Our logbook shows the four day passage to Kumai, Kalimantan on the island of Borneo to have been a trip of four days in light downwind airs. The wind was good the first two days out, dying away to leave us often rolling in the agitated seas. We sailed mostly with the big lightweight gennaker alone or the roller furling genoa, motoring a little bit. We did not know then that it was to be one of our last passages this season under sail. The mainsail remained furled. We recall dodging fleet after fleet of small fishing boats each night. These were the good kind of fishing boats, we were to learn. They are small single-hulled vessels with outriggers on each side festooned with many electric light bulbs. A generator aboard powers the lights at night, attracting the fish and there you have it. As far as we were concerned, these were the "good" kind of fishing boats to encounter on a dark and moonless night because they are stationary and so easy to see. But there are so many of them, wave after wave, fleets of them! We will also never forget one large passenger ferryboat during Nancy's midnight watch which seemed determined to occupy the same little bit of water we were displacing, no matter which way we went. It gave up only when we reversed course and motored at high speed back towards Bali for a short while! Nancy is convinced that all the "problem boats", ones that come too close in the night, ones that have questionable navigation lights, lurk in the darkness just over the horizon until she comes on watch, then they close in on Active Light to torment her.
Before leaving Benoa, we hit the ATMs heavily so we would have enough cash to finance our anticipated jungle trek to see the orangutans in Kumai. The maximum amount any one could withdraw at one transaction at an Indonesian ATM was 1,125,000 Rupiah, no matter what your card limit might be. Yes, that would be one and a quarter million Rupiah, but that's only US$136.88. Cash $US dollars or US travelers cheques are not so useful out here. People want the dollars, yes, but the exchange rate is never as good as a simple withdrawal of local currency from an ATM. In four and a half years we have very seldom had a problem getting local currency from an ATM, and we have never yet suffered a loss of funds through using an ATM.
As we approached the coast of Kalimantan, we found the sky overcast with smoke. At first we thought it was from fires burning the debris left by the extensive lumber harvesting which is still going on in Borneo, but we were to learn that it was from the slash and burn method of land clearing for the more lucrative palm oil groves people were planting. We arrived at the big shallow bay in the mouth of the Kumai River late in the afternoon of September 12th, rounded the huge bight and clawed our way to windward for two hours to get in the lee of the land to anchor for a good night's sleep. After a really easy passage, the had wind picked up and we had tons of muddy light brown salt water and spray drenching Active Light as we fought our way upwind in 25 knots of wind. It turned out to be a bad idea to put in here for the night. Although we had a fair night's sleep, waiting for Windwalker III to arrive two hours later in the dark with our lights on to guide them in, we found we had anchored off a small fishing village and every small vessel going out for a night's catch had to motor close by us to see who the heck we were. I doubt if many yachts had anchored there before. Next morning we found our cream colored bimini top fouled with a gray residue from the smoke, and the smoky air was causing Nancy some breathing difficulties.
Anchor aweigh next morning, we motorsailed downwind for the 25 nm to the river's entrance. Eight more miles up the wide shallow Kumai River found us anchored in 5 meters of water, close to the riverbank across from the small Muslim town of Kumai. The anchor was hardly set before prospective guides were visiting us, leaving their calling cards and entreating us to deal only with them. We had already decided to employ the services of a fellow named Harry about whom we had heard good reports from other cruisers over the morning SSB net.

