Dear family, friends and fellow sailors,

We're now half way through our 18 month trip away and have "turned the boat around" and are heading back to Australia.  It's a somewhat reluctant return as we'd love to remain cruising in SE Asia.  The islands are stunning with warm, friendly locals and great food.  We've enjoyed so many adventures in the past few months and visited so many "favourite" spots that it's difficult to select just the highlights.  I'll try to capture just a few moments for you over the next few blogs...stay in touch.

Our biggest thrill in Indonesia was sailing up the Kumai River in the Kalimantan region of Borneo where we visited the orang-utans in the wild.  We were accompanied by our dear friends Gus and Gabby from “SV Pampero”, who dressed for the occasion as Katherine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart.  Our one day tour included a fast speedboat ride far up the Crocodile River (a tributary of the Kumai River) and deep into the forest.  We visited 2 different feeding stations accompanied by our local guides.  Both guides had spent years rehabilitating injured or orphaned orang-utans for release back into the wild so we (and the orang-utans) were in good hands.  The feeding stations are timber platforms built in the forest and the orang-utans visit voluntarily to enjoy a free feed of bananas.   It was amazing how close we were to the great apes, sometimes only an arms length away.  The whole experience was a real high and any expectations we may have had were well and truly exceeded.

One thing we were expecting was swampy, muddy jungle.  Not so.  The trails we followed were mostly sandy, or scattered with leaf litter as we wandered through beautiful open forest.  Lots of butterflies and dragonflies waltzed amongst the delicate ferns beside the path.  The guides called the orang-utans with a “whoop, whoop, whoop”.   We all stood quietly or sat on the rough timber pews and waited to see if the big apes would show up.  The first sign of them was swaying tree tops as they swung into view through the canopy.  A mother orang-utan and her youngster were the first to the platform and we were surprised by the mother’s brilliant colour.  Red, orange, burgundy and copper smelted together into a sleek, groomed coat - a hair colour package that L’Oreal would die for.

We enjoyed a packed lunch (Indonesian style), while relaxing in a gazebo built on stilts over the river’s edge.  A mother orang-utan and her baby came to visit us but took offence to either our presence, or our lunch, we weren’t sure which.  We then discovered another reason why the gazebo was raised on stilts as the orang-utan began to throw sticks up at us.  This particular mother ape was certainly in a cranky mood.  The guides discouraged the ape from climbing up and throwing sticks at us and then told us a funny story about one clever orang-utan that taught herself (again a female) to paddle a canoe.  The rangers were wondering why their canoe was occasionally found on the opposite side of the river bank from where they’d left it.  This orang-utan had watched and learnt how to paddle the canoe and then used it to reach food sources across the river.  The rangers were further amazed when the orang-utan taught her youngster also how to paddle the canoe.  Apparently they are the only two orang-utans that can paddle their own canoe...

It was a totally brilliant day and hopefully a few of our happy snaps can better express how much fun we had and how stunning these apes really are.