Nunukan Run, but Nunukan Hide

It's been a while, me hearties, but here I am in Nunukan at last. Nunukan is the Indonesian border-town on the east coast of Borneo. Today is my last full day in Indonesia before we haul anchor and set sail for Tawau, Malaysia tomorrow morning. Our 10 day run here from Buol, where we wre arrested by the coast guard for not checking in just after the last blog post, and I later had one of the best times of the trip so far playing soccer on the beach with the local kids, was by far the most eventful sea-passage yet.
        The first few days saw us battling for inches against strong currents, huge, wild storms and large, sharp seas. As we pushed purther north into the Celebes Sea though, we actually got a few days of steady wind and easy sailing with the current. Some of our first extended sessions of easy sailing so far. Like a dream. We were sailing along a shipping line however, and this demanded constantly for us to be on the full lookout, as those oil rigs and bulk carriers close really fast. We had a couple of very close encounters. They either dont keep a lookout or dont care. Even when they should give way, they just plough on ahead. Scary. We got next to no sleep there for about 5 days. There was a turning point in amongst it all there for me personally, one still, perfect sunrise. Up until then I had been progressively struggling to cope with the strain of the stress, lack of sleep, lack of food, lack of cigarettes, my skipper, fear, anger, exhaustion, homesickness. Its hard to describe but I became tougher. Right there on the spot. The night before had been hell, but I was suddenly filled with peace, strength and a feeling of self-belief. This wild ride has changed me, in some ways, friends. Not personality-wise, but intrinsically.
      But anyways, we still had a long way to go, and time on our visas short. A couple more days of pretty standard sailing, but things were improving. I was really up for it all, and me and Tad started to get along alot better. Early in the morning, we glimpsed what we believed to be our first sighting of mythical Borneo. It turned out to be a giant oil platform. It was sobering that day, as we sailed towards one of the last true wildernesses left on Earth. The night before, i could smell the jungle, and was filled with dreams and excitement, you can smell land before you can see it.
       Day 7 we first saw an oil rig, then on the outgoing tide, hundreds or thousands even of logs and dirty water. Nothing and nowhere is sacred in the world of greed, capitalism and the almighty dollar. Sickening. Later that night we were drawing close to the island of Nunukan, but a strong current was pushing us backwards, so we dropped anchor, exhausted. Not too long after, around four in the morning,we were snagged in a drift-net employed by the local fishermen. We managed, (at least we thought so) to cut it free. We got hit by two more of the 250meter long nets in the next 4 hours. No ewst for the wicked, eh? Bad, bad spot. We decided to get the hell out of there. Our motor wouldnt budge. I spent most of the  morning diving under the boat trying to hack the remains of the first net from the propellor. There was alot of it and I didnt make much of an impact. The current was very strong, and I was getting turned to mincemeat on the barnacles on the bottom of the boat. Just as the tide was turning towards Nunukan, a strong wind picked up and we sailed the rest of the day at up to 9 knots. Our fastest speed of the trip so far. I spent the first 4 hours of day 9 diving under and cutting the net free. I finally did it after about 200 dives. Hard yakka, I tell you.
       That night we motored to Nunukan, through a minefiels of nets and buoys at high speed with the skipper on deck yelling coordinates at me and things like "70°", and "Hard to port gaddamit!" we were nearly snagged a couple of times. It was like a videogame. got snagged twice. had to cut a rope free the first time, but the speed of the boat pukked us free the second. Fuckin wild. Eventually we dropped anchor late afternoon day 10. Had an awesome day 1 in Nunukan (the kids, beautiful town), an awful day 2 (beauracracy, missed opportunities). Today is my last here. Malaysia tomorrow, here we come!
Fuck, long post, good luck with that!