The following description was written by Chris who crewed with Jon on the passage from Okinawa to Miri.
Just a shortish note describing a passage with my sailing friend (Jon Choate) bringing his yacht from Okinawa in Japan to Miri, Sarawak on the island of Borneo.
The yacht is a Hans Christian 43 rigged as a cutter, set up for offshore cruising and weighs in at around 17 tonnes. Tweed is quite a hefty girl but is sea kindly and is very safe.
I left Daun in charge of “More Magic” on Tuesday 25th October, after convincing her that I would be back in Miri “…in just a couple of weeks…” I arrived I Okinawa on Wednesday after flying from Kota Kinabalu to HK, thence on the Okinawa.
There were a few jobs to do before we could leave Okinawa which took a few days to complete.
After getting the local marine department, and customs approvals we set out from the west coast of Okinawa early on Saturday 29th October. The local weather forecast was for moderate to strong nor’easters to Ishigaki some 260 miles to the south. Almost as soon as we headed out with reefed main and genoa we settled into good sailing conditions and were reaching at good speeds in a mostly dry cockpit. The occasional wave would fill the leeward deck space and swoosh up to the stern plopping over the cockpit coamings and send us a wake up call.
We soon settled into regular night watches of 3 hours swapping over every day so one of us would get to catch up on sleep. Jon did all the cooking and I did the cleaning up and tea and coffee so we shared the load. Sort of.
We had a go at fishing but the lures were all very large for big game fish really, while the lines were quite small so we didn’t hold out for a fish dinner. We kept trying but the fish were wary and scarce. We did however, land lots of flying fish at night. Jon said it must have been the breeding season.
We arrived at Ishigaki around 10 pm on the Sunday giving us a relatively fast 40 hour passage. As we were unfamiliar with the harbour we anchored in the middle of a basin in the inner harbour towards what looked like yacht masts. We were woken at 6am by the wash from several departing one man fishing boats.
After finding our pre arranged berth we spent two days and three nights in Ishigaki refueling, re-victualling and watering as well as enjoying the local seafood and pork while sampling the famous Ishigaki beef.
We departed Ishigaki for Subic Bay in the Philippines on Wednesday morning after clearing out with immigration the previous day. The weather from the nor’east was well established and continuing to dominate the patterns so it still promised to be a great sail.
During the later afternoon we spotted a large pod of Bryde’s Beaked Whales heading south from Japan away from the whaling fleet. Unfortunately we were unable to get a decent photo but Jon and I were convinced of the identity of these beautiful cetaceans from a comprehensive whale book.
Our route took us generally south to the Luzon Passage north of the main island of the Philippines, then west thru the passage and south again along the coast of north west Luzon. When we turned south west to go through the Luzon Passage on Friday we were able to pole out the genoa and had a great day’s sailing almost dead downwind. We were later able to gybe and head south west towards the northern tip of Luzon in freshening conditions.
On Saturday as we approached the northern coast of Luzon we ran into the north bound Luzon current which slowed our progress considerably. The conditions were really great for sailing for the first three days but gradually deteriorated in the latter stage of the passage. On Sunday afternoon approaching the Gulf of Lingayan midway down the west coast of Luzon a breeze sprang from the south so we motor sailed for a few hours before a savage squall put us on our ear and we reduced sail and hove to for 6 hours before resuming our passage south. The next day was more of the same and so we headed for Port Matalavi for a nights respite.
Only 60 miles to go to Subic Bay so we were off bright and early Wednesday in calm conditions. The breeze gradually filled in from the south west to give us a work towards Subic. As we neared the coast in the afternoon on a strar’bd tack we picked up a nice lift off the mountains which took us another 15 miles towards the Bay. We arrived in Subic at 10 that night and anchored outside the marina.
The next day we headed for the marina and a procession of Philippine officials all with their hand out for US$50 to clear in. We again re-victualled, collected more fuel, went to the extensive fresh market 2 days in a row, and passed another US$50 to the nice Immigration official to leave the country. Boy, were we pleased to be out of that place.
The forecast was not so good from Subic but Miri was calling us so off we went, early on Sunday morning we motor sailed south to the west coast of Mindoro towards the Sulu Sea. Our route took us into the Sulu Sea to take advantage of the southward current. We made good time and as the sun went down the breeze came up giving a good nights passage towards Borneo. The same pattern followed the next day so after 3 days we were closing on the main channel of Balabac Strait. Early in the afternoon we headed south west to take advantage of the shelter of Banggi Island and anchored for the night on Thursday in a sheltered bay on the east side of the island.
By now we were low on diesel and planned to call into either Kudat on the northern tip of Borneo or press on the Kota Kinabalu 80 miles to the south. Gradually the breeze filled in on Friday from the west and we were able to reach down the coast to KK. One unfortunate side line to sailing in Borneo is the number of logs floating just below the surface many of them up to 15 metres in length and 3 metres diameter. We encountered one of these “beauties” just as we rounded the Northern Tip which caught the prop and put a small bend in the shaft, enough to make the motor shudder at 1800 revs. We missed several other logs in the same area.
We made it to KK early Saturday morning and tied up at the Marina ready to take on water and fuel and catch up with some friends. We dined out at the best Peking Duck restaurant in KK the King Hu Saturday evening and headed for sea the next day at 6am.
Next stop was Labuan 60 miles to the south and duty free shopping. We had a nice reach down the coast in the afternoon and reached Labuan port at 10 Sunday night.
Our final passage was fast approaching and after a quick trip to shore we up-anchored and headed for Miri 100 miles further south. An uneventful passage with the exception of a close call with an anchored dive boat as we sailed along in smooth water at 6 knots with a 15 knot sou’ wester. We arrive at the Miri Marina at 9am Tuesday 22 November, four weeks to the day after flying out, and was greeted by one very happy Daun complete with sweaty body after a frantic pedal from the market.
In all we sailed 1600 miles in about 16 days with a few stops on the way. We had favourable sailing conditions for about 70% of the time and consumed about 400 litres of diesel at 3.5 litres an hour.
During the passage we experienced fuel starvation caused by contamination in the tanks thru biocide treatment. At Subic Bay we removed both fuel filters and thoroughly cleaned them before blowing out the fuel lines and replacing the 10 micron filters. In KK we replaced the engine fuel filter and the filters looked much cleaner than previously.
It was a great passage and terrific experience in a well found, heavy displacement cruising yacht.
Thanks, Chris!! ... And some more figures from Jon:
Total distance from Okinawa to Miri: 1837 nautical miles
Total number of days: 25
Days under full sail: 13
Days motoring/motor/sailing: 7
Days in port: 5
Diesel consumed: 586 litres
Total distance from Okinawa to Miri: 1837 nautical miles
Total number of days: 25
Days under full sail: 13
Days motoring/motor/sailing: 7
Days in port: 5
Diesel consumed: 586 litres
