Serenity of Swanwick - The long push from Dewhurst Bay to Lahad Datu for reprovisioning, then to W Bay. 04:58.14N, 118:15.33E

The long push from Dewhurst Bay to Lahad Datu for reprovisioning, then to W Bay. 04:58.14N, 118:15.33E

Serenity of Swanwick

Phil and Sarah Tadd

Thu 15 Aug 2024 19:12

This is the longest section of our escorted convoy. To Lahad Datu was done in two legs, 40 miles to Tambisan island then 84 miles to the city of Lahad Datu. The leg to Pulau Tambisan was relatively straightforward, cross the bar of Dewhurst Bay then direct to the pulau (island). We could either go round to the north or south to anchor between the island and the mainland for the night, we took the ‘battleship’ route round the north rather than trying to find our way in through shallows with rocks. Very little time difference. We were actually able to sail on this section when a passing thunderstorm brought us some wind, but finding a spot to anchor was a nightmare. Most of the area is deep but shallowing very quickly at the edges. We managed to find a spot where we felt safe in 11m depth and hoped for a calm night. We had a good evening on board Anima enjoying a mushroom risotto produced by Manuel.

The next day was to be a very early start, ESSCOM did not want us to leave before 05.00 as they wanted daylight to pass the point closest to the Philippine’s border but cruisers have other priorities like arriving in a new port in daylight if possible. The charts of this area are not accurate and we know that in a main harbour there will be anchored vessels, small boats out fishing and local ferries, all with poor or non-existent navigation lights. We were away from our anchorage early and clear of the harbour at 05.00 but others had left earlier, we knew that we would be one of the last to arrive that night as there was no wind forecast. Arriving in Lahad Datu at 19.30, well after equatorial sunset we anchored close to the other yachts in 7-8 metres, shallowest we’ve seen for a while and then moved further in the next day to be closer to our dinghy landing spot on the police jetty.

Lahad Datu is another sprawling Malaysian city, we could have bought everything we needed close to our base at the police jetty but only 30 minutes walk was the main centre with malls, markets and importantly a laundrette. Alongside the road on the walk in were fruit sellers with piles of Durian and other fruit. Durian does not appeal to us but we did try the other fruits offered to us by one seller, Mangosteen and Duku, before buying half a kilo of Rambutan.

Durians are now in season

Boats small and large went through our anchorage at Lahad Datu

On Monday we headed round to W Bay a small resort, only 14 miles away but we left early so as to be one of the first there. We knew that anchoring would be difficult and if we didn’t get in early we would have to anchor a long way out. The chart of this area shows reefs and general depths of less than 1 metre, actually if you were in less than 10 metres you would be over reef and the rest of the anchorage is 20 metres. We took our fuel cans ashore for refilling and had a general look around. The resort is run by Joe Wong and his family are all involved, his mother runs a small restaurant offering very tasty food and very cheap. Some people ate every meal ashore but having stocked up on fresh veg in Lahad Datu we had to use some of it before it went off. We were looking forward to being able to swim again after weeks in ‘crocodile country’ but were told not to swim off our boats better to go to a reef about half a mile out! This reef was very bleached with few fish and lots of long spiked urchins.

Joe's mother working hard to feed us.

Tuesday evening was billed as bonfire dinner, a main event of the rally, actually it was a local cultural event with dancers, gongs and a live band. There was a bonfire and fireworks and toward the end of the evening most people were dancing.

Local fruits available at the bonfire dinner.

Dance and costume display.

Apparently this is traditional dancing from the Cocos Islands, it was very similar to English country dancing.

Wednesday was set aside for a diving/snorkelling trip which we had booked on. A 40 minute boat ride took us out to an island with shallow reef and a drop off/wall for the divers, again very bleached coral but more fish, spiky urchins and lots of spirobrachus worms, these are brightly coloured and resemble Christmas trees. On our way back we had the opportunity to snorkel on the Blue Lagoon reef, 6 miles from the mainland and 2 from the nearest island. Luckily the next day was a rest day with nothing planned but we did have to be awake from 12 till 2 for our night anchor watch.