The South Pacific Ocean is a wide and mostly empty space for long-distance sailors. It is also home on its western side to countries with challenging weather conditions where winds don’t conveniently blow from one direction, the cultures are varied and you can spend months, even years getting to know them and still not feel like a native.
Sabah is a Malaysian state that sits at the northern tip of Borneo, the third largest island in the world. The rest of Borneo is split among Indonesia (Kalimantan), Sarawak (another Malaysian state) and the tiny sultanate of Brunei. Tom and I sailed to Sabah from Australia in 2008. We had used Darwin as a base for four years and finally had to get our boat out of Australia’s Northern Territory or pay import duties.
It was a strange trip. Sabah is known as the “Land below the Wind” because of its position south of the typhoon belt in the North Pacific. When we left in November, we headed north through Indonesian islands we had cruised earlier, crossing the Equator at Sulawesi. We encountered people fishing from floating platforms who turned on their lights only when we got close and vegetation islands barely visible in the dark. At dusk, as we entered the Sulu Archipelago, a freighter coming out of China through the Philippines passed us and then turned out all its lights, maybe thinking we were pirates.
Our first port of call, Sandakan on Sabah’s northeast coast, is one of three official ports of entry used by yachts for clearing into Malaysia. We anchored off the Sandakan Yacht Club, a friendly facility with a dinghy dock. The anchorage is an open roadstead, but it’s a good place from which to get transportation to officialdom and shops, and the Sandakan Yacht Club offers temporary facility privileges. Close enough for a day trip is the Sepilok Rehabilitation Centre, founded in 1964 to rehabilitate orphaned and confiscated orangutans. Transportation can be arranged and the center’s grounds are a pleasant place to walk and explore the environment of this big primate.
This stretch of coast is an on-again, off-again cruising ground and at the present time, passing unaccompanied is not recommended. A deep divide between the Muslim population of the southern province of the Philippines and the much larger Christian ruling part leads to periodic fighting. When we arrived, it had just become safe again, though the Malaysian maritime border is so close that sand banks along the shore had Malaysian troops dug in to watch for incursions from Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) separatists.
The west coast of Sabah is by far more frequented, and here, Kota Kinabalu, or KK as it known, is the port of entry. It had a 2023 population of 589,000, one-sixth the total population of the state, with many of the advantages and disadvantages of a large city. It did not match my mental image of Borneo.
But it is a friendly place for cruisers. Then and now, the main place to hang out is Sutera Harbour Resort in a large, artificial basin that faces the Malaysian peninsula across the South China Sea. Whether you clear in at Sandakan or have just arrived from Thailand, the Philippines, Australia or mainland Malaysia, you must visit officialdom. Sutera runs a shuttle bus into town; if this isn’t available, there are taxis and maybe municipal buses. The Sabah Medical Centre is an excellent place for cruisers to get good, inexpensive health care.
We based ourselves from a Sutera slip and the combination of a modern city in an interesting, multi-ethnic, multi-cultural region with opportunities for coastal sailing turned a few weeks into a couple years in Sabah. Boat insurance is required for any length of stay. The Sutera boat basin walls provide protection against prevailing winds for the slips, though serious squalls can cause short seas to wrap through the entrance and wreak havoc. The resort complex includes several hotels with restaurants, gift shops, swimming pools and pleasant spaces to hang out. Downtown KK is a couple miles away and has supermarkets, indoor malls, vegetable and fish markets and an outdoor crafts market. Marine supplies and services of all kinds are available.
If you want to make more than a short visit, there are ways to dig deeper into local communities. Renting a car is an excellent way to explore. The Kinabalu Yacht Club does not have an anchorage for big boats but welcomes cruisers to its friendly grounds. My first sail in an Opti was in a yacht club afternoon master trophy race series. Visiting cruisers can get short-term privileges.
