July 31, 2008
5:30 pm

Hi Everyone,

About 5 boats down from us is a sail boat. Brits, Stephen and Valerie are the owners. I don’t know the boat’s name or their last name. But I like Stephen and Valerie very much and their boat is quite nice too. They lived 5 years in Hong Kong, some of it in Sai Kung and they kept a boat in Hebe Haven where we stayed. Stephen is retired. Valerie works in an elementary school with children aged 7 to 11. When teachers need help or will be away from the classroom Valerie takes over. She works part time and loves it; especially teaching art and physical education. Valerie doesn’t love cruising so much so Stephen recruits crew and goes off and Valerie joins him during summer and other school vacations.

Valerie and I went off one afternoon to the wet market and the next morning to the different local museums.

Valerie in the white hat buying a pineapple. Just after this photo we each went our separate ways and then spent most of the time trying to find each other again. We each tried staying put and then decided the other was doing the same thing. Her comment that the vendors were probably as anxious for us to find each other as we were to find each other was quite funny. I guess it was pretty obvious that the two of us were looking for each other.

Local fashion statements.

Islam is the state religion though other than the clothing women wear, and the price of beer and wine, you don’t really feel its influence as a tourist especially here at the marina/ hotel complex where most of the guests are Asian.

I bought mangoes and lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber , avocado and cilantro.

The next morning Valerie and I went off to the local museums. They had exhibits, but no tours or explanatory literature, so it was too hard to take much in. The part we liked the most was the Sabah Museum Heritage Village which has replicas of traditional homes of different indigenous groups around Sabah. Again, there was little literature and no one there to tell you anything, so not so educational. http://www.mzm.sabah.gov.my/intro.htm is the website for the museum complex.

One day I’ll have a photo of Valerie from the front. She was in pink and white and the lady in the distance was in pink and white and the water lilies were pink and white.

This “ethnic village” looks much like some of the villages that we saw cruising the islands in the Philippines and the small islands in Malaysia.

Inside one hut. I kept waiting to fall through the floor.

The big sign says no smoking. The small one in small print says, remove your shoes. I had spent so much time looking for a “do not enter” sign that I missed the one that said it was ok if you took off your shoes. But I only went into one and no one saw me but Valerie and she was quite diplomatic about it. I told her about going into a hut and she said she hadn’t wanted to remove her shoes. I said, “huh?” It needed to be in big letters like the No Smoking sign you can’t miss. I guess matches are far worse than shoes with grass huts.

While we were there they were filming some costumed dancers. We could have waited and taken photos with them, but it was too hot and we had more museum to see.

It was lovely and fluid. Music was provided by a cd and boombox.

We also went to The Sabah Islamic Civilization Museum since all of the museums are together. Again too much stuff and no overall explanation or introduction. But now I know the difference between Muslims who follow Islam and Hindus who don’t. I guess if I had really thought about it, but since I hadn’t, Valerie explained that to me. Helps to go around with an elementary school teacher. Helps to have a public library which there isn’t. I would imagine as we travel around Malaysia and Indonesia I’ll learn more about Muslims and the Islamic religion. It will be interesting. Valerie has been to Indonesia and found it hard to watch women appear to have much less freedom than men. We’ll see come September when we start to tour Indonesia.

Got back to the boat about 2:30 and made myself a mango/avocado/strawberry yogurt shake. Tasted healthy and not bad, but the yogurt made it too tart and the mango wasn’t quite ripe. But it was ok.

July 25th Friday: 5:13 pm


I went out for a walk this afternoon. I seem to have a case of the blahs and am just tired. “Could be the heat, or maybe it’s fleas!” as the song in West Side Story sang. Well I don’t have fleas, but I’m finding the heat very heavy especially after our island cruising where, on some mornings, I wore my long-sleeve Red Sox shirt. And life in a big city is “big.” I will try to get to the museums and mosque and those things should be interesting. People are certainly very friendly here and quite energetic, more like China than Olongapo. Funny, that I’m always ready to leave somewhere, and then miss it. Hmmm

Anyway, I just walked around the hotels here in the Sutera Harbor complex; but I took my camera. I was really glad I did so I could capture this group of young women. I don’t know why I didn’t talk with them more; I felt like I was interrupting and they seemed hesitant in English. Now I wish I had found out more about them. Maybe I will see them again.

See Women in Saris pictures

Carol didn’t stay on DoraMac with us, too rolling for her since we were anchored out. All of those bancas going by made lots of waves. She stayed at the hotel just up the hill from the PG Yacht Club. The Moorings was developing more facilities that would include space for conferences and more upscale demand. Carol had asked if they would provide a tour and brunch for us Monday morning before she would leave. They had agreed. So after an early morning swim off the back of DoraMac, we all took the service boat back to The Moorings.

See the pictures of our last morning with Carol.

As you can tell all of our adventures with Carol have been wonderful. Saying good-bye was very hard……….But someday……….

So ends our Puerto Galera adventure with Carol Carino.

