25 Sep 05 Passage Pualu Aur to Juara Bay, Pulau Tioman Back to Malaysia East Coast Cruise 2005
What began as a passage to Jason Bay, 42 NM to the south west, turned into another 'INTUDA' sail ... intuda wind, waves and current. We dropped the mooring at 0550 and departed in the dark to get a head start on the trip. The conditions weren't encouraging but we thought we'd give it a try. EQUINOXE left about 30 minutes after we did.
With the coming of dawn also came the winds and waves ... directly from Jason Bay! As we tacked (motorsailing with a double reefed main and a small piece of jib) we were slowed by the waves which eventually began coming over the bow. On our tack at 0800 the engine began losing power due to dirty fuel we had received in Terengganu. (We enlisted the aid of a local man, a friend of another yacht's skipper, to get us fuel on our trip north through Terengganu. It was OK. This time, however, it turned out to contain algae. When it began to clog the Baja Filter I stopped putting it in the tank but the damage had been done).
Though it meant backtracking we fell off and sailed, at 5 to 6 knots, in 18-20 knot beam winds and up to 2 meter seas to Jurara Bay on Tioman. The prospect of calm water was refreshing after the bashing.
We dropped the hook at 1345 near the same spot we had used in June. We had covered 37.2 NM for the normally 26.2 NM trip.
The last we saw of EQUINOXE was after we turned tail and they were bashing into the waves. They made it to Juara Bay after a wet passage and on to Sebana Cove the next day.