With our port clearance and stamped passports safely tucked away, we began the five hundred mile passage east to Borneo. Well, not quite. Before leaving we had to take in a few more deserted anchorages on the north east side of the Anambas archipelago.
We had so much underwater footage that if we weren’t careful, the whole of episode 185 would have been an underwater extravaganza. We know that some people love this, but there are others who get bored beneath the waves for too long. So Jamie took some painful editing decisions and reigned in his natural urge to make a full hour underwater documentary! We like to tell a story in our videos and this one, we hope, strikes the right mix of exploration beneath the seas and travel across the top of it. You never know, when or if he ever gets time Jamie might just put that documentary together one day…
The coral in the Anambas is the best we’ve seen and maybe it’s one of the best places in the world to see so much life so near the surface of the water. We saw turtles, sharks and rays around the bays and under the water the colours were mesmerising. Fields of staghorn coral stretched into the blue with a huge variety of fish using it for shelter and food.
The white tips you may be able to pick out on the coral is a sign that it is healthy and growing. We didn’t see much bleaching here. These are the coral destroyers…
Both the Crown-of-Thorns and most species of parrotfish spend their days munching through the coral.
We are by no means experts or at all knowledgeable about fish species, but we’ve had a go at identifying these. Are we close?
Of course, there are always a few fish you need to know about when getting in the water. Some are poisonous, some even deadly. Fortunately, the lionfish is very easy to identify, but not always so easy to spot.
Although we were still only just into the beginning of the transition season the winds were behaving unpredictably, and we knew we should start moving before they changed direction and headed straight towards us. So after one more day of exploration we had an early night and left the next morning at the crack of sparrows.
Our weekly YouTube episodes have been posted on a Thursday for a long time now (we were the first sailing channel to do this folks) but we like to mix things up a little and after the success of our Sunday ‘Extras’ we’ve decided to trial Sundays as our release day. Episode 185 will be going live on YouTube today (Sunday 16th February) at 3pm Malaysia time. But if you’re an early bird you will be able to see it sooner as this post is going live at 9am the same day.
We’d be interested in your feedback. What day do you watch our episodes and will changing the release date to Sunday make any difference to you?
As always, thanks for supporting us and letting us share our adventure with you.
Peace and fair winds!
Liz, Jamie and Millie xxx
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