July 23, 2008 3:10 pm Wednesday

Randal and I had been to White Beach but Carol hadn’t so off we went after our visit to Ponderosa. Plus we’d had a tip that the best Halo Halos were to be had at White Beach and where to find them. That alone would have been enough for Carol and me. And I have lots of photos of Carol eating her halo halo and there are lots of me eating mine. None of them were the least bit flattering since one had to really open wide to get that stuff in. So no photos of us chowing down the halo halo. But, unfortunately I didn’t take many other photos.

July 23 3 pm Wednesday

Randal is off giving a boat tour to some New Zealanders so I get the computer for a bit! So to continue with the Puerto Galera adventure…..

Our next stop, and last of day 2 was White Beach.

July 21 12:44pm
Hi Everyone,
“I loved the diversity of the city and the huge wet market.” That’s how our friend Jamie Fritsch described the center of Kota Kinabalu. It’s true. You feel like you are in China and India at the same time. The women in their saris are just so colorful. I’ll try to get some photos of them. But here are just a few photos to get you oriented to Kota Kinabalu. We have lots of boat work to do and the best “natural attractions” are inland, so I think we might miss them. The mall has Starbucks and Body Shop but the upscale shops of Hong Kong or Makati. Our friends Bob and Audrey, from Subic Bay, are here for a too short long weekend. They went off with Randal to do boat stuff today. I just don’t feel great enough. So I’m having a quiet day catching up on some email and watching the Sox lose their 3rd game to LA.

We will probably be here for another 2 weeks. Of course that’s what we said about Subic. But we have to be done to make it to Indonesia to meet the Indonesia Rally in the beginning of September. Randal and Bob were looking at possible routes this morning. Bob and Audrey have their own growing business in Subic so just hanging out here is a relaxing vacation for them.

http://www.sabahtourism.com/en/home/ is a site for Sabah which is the specific area of East Malaysia where we are now. Malaysia is two islands in the South China Sea. East Malaysia is on the north tip of Borneo.

July 20, 7:30 am
Hi Everyone,
Just a quick check-in. Our friends from Subic Bay, Bob and Audrey are here this weekend. Since we haven’t had tome to explore yet, not sure what we will do. I have my “once a year” cold and don’t feel like doing much at all. We’ll see. I will try to catch up on my picture emails when I feel a bit better next week.
Thanks for the emails I am getting from you. It’s great to catch up with folks at home.
Time for breakfast.
Ru

For those who follow us on Google Earth

From Randal:

Check out our nice marina. Kota Kinabalu has all the makings of a very nice city. 5′57′59.88N and 116′03′23.76E. Replace that first ‘ with a degree symbol.

My laptop failed and yesterday I followed a lead to a computer service store. The technician looked at it and said we only work on Acer but let me see what it’s doing. He turned it on and spent 30 minutes checking it out before making a call to a friend and sending me to him with cell number, name and address written down. There was a customer there that overheard our conversation and told me to wait a few minutes and he would give me a ride. He took me directly to the location, parked his vehicle, and led me to the shop on the third floor.

That technician started working on the computer right away and spent the next two hours testing the hard drive and other components before telling me the cable between the hard drive and motherboard had failed and since it was a custom computer, would be very difficult to replace. At the end, even after all his work, he didn’t want to take any money. After I told him that I insisted on paying, he made a bill for 10 ringits. I gave him 50 or about $16.57 USD.

I like it here but we have to be in Indonesia soon and will have to leave as soon as all the repairs and maintenance are done.

Randal

July 16th Wednesday, 3 pm

Hi Everyone,

I hope to email this some time today or tomorrow morning. Just depends when it actually gets finished. Randal’s computer is still out of commission so we share, 75/25 because he does lots of boat work on the computer. He is off doing boat chores at a super marine hardware store. We have a very thorough boat cleaner here so I am supposedly supervising. We chat, I type, we have a cold drink and chat, I email some more and check on the All-Star game, Go J.D. Drew!! Sox, keep it up!

I’m back tracking to our Puerto Galera adventure with Carol.

Tamaraw Falls (Tam’ a raw the raw at the end rhymes with cow)

The very first page of our Philippine Rough Guide is the title page. The backside of that page is a full page photo of Tamaraw Falls. “The mother of all cascades here is the mighty Tamara Falls, 30 minutes by jeepney outside Puerto Galera and not far off the road to Calapan. Here cool mountain water plummets over a precipice and into a natural pool and a man made swimming pool.”

See Carol’s pictures

My 3 favorite things about Tamaraw Falls:

1. Watching Carol climb everywhere all over the falls to take photos of Randal and me.

2. Tamaraw Falls is named for the small, native and endangered water buffalo.

3. I finally had my photo taken on a water buffalo!

I never said they were real! It was a lovely spot. If we hadn’t had other fun things planned we would have gotten into the water ourselves. There is a natural pool and a man made pool. But after several photos we climbed back up to the road, got back into the car and continued onto our journey. We had 2 more stops: Ponderosa Golf Resort and White Beach!