Though visa requirements to Sabah are pretty relaxed for sailors from most countries, you still have to do the three-month dance if you intend to stay awhile. A trip to Brunei qualifies as a visa run. It can be made in a multi-day trip with a stop in the free port of Labuan, which has a marina basin with facilities including a dinghy dock and showers that anchored boats may use. Many Malaysians have sources for liquor, which is technically banned in the country, but cruisers take advantage of duty-free stores to stock up in Labuan.
Malaysia is a Muslim country and many women wear hijabs and long pants, but because the population of Sabah includes Chinese, Indians, ex-pat “Euros” (a catch-all term for anyone from the West) and tribes people (Kadazan-Dusun and Rungus mainly), the overall flavor is cosmopolitan, though the laws and cultural norms favor the bumiputra, as the Malays are known. You’ll find learning a few phrases in Bahasa Melayu, like “selamat datung” for “welcome,” improves the already friendly nature of most interactions with locals. The variety of cultures leads to good local foods from many traditions. Chinese shops sell pork and may sell alcohol. There are plenty of opportunities to encounter “Euros,” mostly Australian and English, at their clubs, malls and gated housing compounds.
At dawn on clear days, iconic Mt. Kinabalu rises from sea level to 14,000 feet in view of Sutera, but not long after the sun rises, she disappears into mists. The climb to the top is popular, if strenuous. We drove midway up on our own self-guided tour.
For a different, low-key experience of Sabah, it pays to visit Kudat. This town is just down from the Tip of Borneo, well west of the strait that separates Borneo from the islands above it, leading into the Sulu Sea, away from the troubles of the Northeast Coast. We spent a good deal of time here, our first visit with a group of Australian boaters from whom we acquired a deep appreciation for Sabah before we even saw much of it. Kudat is also a port of entry and boats have to check in. But the offices are adjacent to the harbor. The anchorage here is not wonderful; it’s open and noisy with fishing boats that moor on one side and a ferry dock on the other. There is landing space for dinghies and a good market for all kinds of produce. The central strip has restaurants and small inns, including a Kentucky Fried Chicken, and the seawall along the harbor is good for walking. The seafood and Chinese restaurants that line it farther out are particularly good. Gas and diesel are available and there’s a decent supermarket and a variety of shops along the plaza where judicious hunting can turn up spares and supplies.
Boaters wishing for a more protected mooring spot use the Kudat Golf Resort and Marina a mile away on the coast. It is an artificial circular basin where boats tie stern-to. The resort has guest rooms and at our last visit in 2014, a terrible restaurant. Next door is Penuwasa, a large boatyard where we hauled out, did work, got parts, and eventually sold Oddly Enough, our Peterson 44.
Golf is a minor specialty of Kudat. Our hangout was the open-air café on the golf course close to downtown. We were frequent visitors and the wait staff brought us what we usually ordered, even if we wanted something different.
When you’re in Kudat, take a trip to the Tip of Borneo. It’s a spectacular high point of land jutting into the sea. The drive gives a chance to see Sabah people in their countryside. If you don’t have a car, take a tour. Kudat is also a good place to explore the villages of tribal people and look for souvenirs.
As in many places cruisers visit, the nature of checking in and out of Malaysia goes through official changes that may or may not impact yachts. As of January, all international visitors are required to fill in a digital arrival card three days before arrival. This can be done on line at https://imigresen-online.imi.gov.my/mdac/main/registerMain. The requirement is difficult for boats on long passages with no internet access or on remote islands. It is intended to streamline the Malaysian immigration process, especially for arrivals by a combination of air and ferry, but is not yet mandatory for yacht crews.
Noonsite, https://www.noonsite.com/place/malaysia/, states that motorboats and vessels longer than79 feet (24 meters) of all kinds now are required to use an officially approved agent for clearing in and out.
Independent clearance still is available for sailboats with auxiliary engines. Rules like this have been officially stated in cruising ports for a long time but often are not followed by smaller and mid-sized boats. As always in foreign cruising, it pays to check on formalities with other sailors or online before arriving in the country.