Day 52 - Saturday Feb 18 Day 3 at sea

Kota Kinabalu 1 photos

position at 6:30am: N6 54.16 latitude E118 11.17 longitude
(~200 miles E of Kota Kinabualu, Malaysia on the island of Borneo, our next port)
temperature: 81F, 100% humidity, mostly cloudy
distance since FLL: 18,877 miles

The seas are a little more active this morning, with the waves being from 2-5 feet. We are still not getting the type of swells we saw in the Australian Bight though, so the ride is still reasonably stable. We are getting much more vibration now though. Last night our cabin felt like we were either standing, sitting or lying on a trampoline. Just a small up and down jumping motion. Sometime over night we took a left turn and rounded the corner between the Celebes Sea and entered the Sulu Sea. This morning there was an amazing amount of small vessel traffic. Very small vessels! Out our window, we could see what looked like a large wooden junk. In a large area of sea surrounding it, with binoculars we counted 16 small raft/kayak-size vessels. Each had one man in it, some were sitting almost only head and shoulders above the waves and others were standing and were visible from about the knees up. One of them was close enough to almost get swamped in the ship's wake. Clay checked the coordinates and GPS mapping software and the mainland was 43 miles away and the closest land was a tiny, unnamed island 17 miles away. We assume that all the little manpowered craft had been brought there by the junk and that they were fishing when Voyager plowed through. No other plausible explanation for all those tiny single-man vessels to be clustered out there miles from anything.

It is Saturday, so we ate breakfast in the Compass Rose. No chocolate croissants, this is the third day without. Clay was fooled at the coffee corner earlier. He thought he had scored a different style/shape chocolate croissant for Debbie and left it by the bed. She picked it up and sniffed it, then eyeballed it and pointed out that chocolate generally does not have lots of visible tiny seeds in it. Clay ventured that they had a new, grainier chocolate supply and a new baker, hence the new style. Debbie took a big and did not know what it was but it was not chocolate. It has a spiral appearance with the bread part and the fruit(?) part and is covered in powdered sugar. So, it was not unattractive. But, neither of us was willing to expend any of our calorie allotment for the day on it. Debbie had the Swedish pancakes and Clay had 2 eggs over easy with baby lamb chops. Debbie got a bowl of raspberries to start and was pleased to see that they were still available as we near the end of this segment. A woman at a table next to us ordered a bowl of mixed berries and picked out the raspberries and Debbie saw the 2 of them sitting rejected on the saucer when the waiter carried the dishes away. What a waste of one of Debbie's most prized foods. On the food topic, yesterday we were informed that there are no more cornichons onboard. Dill pickle slices were just not a good substitute.

Catching up with some news that we forgot in all the excitement. Dag made a special announcement over the shipwide speaker system mid-morning yesterday. He had gotten the 2007 schedules and since we are about 24 hours ahead of most of the rest of the RSSC market that Gudrun had agreed to stay open all day to take our bookings. He was particularly excited about his own homecoming cruise. It will sail Copenhagen to Copenhagen, 14-days from 23 June. Yesterday, Dag's friend Baard Kolltveit was the 11am lecturer and the subject was, "When Captain Dag Brought the Voyager to North Cape and the Fjords." Also, known as the waffle cruise. Clay went to the lecture. Minutes after he returned Debbie was flipping through the TV channels when Clay said that is the lecture he just finished minutes ago! Usually, it takes them a few hours to a day or so to get these things on the TV. We got a set of printed sheets on the 2007 Radisson schedule. With a whole sheet front and back dedicated to Dag's Homecoming to Norway & Spitzbergen. They are pushing that cruise heavily on ship now. It certainly sounds like an interesting cruise, but the push is lost on us since we will have no vacation time for years to come. And, the price seems high. Other big news is that the jigsaw puzzle has finally been completed! There must have been some real puzzle fanatics on the previous segments and not on this one. This one has been out there all month and we're not sure when it actually started. There was a segment where they were having to put out a new puzzle every 3 days and this puzzle and the previous one languished for 3 weeks each, or more. Also, at the SSS cocktail party, Gudrun was the first speaker and after welcoming us, she told us how well sales of the special Norway cruise were going. As well, as all other cruises in general and that she was happy to be so busy. Then she told usthat of the 594 people on this segment that just over 500 had been invited as past RSSC cruisers. She said that in addition, we as group of SSS sailors had a total of over 60,000 nights.

Well, today is a long and unexpected sea day. Jacquie, the fitness instructor, did not learn that we would not be in Kota Kinabalu until right before afternoon classes yesterday, and from Debbie. She had only 2 classes scheduled, besides morning stretch, and had moved the late afternoon class to 9am today and added a Beginners Pilates Mat at 10:15am, thinking that we would be in Kota Kinabalu by afternoon, but had nothing else scheduled and it was too late to make changes to the Daily Passages. Jacquie told Debbie this morning to go take a day off. Debbie went ahead and used the extra free time to do 2 loads of laundry.

