In the first of our real-time sailing updates from lockdown in Borneo we answer viewers’ questions and try to restrict our top tools to 10. As you’ll discover, it wasn’t…
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Followtheboat: Living alongside superyachts under lockdown
The rules keep changing, but we are safe, secure and remote from the worst of it, as this week’s episode shows. Before anchoring up for the foreseeable future, we enjoyed…
Followtheboat: How to avoid snagging fishing nets while sailing
They range from one-man canoes to smoking ocean trawlers. There are different methods of fishing too, from a single line to vast nets carried between two boats. Sometimes nets are…
Followtheboat: Why every sailor should have a bicycle
In this video (which was filmed before the lockdown and Movement Restriction Order came into effect on Borneo) we explain why having bikes on board is proving to be pretty…
Followtheboat: The challenges of shopping during coronavirus lockdown
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: 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…
Latest Icom knowledge base article: Top ten tips to improve your experience when using a marine VHF radio
Whether you are new to boating or an experienced mariner, Icom UK have provided ten tips to improve your experience, optimise the use of your marine radio and hopefully keep…
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…
Coppercoat: The environmentally sensitive antifoul choice *sponsored post*
Visit a boatyard in March and you’ll be greeted by the sweet smell of solvents. Known as VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds), they are essential to the application and curing of…
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…
Five-year warranty on Icom Marine VHF radios purchased in January 2020
There will be some great discounts as well as the opportunity for customers to upgrade the warranty of their purchases made in January to an amazing five years. The exclusive…
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…