With our engine newly repaired we left the marina to make our way further north to Labuan which is a duty free island and we needed to restock our supplies. There were a few anxious moments as crumbs of black rubber appeared in the engine well but Chris soon established that these had been caught in the bottom of the bell housing and were from the old damper plate, they were brushed away and nothing else has appeared since thank goodness! The engine is much smoother and quieter and altogether feels good.

Miri, being a major oil town in Borneo, is surrounded by oil rig service vessels, they lie in wait on the edges of the harbour. As our passage progressed we soon saw the fields of rigs, much nearer than on our crossing from Terengganu to Kuching as there are many more of them on this route. We had left Sarawak behind and were sailing across the top of Brunei. As night approached we became wary because we had heard from yachtsmen who had done this journey before that there were abandoned wellheads with rigs dismantled leaving the capped pipes unmarked and unlit towering up out of the sea. Also some way off the rigs are very heavy unlit steel mooring buoys used by the service vessels, a few years ago a catamaran hit one of these at night doing lots of damage but fortunately not to its hulls. The light of the moon was absent as it had waned a couple of nights before so we were understandably anxious

We had to sail between the oil fields, some are closer in to the coast, others further out into the South China Sea. Our tactic, of course, was to manoeuvre a course that would keep us as far away from the rigs and their accessories as possible, not the nice straight course it might have been. However, the lack of moon was not an issue, these platforms and their supply vessels are so illuminated and plentiful that it was like sailing through cities in the sea, they gave plenty of light during the black hours and we had the radar going all night. There was one massive unlit mooring buoy unoccupied but it could be seen. No unlit abandoned giant pipes appeared although we did see some lit with a single red flasher in the distance – a good enough warning.

The weather recently has been very mixed often with stormy afternoons bringing torrential rain. No exceptions for this journey, there was some motoring but when the wind came it was often powerful, carried by fierce clouds which hung low over the sea. We arrived at our first anchorage at 07.30 am tired by our vigilant night watching through the oil fields and ready for a lazy day of rest and swimming at Pulau Keraman which is just off the coast of Brunei but part of Sabah territory. 

The tide and the weather can conspire to give a false sense of security or comfort and the little anchorage which had been fine all day started to get swelly as the late cloud drove in and we spent an unexpectedly noisy and rolly night.

By 08.30 am next morning we pulled up the hook and made our way to the large island of Labuan.