anambas archipelago to Borneo. With an early monsoon transitional season kicking up all kinds of capricious winds, we…
Followtheboat: Borneo rainforest burns and we go back in time
But all the time we were there, smoke from neighbouring Borneo’s rainforest fires drifted across the sea blanketing the island in an eerie pall. It’s something the islanders have become…
Followtheboat: How old is too old to sail around the world?
Sailing channels are selling a lie. We know from our thirteen years on the world cruising scene that the reality of cruising is very different to what most sailing channels…
Followtheboat: Hookworm invasion and on-board medical care
Parasites and disease are rife in South East Asia, as Jamie found out when an uninvited ‘passenger’ climbed on board his foot. Liz diagnosed hookworm, a parasite which is picked…
Followtheboat: The best beach in the world? Add this to your bucket list…
There are no hotels, no resorts, no settlements, no campers, no backpackers, no tourists (apart from us) in this part of the Anambas. Better known bays tend to be sought…
Followtheboat: Top sailing destinations, plus how to pick up a mooring buoy
It’s the new year, in fact it’s a new decade. 2020 here we come! To get us all in an optimistic mood (and out of the winter blues for those…
Fixing an overheated engine, what do you check first?
Cruising anywhere in the world means freedom. On your own boat, you can find and get access to those less visited and more remote areas. The Anambas archipelago, in the…
Anambas Islands: Sailing straight towards a pirate zone
Three weeks prior to our departure there was a successful attack on a cargo ship slap bang along our route. The attackers were armed with one gun and several knives,…
Bats, sharks and turtles: Close encounters with animals in Malaysia
Every night on Pulau Tioman large flying-foxes (Pteropus vampyrus), with wingspans of up to 1.5m, leave the trees in their thousands on the hunt for fruit. On the way they…
Followtheboat: Climbing the mast, sailing 4m waves and dealing with flying foxes
After the six month passage through Indonesia, we take a quick stop at Sebana Cove Marina in Malaysia to check-in and get some boat chores ticked off the list. Liz…
Followtheboat: Insane and scary crossing of the Singapore Strait
Billed as the ‘busiest shipping lane in the world’ (although those of us who have sailed across the English Channel might disagree) we weren’t looking forward to dodging between the…
Waterspouts and running aground: The sailing hazards of South East Asia
That’s when all the maintenance pays off. If we hadn’t kept our Beta engine in full working order we would still be stuck in a deserted bay somewhere in the…