Lunch today on the Pool Deck was Indonesian BBQ but Clay was not even interested enough to go up there and see what was being offered. We went to the Compass Rose and he had a burger. Debbie had 2 soups, one hot and one cold, and a turkey sandwich. We both had ice cream for dessert. Clay ordered a San Miguel beer for lunch. When the Filippino bar waiter brought it, he told him with much enthusiasm, that if he wanted San Miguel beer he should wait until he could get the real thing in Manila. Clay asked, what is this then? The waiter replied that the "good" San Miguel beer came in small brown glass bottles and the San Miguel served on Voyager came in cans and was not the "good stuff." Clay assured him that he would try to get one in a bottle in Manila in a few days. Then, you guessed it, nap time!

We were awakened by the decrease in motion. The ship is traveling about 10knots only. We have been in sight of land for much of the day since mid-morning and we are still. We must be very close to our destination, but we can't go further until our scheduled time to pick up the pilot and dock.
As we were eating a quick dinner in LaVeranda, the shipped docked on the starboard side about 7:15pm. So, by 8:10, we were waiting on deck 4 in the Main Atrium so we could catch the shuttle into town to see what we could see. It seems the customs officials were working really slowly that evening. There was some miming going on among the crew of someone very slowly stamping papers compared to someone quickly stamping papers. We saw several crew members come and go from the conference room where the clearance paperwork was slowly being worked on, theywere carrying in orange juice and glasses of clear liquid that we were sure was not vodka. Eventually, Heike, the Clearance Officer, went in with a great big brown paper shopping bag with handles. It looked pretty heavy and full. Anyway, about 10 mintutes to 9pm, the door opened and a procession of local officials walked out. The leader walked directly toward us and shook our hands and welcomed us to Sabah. His other hand was behind his back carrying a new box of Dunhills. As soon as the officials cleared the gangway, we were off. The first shuttle bus to town filled quickly. We rode about 15 minutes to a hotel complex (Pacific Sutera), the first shuttle stop. No one wanted off even though three different sets of hotel officials got on to invite us in. (We later heard on the return shuttle from people who did try the hotel and liked it). We drove another 10 minutes back in the same direction and we came from to a stop on the water front indowntown. There was a local guide there ready to give directions. A lot of people wanted to shop, so he offered to walk us to the Center Point Shopping Center about 2 blocks away. When we got there, it was 9:15pm and the hours on the doors showed the center would close at 9:30, and as we walked through, most shops were already sliding the doors down. The guide pointed out the locations of ATMs to us and that the night market was out the other side of the center. Clay tried the first ATM and Debbie kept him and the group in sight. Clay came back and we hustled to catch up as he was walking the group to the night market. We caught up in seconds as they were standing right outside and visible through the wall of glass doors. He was telling a disgruntled group that the night market was another 5 minutes walk, that way, while waving vaguely across the street, where there was nothing visible. He had given out maps that showed the Centre Point center and the night market, so people could have set out alone. But, the woman guide who got on the bus at the dock had advised against going there, that there was crime and to keep in a group. This group was falling apart. The guide guy advised them to follow him back through the mall to the bus stop area of pubs on the waterfront because the mall would be locked up soon and they would have to find their way around the block-sized building instead of walking through. He then walked most people back to the bus stop, but we stayed behind and were able to get some local currency out of an ATM there. (Tried 2 different ATMs, the first did not recognize our card). We went to a lower floor of the mall and as we arrived at each gift shop the lights went out or the doors went down. We headed out of the mall. We then walked back over to the waterfront and strolled along the area behind the bus stop. It was mostly restaurants and pubs, but we did find one place called the Borneo Trading Post that was open and we spent about 30 minutes in there buying t-shirts and little framed handmade kite. The kite is big in Muslim countries. In the Maldives on an earlier cruise, we had seen hundreds of kite flyers out at sunset so we thought a kite would be a good souvenir from here. The t-shirts were hand painted and quite colorful though not a particularly good bargain (same with the kite), It was about 10:30pm when we boarded a bus back to the ship. The local guide appeared to be not aware that there was a local gifts shop even back there, much less that it was open. A couple of people on the bus got off to go do a little shopping when they heard there was a place still open. We boarded as a trio we had seen leave the mall and head towards the night market returned empty-handed. We did not find out if they found the market or if it was indeed closed. The ride back to the ship was only about 5 minutes. About one minute into the ride we drove past about a block-long, brightly lighted, open-air market. Some of the stalls were closed but about that many were open as well. Now, it appeared that they were mostly selling food and not gifts or souvenirs, but it was very scenic and there were a lot of groans from the bus when people saw how close they had been to what they had gone there looking for. Guess we know who was paying for the shuttle. :)

Kota Kinabalu 1 photos