Blue Lagoon arriving Gold Coast

I have just received an update from Blue Lagoon, currently at Tangalooma and arriving Gold Coast tomorrow afternoon.

Indonesia sailing photos now online...

To see photos of Blue Lagoon's voyage from Indonesia to Australia - click here...

Blue Lagoon is back in Australia

After a few days of taking shelter from 3m waves at Bathurst Island, at 23:00 last night Blue Lagoon made the dash across to Darwin and cleared in through Customs and Immigration earlier today.  The crew will be returning to the Gold Coast this Friday.  Well done and welcome home!

Position Update

Just a quick update, Blue Lagoon is now approx. 3 days off the coast of Darwin.  Conditions are a little choppy but all is well aboard.  Keep watching this space.

Position update

I just spoke with the Jurgen and Eky again and all is well aboard Blue Lagoon.  They are 2 days from Flores now and will then be passing Timor and making the dash across to Darwin where they plan to arrive on the 5th November. Once in Darwin they will fly back to the Gold Coast before arranging the next leg of the journey.  They have been making great time, experiencing calm conditions and have assured me they have been documenting and photographing the journey for the Blog on their return.  Stay tuned...

Update from Blue Lagoon

I just spoke to Jurgen and Eky and they are doing well, making good progress and currently near the Malaysian / Indonesian border near Tawau.  The Fusion catamaran they have been sailing with has been experiencing some oil leaks in the generator which powers their electric motors, but the only mechanical problem encountered by Blue Lagoon so far has been a 1.5m sea snake wrapped around the propeller, which almost managed to stop the motor.  I'll have another update and hopefully some photos in 2 days when Blue Lagoon is back in port and has internet access.

Blue Lagoon update - on to Indonesia

I have been back in Australia over a month already now, and Blue Lagoon is on her way back too.

After some initial difficulties sorting out crew and spending some time organising Visas and CAIT (cruising permit for Indonesian Waters), Blue Lagoon left Kota Kinabalu on Wed October 29, accompanied by another catamaran ( a Fusion 400)  bound for Bali.  Jurgen flew over to join Eky for the return trip and our fingers are crossed that the weather stays kind to them as it's becoming a race against time with the cyclone season North of Australia.   I will update this blog, hopefully with photos, as they become available to me, unfortunately internet access will be infrequent throughout this part of the trip.  At worst I will publish a full write-up of the trip retrospectively when they return.  All the best for now.  look forward to posting again soon.  Alex

28th August - 2nd September - Miri

Earlier this morning shipping traffic increased once again and conditions became a little rougher as we neared land. The weather was overcast and seas were quite choppy but we were still making great progress and actually slowed our engine speed a little throughout the night so as to arrive in daylight.

One of the first things you notice when coming into Miri is a huge seahorse shaped lighthouse on the headland. We entered the sheltered water behind it about an hour after sunrise and made our way to the marina. Not many facilities here, aside from electricity, water and 2 cold showers and toilets, however it does have on site security and we found it to be a very friendly place.

We did make a strange find in a shed just near the entrance to the marina. An almost perfect replica of the Back To The Future Delorean parked there, apparently owned by the same guy who owns the marina. The car seems to be a little run down, covered in dust and with a flat tyre, but has been carefully modified to look like the movie Delorean inside and out. Although locked behind a fence we couldn't resist the opportunity to let ourselves in for a photo.

After wandering around for an hour or so and speaking to a few of the other yachties to find out our options for getting fuel and port clearance, as well as who to speak to about arranging to leave the boat here for the next few weeks, a bloke called Fin showed up who is the caretaker of the marina. He assured us we could stay as long as we wanted and paperwork would be taken care of down the track.

Shortly after we berthed the boat, 3 large old wooden ships appeared in the small marina. They were Belangay, traditional Filipino ships faithful to the craftsmanship and materials used during ancient times. The crew comprises of around 60 Filipino navy and a hand full of civilians, retracing the trading routes their fore-fathers used in 16th Century.

Nine of these ships were discovered in 1976 in Butuan City, Agusan Del Norte, Mindanao, 3 of which have been excavated. Examination of these revealed that boats found in the excavation site dated back to 320, 990 and 1250 AD. The 3 boats used in this voyage are replicas that have been built using only traditional boat building techniques and even the navigation techniques used remain accurate to the method that was used by the earliest mariners - steering by the sun, the stars, the wind, cloud formations, wave patterns and bird migrations. Definitely worth a look on their website - www.balangay-voyage.com

On arrival, the 3 boats had with them a whole entourage of media people, water police, customs and immigration. This worked out well for us, as soon as customs had processed the Filipino crew, they came aboard Blue Lagoon and we filled out the necessary paperwork, saving us visiting them in town. They were a nice bunch of people and we ended up having a drink with them on board.

