We left Santubong yesterday morning after a big effort to get the anchor up. First we had to scrub the chain as it came up to clean off all the barnacles which had taken up residence in the couple of weeks we had been there. During this process the hose on the deck wash came away inside the anchor locker so Jon had to lie on the v-berth with his head in the anchor locker to fix that having a head sauna in the process. Then the chain wouldn't come any further!! Not knowing what the problem was Jon managed to haul the chain in manually using a lever on the windlass until out of the murk came a long piece of timber with heavy ropes tied to it - was it part of a wrecked fish farm which now sat forlornly on the mud bank at low tide? One of the lengths of rope extended back to the shore so was probably from an anchor point further out. Jon jumped in the dinghy and cut the rope and then let the piece of timber fall away from the anchor chain. Back to the windlass. More anchor chain was winched in and then it stopped again. More hand winching and finally the anchor appeared with another piece of heavy rope hooked on it. Another jaunt in the dinghy to cut this rope free and finally we were able to get moving.We left the river on the last of the incoming tide and went in the direction of Bako National Park where we would anchor at Pulau Lakei. There was a bit of wind so we motor-sailed for a bit and then the engine started to overheat! Thankfully, the wind had picked up a bit more so we set the headsail and the mainsail and continued under sail while Jon investigated the problem - more than likely in the water cooling system. Sure enough the filter basket in the salt water inlet was not looking too clean. That was cleaned and then the impeller in the water pump was checked. Four blades were missing from the impeller so a new one was fitted. The engine was turned on and the heating problem was solved. Jon would wait until we were at anchor before retrieving the missing impeller blades from the oil cooler heat exchanger.
The wind continued to propel us along quite nicely and then along the way we noticed that our wind vane had become a haven for a swiflet. It was sleeping peacefully with barely a foothold and stayed there for more than hour before finally taking wing. We made our anchorage on the SW side of Pulau Lakei in water much cleaner than in the river so Jon dived on the prop to clean all the barnacles off that. It seemed a comfortable enough anchorage as we were in the lee of the island but during the night the wind came further from the north and blew straight into the anchorage so a fairly uncomfortable night after what was a bit of an exhausting day but at least we were safe. All's well that ends well.