Borneo2009 Sabah P. Kinabatangan River

Kinabatangan River,

January 8, together with Helena zwo we went for 10 days up the Kinabatangan River. The yacht club has a CD with a file of the track made by a previous yacht that can be displayed on MaxSea.




This track is a “shortcut” to the river. It’s ok! Keep in mind that there is a sandbar before the entrance. We passed with a minimum of 2.3m on a rising tide at 1.1m, current was reasonable.

Ones in the river the navigation is the same described in the Sibu strip. The only traffic will be local ferries and Tugs with barges caring palm oil. The oil is produced on site and brought by truck to the river and loaded on the barges.

This trip brings you in the jungle. One evening we saw how an orangutan made his nest on the top of a tree. He grabbed the top branches of two trees and plaits them together. After several cracks the nest was ready and lady orangutan joined him. We didn’t hear them snoring. Considering that they sleep every night elsewhere it’s quite destructive.

During the day birds could de seen. Monkeys were shy; it’s also to say that we had quite rainy conditions.

One morning just after living the anchor place to make the way up, suddenly my exhaust sounds dry. It must be dirt in the filter. Nope! I close the seacock, get a jar of water and put it in the filter and see the level decreasing slowly. The impeller id dead! We quickly anchored the yacht.
After some contortions and swearing the new impeller was in place and journey ready to be continued. Looking at the RTFM this impeller still had 250 hours to go before inspection!


One evening we anchored with Helena zwo on a side river bringing to a lake. In the morning an Island of vegetation got stocked in my rudder. We had some gardening to do. We also met Mr. Crocodile.






One night close to were we were anchored we heard the elephants. We just saw the head of one behind the bush looking at us.





We stopped our trip at Sukau. A power line crosses the river and it’s not easy to estimate the height. My experience from Sibu was enough, not interested to play sound and lights again.

There is some ecotourism going around. Nice resorts integrated in the nature offers accommodations.

We went one river up and could se birds and monkey. They are quick and not easy to picture.

On the way out after the river mouth we had to face a strong NE Wind building up big waves in the shallow water. This time we had to push hard the engine. Suddenly my engine decides to stop. He mates! I say, that not the place and not the time to do so! I rolled the Genoa out to keep the yacht moving on port side. Unfortunately she was heading on an unsurveyed zone, so we tacked to get out in free waters. Pui was not comfortable.

To make story shot, my fuel hose was pinched under the floor. Running the engine in economic mode wasn’t showing up the problem. We tacked again and made safely our way back to the yacht club. I especially enjoyed my Ricard this evening seeing Pui coming back to life.