Around lunchtime we organised a taxi to the airport where we rented a car for the next 3 days. After a visit to town, where we managed to check email and organise our return flights on the 2nd Sept, we returned to the boat and filled all our Jerry cans with diesel, as this was the only way to fill the boats tanks.

We did some fuel runs over the course of the next few days and I suspect the hire company may have been a little unhappy with the smell of their car when we returned it.

Miri is a great little city, the people are very friendly and I found the shopping better than Thailand, with 4 main shopping centres of varying size, the largest of which being Bintang Megamall which had at a guess, 15 DVD and music stores alone.

On our second last day in Miri we took the 80kms or so drive to Niah National Park, known for its limestone caves including The Great Cave, an important prehistorical site where human remains dating 40,000 years old have been found, and The Painted Cave. This was a spectacular place and well worth the visit, it is hard to describe or accurately capture the sheer size on film.

After securing and weather proofing the boat we flew out of Miri to Kuala Lumpur midday on the 2nd. As our flight to the Gold Coast didn't leave for another 8 hours we caught the shuttle bus to an Air Asia "Tune Hotel" which allow room rental in 3 hour blocks, rather than waiting around at the airport. The rooms are tiny but air-conditioned and have wifi, as well as a decent pub downstairs where we enjoyed dinner before catching our 21:30 flight.

Unfortunately for me Blue Lagoon's voyage is on hold for me now, having to return to work for a while, however I plan to be back on board for another leg of the trip soon. In the meantime Eky is returning to Miri on the 14th September with a new crew and I will continue to update the blog with photos and information as he relays it to me.

Niah National Park - Borneo

Wed 25 - Fri 27th August

Wed 25 August 2010 - 8:30am local time


We made great time in the last 22hrs with almost constant winds throughout the day and night, only requiring the motor for a few hours this morning. Winds reached around 15 knots last night and we put 2 reefs in our sail with hardly any loss of speed, frequently reaching 8 knots speed over ground.

Sailing at night is a whole new ballgame, and even with radar requires constant attention, scanning the horizon for new ships. Although out of the shipping channels there were times when we had 6 freighters on the radar in a 12nm radius. We are lucky to have a full moon at present and fair weather with good visibility.

It's all adding up to some valuable experience and a new understanding of how to interpret the radar in different circumstances. After midnight Eky and I took turns taking naps every few hours until the morning. We are now just North of the Kepulauan Anambas Indonesian islands in the South China Sea. (03'25.657N - 106'15.718E).

Wed 25 August 2010 - Noon

We just baked some fresh bread which smells great but have decided the next batch needs more yeast and salt.

A little earlier a pod of dolphins dropped by, playing in our bow waves - about 8 or so, each around a metre long. They stayed with us for around 15 minutes allowing some good photos and video.

The rest of the day has been fairly calm with hardly any wind, we have been motoring at a steady 7.5 knots.


Thur 26 August 2010

Conditions remained the same last night, the sea is almost like glass, barely a ripple on it and no wind. We continued through the night on motor, covering 150nm in the last 24 hrs. Again a near full moon lit up the sea last night, with clear skies until we around midnight when a fog rolled in around the island of Bunguran. Very little shipping traffic and our radar ensured another safe passage. Before the fog, the skies were very clear and aside from spotting a number of satellites amongst the stars, I saw a meteorite much brighter than I've ever seen. It streaked in an arc towards the horizon in a wide orange fiery flash of light lasting about a second.

Once again Eky and I took shifts on watch, allowing me to sleep from around midnight to 02:30 and return to bed at daybreak. Shortly after I awoke at 08:30, the dolphins were back, this time around a dozen or so, with a few larger ones than yesterday.

We stopped around midday and took the opportunity to fill up our diesel tanks from our reserve canisters and take a swim. The water was beautiful and once again the dolphins were hanging around but didn't come in close whilst we were in the water.

Fri 27 August 2010 07:30

The last 24hrs, conditions have remained fairly much the same and had an uneventful night with minimal shipping traffic. We are now approximately 160NM from Miri, which should see us arrive around 09:00 tomorrow morning.

Tioman Island

21 - 24 August 2010

Sat 21 August 2010


This morning we again had breakfast at Puteri Marina and checked out of the Harbour at 09:00. We arranged to take on some fuel and motored around to where the fuel pump was located. Initially we found there was nowhere to moore near the pump as no jetty's been built yet, but a firefighting barge soon appeared towing a small pontoon which was promptly lashed to the dock wall to allow us to fill up with diesel.

We made our way out through Singapore harbour, negotiating the shipping lanes filled with both anchored and moving tankers and freighters. This passage wasn't too daunting in daylight and clear weather but it did require a constant lookout, and some concentration.

