01/04/12  Invited onboard Tarali, Astrid and I joined Ranald, Pete, Kevin and Jill for an enjoyable afternoon sail.

08/04/12  Easter Sunday.  Nothing unusual happening, sunny day to sunny day - interspersed with thunderstorms.  Peter and Irene onboard Catspaw have left, I had a day out (Good Friday) onboard Fourth Dimension, sailing to Labuan with Barry, Paul and Mark.  Today, the yacht club was inundated with kids for an Easter Egg Hunt and Easter Bonnet Parade, there were supposed to be about fifty kids - but it seemed more like a hundred and fifty!  The hull of my boat is now encrusted with barnacles (so the prop. must be) and would probably not be able to make more than a knot through the water.  Cleaning it will be difficult because of the poor water visibility - not to mention the risk of crocodiles!!

10/04/12  We (Astrid, Jordan and myself) caught the bus into BSB this morning for a day of 'mooching' around the shops.  I couldn't get the new fuel tank that I need for the outboard engine because the Yamaha dealer here is useless - I don't imagine I would have any problems in either Miri or Kota Kinabalu!  I did manage to get myself a much needed new fry pan, and another rod and reel for fishing.  The tides here over the last few days have been exceptionally high and low, today being the most extreme and we had a bit of excitement on returning from BSB.   After taking the shopping back to the boats, we retraced our dinghy course to the yacht club pontoon, which is maybe a half mile away.  The approach to the pontoon is marked by two (inner and outer) marker posts which you have to leave to starboard to stay in the channel.......but we ran aground at the outer marker, even though it was well to starboard!  As this marker is about 300 yards from the pontoon, I didn't fancy walking in the mud for that distance and it was too shallow by now to row, so we 'punted' the dinghy to the pontoon and found it was too high to climb onto in our usual fashion.  There is a wide ladder at one end, angled at about sixty degrees and we decided we would have to use that but when we stepped onto it there was a loud crack and the whole thing swung inwards toward the pontoon - the base of the ladder had broken away from the sea-bed!  It was hilarious and I couldn't stop laughing, but now the ladder needs urgent repair of course, before anyone gets injured.

12/04/12  This evening in the clubhouse, there was an 'acoustic session' with Kirsty MacClean and Peter Ferry and we spent a pleasant evening with Didier and Sophie from Sauvage, who arrived in the anchorage last night.  They have certainly seen a lot of the World onboard their boat, as detailed on their website.

16/04/12  Went to the airport at lunch time with Reggie, Wendy, William, Jordan and Astrid to meet Leah who was returning from Kota Kinabalu after her visit with Orono.  At this moment (7pm), a huge storm with heavy rain, very loud thunder and incredibly bright lightning is directly overhead and holding us trapped in the yacht club - no sense in trying to get back to the boat in this!  We shared the evening with a German couple, Andrea and Detlef who are newly arrived from Japan onboard their Formosa Phoenix.  Ranald and his daughter were also trapped in the clubhouse along with a few other ex-pats.

17/04/12  Last night's storm increased in ferocity and I had to abandon the internet/computer when water started cascading through the roof above me.  Sadly, it seems to have affected my computer as everything from the desktop through to these pages is now displaying differently.  More of a worry during the storm was the threat of a lightning strike on the boats which disappeared from sight in the downpour and we could see the lightning hitting the anchorage somewhere between the boats and the far shore.  The lower floor of the club quickly became an indoor swimming pool with around six inches (or more) of water sloshing around.  The winds reached about 50 knots, bringing down the club flagpole and the large canopy that had been erected for the Laser Championships over the weekend.  The seafood restaurant next door lost a large part of it's roof during the gale.

 

19/04/12  Happy Birthday Astrid!

20/04/12  Had a day out to Labuan onboard Fourth Dimension with Barry, Paul, Jamie and Johannes.

22/04/12  Happy Birthday Jordan!  It started to rain around 2am this morning and continued relentlessly until 2pm........12 hours of rain!  My batteries, starved of solar charging have dropped to the minimum and the engine wouldn't start because of an ignition fault which I will have to rectify either tomorrow or Tuesday.  Birthday cake evening for Jordan in the clubhouse!

27/04/12  Went to Labuan onboard Fourth Dimension with Barry, Paul, Don and Mark to collect a new hard drive from Alistair who's boat is still in the marina at Labuan, I now have several 1 terabyte drives and approximately 1500 movies - should keep me entertained for a little while!

28/04/12  Went into Gadong in search of an ignition warning light (I traced the ignition fault to that) but was unable to get exactly what I wanted and will have to modify a somewhat larger 220 volt lamp holder which was all I could find.

29/04/12  Took Jordan and Leah into Gadong as they wanted to go to the cinema - only two seats remaining because of local payday (end of month).  We managed to get a lift from the club to the cinema from a Muslim lady, giving her $10 for her trouble, which is exactly what it would have cost us on the three buses needed to get there.

 

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