After a few visits ashore, we established a date and a fee for a two-day trip by riverboat with Harry into the Tanjung Puting National Forest to see the orangutans. The price we established with Harry was for 750,000 Rupiah each person (US$91.25 each) which included two days on the riverboat, sleeping and eating all meals provided aboard, a guide, a boat driver, and a full time cook. The fee also included two full-time guards who were placed aboard Active Light and Windwalker III. They stayed there, day and night, sleeping in the cockpit during our absence. It turned out to be a our best trip ever.
Harry's number one boat was called the Spirit of the Forest. It was a blue and yellow wooden riverboat, typical of the area. It was hard chimed, carvel-planked, and about 40 feet overall with a (gratefully) muffled engine exhaust. The Corleys aboard Windwalker III and the Active Light crew were picked up punctually at 0800 on a party cloudy morning. A guard was transferred aboard each boat. At Harry's suggestion, we had left a blanket and pillow for the fellow to sleep in the cockpit at night, lots of snacks and magazines to pass the time. We dropped downriver a mile and turned upstream into a river whose name we cannot recall, to wind our way up into the park. Harry stayed with us for several hours until we reached the lodge (a privately-owned small eco-tourism hotel just outside the reserve.). He lectured the whole way about local customs, farming and fishing practices, the indigenous Dayak people, and the land. He patiently answered all of our questions. We sat back under the shade on the deck of the boat and snapped away with our cameras at every farm, fishing boat, and moving thing we could see. We even photographed submerged logs, thinking they were crocodiles. The cook, a young man named Dwi, appeared on deck with tea and coffee service, sandwiches, cookies, and a huge platter of small freshly-fried doughnuts.
At the lodge, Harry left the boat and was replaced by Danson, a full-blooded Dayak aboriginal of 31 years age. Danson had worked all his adult life as a research assistant for some fellow from South Carolina, a man who recently obtained his PhD degree in some aspect of rhesus monkey behavior. Danson stayed in the forest, collected all the data, would journey Kumai once a month to transmit the data via internet to the fellow in the USA. Though uneducated beyond public high school, he is very intelligent, literate in English, as well as Bahasa and several Dayak dialects, and he is as facile with computers as he is with jungle medicinal herbs. We grew quite fond of this thin, delicate-featured young man and wished there were some way we could arrange to help him attend a good university somewhere. He has a wealth of knowledge and experience regarding primate behavior and many ideas for additional research.

As we chugged upriver, Danson pointing out birds, monkeys, and snakes on both banks as we passed by and talking non-stop about jungle lore, the sky became more overcast and we had a little intermittent rain. This was no inconvenience since the Spirit of the Forest was equipped with drop-down clear plastic sheeting on all sides, and we rather welcomed the drop in temperature as we stayed completely dry. We saw lots of monkeys feeding in the trees along both banks. Most interesting were the larger proboscis monkeys who would become silent and sit with their backs turned toward us as we drew close. The large males with the huge pendulous noses would sit with their tails hanging straight down and as we edged forward their heads would pivot away as if synchronized. It was almost as if they could not see us, then we were not there. Ever so often, though, we would see one catching a glimpse of us out of the corner of his eye, but we could never catch this moment with our slower reflex digital camera. The Corley's daughter, Dana, especially liked seeing the monkeys. These critters are found only on the island of Borneo, they are an endangered species. They like to swim and feed only on leaves at the river's edge. They are also a favorite food of the crocodile!

We turned right into a smaller tributary and the river began to narrow as we approached Camp Leaky, the first of the ranger stations where we hoped to see an orangutan. Several other riverboats with small groups of visitors were already at the camp. We joined them in a short trek inland to a feeding station with Danson and a couple of rangers as soon as we had all squeezed past a fairly large female orangutan with her baby who decided to have lunch in the middle of the boardwalk. There is not a lot one can do to move an orangutan, except to encourage it to change its mind, distracting them with bananas and milk is a favorite ploy of the rangers. We were cautioned that this one had a bad attitude and a reputation for purse and camera snatching. We tiptoed past her while she sucked down about one dozen banana bribes and began our trek through the forest.

In the right photo above, a keen observer might comment that it seems imprudent that no one appears to have any rain gear with them. In the clarity of hindsight, this seems a reasonable observation, 'though our rationalization at the time was that we were only thinking of seeing the orangutans, having come so far to do so. The trip began well, walking past huge trees, the like of which we had never seen before. Some had massive ribbon-like flourishes at their base. But half way to the feeding station, the skies darkened and it began to rain, not really hard yet, but we were all soon completely soaked. Not many orangutans came to the feeding station that day  in spite of the repeated calls and baiting by the rangers. The three that did show up did not seem to be bothered by the rain, it seemed to roll right off their coarse red, bristly hair. It was by now so dark that none of the photos we took with our expensive new digital camera looked good and we slowly began to realize that a tropical forest downpour is not a good environment for it. Nancy came up with two plastic bags from her backpack and that was the end of the photo session.
We all stood around in the rain for about an hour, listening to anecdotes of orangutan behavior from the rangers, but not cold at all. The rain was perfectly near body temperature. The orangutans are so well adapted to their tree top homes. They don't have much for legs, but their arms are completely amazing. These are long, really long, with huge double jointed wrists. And the strength in their hands and arms is such the they can support their entire weight seemingly effortlessly in a sideways suspension handhold on a tree. Neil would love to have arms like an orangutan. The little babies were most amusing, clinging to their mother with fistfuls of fur in the most improbable positions.