Just before leaving Singapore's harbour limits, we caused a stir by crossing a poorly marked section of restricted water at Changi Naval Base. Within minutes we had a black high speed rubber dinghy bearing down on us with 3 young Singapore soldiers on board, armed with machine guns yelling instructions as they circled our boat. We cut engines and they pulled alongside informing us we were in a restricted space and would need to produce passports. These were promptly handed to them by means of a fishing net on a long stick extended on to our boat, after which the soldiers spent the next 10 mins on their radio, presumably checking us out. After telling them, truthfully, that we hadn't known it was a restricted area (as we had de-cluttered our Raymarine maps - turning off all the detail displayed to make them more legible - and hadn't seen the warnings noted), we were told they would now return our passports and then "shadow" us out of the area. They sat alongside for a mile or so and when I produced my camera and indicated that I would like take a photo of them, the answer was clearly no, but we did get a laugh out of them.

Afterwards it was back to dodging tankers for a while until just on nightfall we reached 1'19.913N 104'08.220E where we anchored out of the channel near a mass of lit up oil rigs and drilling platforms.

Sun 22 August 2010

We raised anchor once again at daybreak and continued for another hour along the shipping channel before rounding the headland and bearing North towards Pu Tingi. Just before lunchtime a small fishing boat pulled along side and traded a bowl of large prawns in return for some cold drinks. I gave the kid on board a small toy kangaroo I had brought over from Australia which he seemed quite excited about. The prawns were cooked up for lunch an hour later, seafood just doesn't get any fresher than that.

We arrived at Pu Tingi just on sunset. A very quiet anchorage aside from the occasional sounds of Koran verses being played on the island at prayer time throughout the early evening. After a swim we sat back and enjoyed a sunset and plenty of lightning on the horizon. The storm moved away however and we had a very peaceful night.

Mon 23 August 2010

Leaving once again at daybreak we headed north around the Singapore headland and arrived midday at Tioman. On approach there was a large amount of rain surrounding Tioman but it cleared as we arrived at the marina where we docked on the ferry terminal while we arranged port clearance, 200l of diesel, water and provisions for the next week. Tioman has a lovely reef and an interesting airstrip that runs parallel between the main road and mountain range. There is a sheer cliff face at one end of the airstrip and I imagine that both take-offs and landings would be an adrenaline rush, nevertheless quite a number of planes arrived and departed during our stay, predominantly Tiger airlines.

After finding lunch ashore and checking emails, (both businesses offering wifi hotspots were closed but a shopkeeper let us use his own connection) we returned to the boat and moored out from the marina. As we put in the dinghy and prepared to go for a swim a freak storm blew up and we started dragging anchor, at the same time flipping our dinghy. We moved in closer to shore above the reef and waited for the squall to pass, eventually picking up a mooring on the reef. After half an hour of drying the spark plugs, emptying the carby of water and spraying the whole previously submerged outboard with WD-40, we kicked it back into life, no real harm done aside from a lost dinghy anchor and the outboard motor cover. A dive the next morning failed to turn up either as we backtracked our course.

The water on the reef is crystal clear and a great place for diving and snorkeling however where the reef drops off visibility is reduced to only a few feet on the sand bottom.

In the evening we returned to the island for dinner and a walk along the length of the main road, that takes you past a number of food stalls, restaurants, souvenir and convenience stores and a massive and surprisingly modern duty free shop.

Tue 24 August 2010

Departing from Tioman at around 10:00 for the longest nonstop leg of this voyage, crossing the South China Sea.

Singapore 20th August

This morning after breakfast at Puteri Marina we caught the bus over to Singapore via the causeway. Once at the immigration checkpoint everyone debussed and there was a mad rush to fill in the paperwork, clear immigration and get back on the same bus. First in Malaysia and then again a kilometre down the road in Singapore. We failed both times missing our bus and having to wait for the next one. The locals have it down to a fine art, using electronic cards to clear immigration and quickly make it back on to the same bus. Once in Singapore we caught a cab to visit Eky's mate Kenn, who was kind enough to assist us with obtaining a battery for our Iridium, amongst other things. Kenn's hospitality was absolutely first class. After taking us to lunch and then back to his office to sort out some registration issues with our EPIRB, Kenn took us for a tour of the spectacular new casino - the Marina Bay Sands hotel with its rooftop Skypark spanning the 3 towers. The view from up here was amazing and the 150m rooftop pool is mind blowing.

Kenn then took us back to his place where we met his family enjoyed a lovely Thai dinner prepared by his wife. Afterwards we dropped by the 1 degree 15 Marina Club for some happy hour beers before it was time to say goodbye and head back to Malaysia, this time by taxi. (Although the taxi driver used his own car as
officially the taxis cannot cross into Malaysia from Singapore. )

Thanks Kenn for your generous hospitality and a very enjoyable evening.

Dad has now left Blue Lagoon and will be flying back to Australia from Singapore after some sight-seeing this weekend. It's been great sailing with him and as he has now been on board for over 4 months I am sure he is looking forward to some time back on dry land.

The Marina Bay Sands

Eky and Kenn.

The crew of Blue Lagoon.