The entrance into Santubong is fairly straightforward but a little review never hurts anyone. So upon arriving near the entrance to the river, confirm you have some tide. A sailboat requires her keel depth to get over the sandbars. There are soundings of about one metre at low tide so most boats are going to need some tide to enter. Never fear, there are up to 5 metre tides twice daily so you will not have to wait long. And there is a long enough approach so you should be able to get it close enough to not have to stand off. In our case, we were coming in just about perfect on a rising 4.5 metre tide. However, remember entering on a rising tide means you are coming in fast. We had the motor going at slow idle and were still ticking over at six knots. Running aground at these kinds of speeds means that you will run up hard! We looked for leading lights or markers on the entrance and there were several things that looked like they could be leading marks but nothing seemed quite right so we came in on the chartplotter. We do not recommend this normally but in Santubong the entry channel is quite wide so it is ok. However, the area that we were told to anchor is a tributary just off to the left and this has a very narrow channel and some reef and sandbars on it. The good thing is there are some great leading marks, two triangles that form an hourglass shape when lined up. They are also equipped with lights so you can enter or leave at night as well. However, remember my earlier statement about incoming current? When it comes time to turn broadside to it you best be ready to put some crab angle in or you will come to some grief. As you start to see the marks (well before you are lined up look ahead to see if there is a marker pole on the reef). There usually is, unless someone has recently come to grief and knocked it over. If so, you have it made, just keep a 100 or so metres to the left of it and you are fine. If it is not there get lined up on the leading marks and come in. Do not let yourself drift off the leading marks, especially to starboard. We did not know about the pole until we passed it on our starboard side. And we did get a little too close but luckily had about 3 metres of tide under us as we came in.
We anchored as we said in our earlier post, off of Datuk Linggi’s jetty. You need to anchor in front of his jetty or either up river or down river of the marine police post. You cannot anchor directly off of the police post. Also you are not allowed to come alongside the Datuk’s jetty with anything but a dinghy. He is very gracious and allows the yachts to use his jetty for dinghy berthing and he even provides you the tap to take potable water in jerry cans. This is a great service so hopefully no one will abuse it. Anchor on the north side of the river as there are barges and ship traffic using the river all the time and they also have trouble maneuvering in the currents so weaving in and out of anchored yachts is asking a bit much of them. The understanding has always been to leave the south half of the river to them and the yachts keep to the north half.
In days of old one could get all the way to Kuching via the Santubong or the Sarawak rivers. However, progress has put some low bridges in the way and so we have to stay out of town. Up the Sarawak River there is a new marina that gets you closer to town but we have heard from many that it is very rolly in there and that part of the marina has just broke away and drifted down river as it was hit by a boat. Also electricity and water are only at a few of the berths. We have also been told getting to town from the marina is difficult if you do not have your own transport. In Santubong there are minivans that act as buses running by all the time. Fares run from Malaysian Ringgit 4-15 (about US$1.25 – 4.75) depending on type of van. Also the locals are quite friendly and often pick up hitchhikers. It takes roughly 35 minutes to get into town this way. So you really do not feel too isolated. Santubong is only about two kilometers from Damai Beach, which is Kuching’s resort area on the sea (hence all of the buses and traffic). On the other side of Damai is the Bako National Park, a very worthwhile entry into rainforest type jungle.
Kuching is a great city. It is bustling with all kinds of activity. It is the capital of Sarawak, Malaysia’s largest state and with a population of about 600,000 people. This means that one can meet most of his requirements here. But truly, it is a real charming city built along the banks of the river. It is a very pretty town made up of several ethnicities and they have done well to preserve heritage despite the phenomenal growth. The other thing that impressed us is we felt totally safe wherever we were and with whomever. There are large hotels, banks, grocery and hardware stores all within walking distance of the riverfront. We toured 6 of the 8 museums and tasted many of the delicacies unique to Kuching and Sarawak. Kuching means cat in Malay and so there are many statues of cats around. We noticed even several of the drain manhole covers had a cat symbol on them. But it is unlikely it was named after a cat. The two more likely suggestions are that it is named after the Chinese word kuchin meaning harbour or it is named after the mata kuching (cat’s eye) fruit, which grows widely around Sarawak.
All in all we are very happy to have made this stop. We are next on our way up the Rajang River (one of Malaysia’s longest) as far as Sibu. We will be visiting longhouses and villages along the way. This is a very rural trip so we do not know how often we will be updating the blog, but if we can, we will.
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| The museum |
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| The manhole cover |
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| India Street in Kuching |
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