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Sailing into a Sea of Plastic – The Reality No One Shows You | S2 Ep 80
23 November 2025 · 14 min · 4K views · Gaia Island, Kota Kinabalu
What this video covers
Sailing NV's Open 66 Envy completes a passage down the wild coast of Borneo and anchors off Gaia Island, just across the water from Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia. The boat's nearly 5-metre draft rules out anchoring in front of the city centre, so the crew drops the hook in 20 metres off Gaia Island instead — already a nerve-wracking depth with a broken windlass.▶ 5:43 The windlass motor has burned out, the shaft bearing is worn, and all five oil seals need replacing; Timo pulls the entire unit apart to bring the motor ashore for assessment.▶ 10:46 The house battery bank is also failing after five years of use, and the crew weighs switching to lithium versus replacing with gel batteries in Kota Kinabalu.▶ 2:56 Ashore on Gaia Island, Jo and Timo cross a muddy hill separating luxury resorts from a stilt settlement built over the shallows, where a dense carpet of plastic and debris collects beneath the houses — waste carried in by currents, ferries, and fishing boats from across the region.▶ 7:01 The community, largely of Filipino origin, commutes daily to Kota Kinabalu by informal taxi boat.▶ 7:50 With 80 metres of chain out and no working windlass, the boat cannot leave until repairs are completed in KK.▶ 10:53
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