After a while we all began the long trip back to the ranger station and the refuge of the boat. The rain was steadily increasing all the time, but the clouds really let loose on the trek back. We were wet to the inside folds and linings of our most personal undergarments. We were sloshing ankle deep in muddy water on the jungle path with two inches of water inside our boots. Water was dripping off our noses, our glasses were fogged up and splattered, . . . we were so wet the rangers would not let us into the (dry) ranger station to sign the logbook when we reached camp. It was kind of fun, though, especially if you had never walked through a tropical jungle in a real downpour before. Again, we were never cold.
Back aboard the Spirit of the Forest, Dwi had hot tea, coffee, snacks, and dry towels waiting for us. Dan, being a retired US Navy pilot, drinks lots of coffee each day. We were soon comfortable, drying, and chatting like fools about our first orangutan adventure. We chugged slowly back downriver to the lodge for the night and the rain just suddenly stopped. The Corley's elected to have supper ashore in the lodge restaurant and booked two rooms at the lodge for the night. It was an attractive place, its roofs covered next morning with rhesus monkeys. The Sirmans stayed on the boat to enjoy a very nice Indonesian meal on the cabin top in lantern light and slept in the main cabin in separate bunks, on clean sheets, under mosquito netting.

Next morning after breakfast, we motored upriver to another viewing station under sunny skies and mild temperatures. At this station, we were the only visitors, and so had opportunity to ask lots of silly questions. This time many orangutans came in for the feeding. We tire of using superlatives in describing these critters, but it is truly amazing to see them swinging slowly, ever so slowly, from tree top to tree top as they come in at the rangers call, the thought of milk and bananas on their minds. They do not swing in rapidly like Tarzan, using vines hanging from big trees, but remain high in the canopy and judiciously choose the smaller, slender, bendy treetops to sway from one to the next. There is some snapping and crashing as they progress, and falls to the forest floor are not unheard of. It is their tremendously powerful arms which make this mode of travel viable for them.

Each of the orangutans has a name and is known by his or her distinct personality. Some are "naughty" and steal things from the tourists, usually in hopes of food, some are known as especially good mothers, others have been known inadvertently to hurt visitors if given the chance. There is not much one can do if a large male has you by the wrist and decides to go off into the jungle. It did not happen to us.

We remained at the feeding station by ourselves for about two hours in bright patches of sunshine streaming through the high forest canopy. The feeding is a quiet process, these critters are not messy eaters. They do not slop the milk nor hurry their feeding. There is a pecking order, one group or individual will wait in the adjacent tree tops until their turn at the feed trough. We watched until we were satisfied, under no pressure from the rangers to hurry, and then made our way back to the boat.

As we started the long motor back downriver, Dwi came up with plate after plate of delicious Indonesian food for our lunch. These were pretty sumptuous affairs and the poor fellow spent all his hours of the day preparing the next meal and washing up. It was nice to be able to ask what each dish was and get a good explanation since everyone but Dwi spoke English. We saw more proboscis monkeys and had three sightings of truly wild orangutans, ones who won't come in to the feeding stations, on the north bank of the river.

Back aboard Active Light by late afternoon, we found that our guard was pretty miserable from the very heavy rain the previous day. We had also forgotten to close our side portholes and rainwater soaked our berths below decks. As the cabin was locked, the guard could do little to prevent this and felt awful about it. Together with the Corleys we tipped everyone generously for a job well done and everyone was happy, especially the two of us.

Next morning, we had an exciting moment in the busy strait, Selat Riau, picking up a scrap of free floating fishing net debris in our prop. This was done directly in the path of two approaching freighters. A quick overboard dive in nasty, polluted water freed us and we were on our way again. We arrived at the Nongsa Point Marina on the north end of Batam Island by mid afternoon. This was our check out port as designated on our expiring Indonesian visas. The marina staff there was great, meeting us on the docks to help us with our landing, connecting our water and dock lines for us. We felt very welcome. This began a run of rather luxurious and inexpensive marinas for us. We feel a tad guilty about staying so much at marinas in this portion of our travels, but we enjoyed the water, power, showers, pool, restaurants, shopping, land-touring, and laundry service. Nancy says not to forget about the laundry service! Our rationalization was that so many of our friends were there and it was very cheap. We stayed for two weeks and our passage to Malaysia amounted to no more than a motor of several hours, nervously dodging an incredible amount of shipping traffic in the very busy Singapore Strait. But that story will wait for our next installment.

Nancy and Neil
s/v Active Light
Yacht Haven Marina, berth B-18
Phuket, Thailand
November 30th, 2004