Okinawa, Japan

After travelling just over 2000 nautical miles from Tiomon Island in Malaysia we arrived after a tricky 17 day sail in Naha harbor in Okinawa, Japan.

The sail itself is definitely not for the faint of heart.  Some days were flat calm and we had to motor, but most days the wind was ahead of the beam and gusting well over 20 knots.  We caught no fish and saw literally 100's of fishing boats and freighters.  Some showed up on our AIS with their length measured in NAUTICAL MILES!  The longest one was .25NM! 

The only real frustration along the way was that some fishermen have taken to marking their nets with AIS units, so from time to time there were dozens of "hits" which just made everything VERY confusing...

Unfortunately, some of the bigger vessels turn off AIS "B" units (which we have) and so they not only don't see the fishing nets, but don't see us as well...  It made for some long watches....

The last few days were very windy.  We had sustained wind ahead of the beam of 20 knots or more.  Our speed reflected that as we made over 170 NM in a 24 hour period.  A new record for us.  The downside is that in the last two days we have repaired all three of our sails and replaced one of our jib sheets...  Sailing in weather like this gets expensive...  We also lost our BBQ to a crazy wind/wave experience...

A casualty of high winds... The first time we have blown out a block!

Upon our arrival in Naha Harbor we were boarded by no less than a dozen officials from nearly as many government offices...  They thoroughly searched the boat including swabbing boat surfaces looking for drug residue.  They counted and photographed my medication and made a second trip the next day to double check what they did the first day.  The immigration people had a whole electronic setup in the back of their van (just like what they would have at the airport) where they took our fingerprints and our photographs.  All were polite and professional.  Not a bad experience at all, just different.

We had to acquire a special document that would allow us to visit the marina which is a "closed port"  This exercise took almost a whole day but we were successful in the end.... This will allow us to visit other closed ports while in Japan.

Japan has been a very new experience for us so far. As foreigners we are not allowed to have a local SIM card for our phone.  In the end we had to order (rent) an Internet gizmo online for about $100 so we could have access to 100GB of Internet.  When we get to Osaka we will have to mail it back to them... 

The food here is SPECTACULAR.  It seems all people do here is eat!  the grocery has at least 1/3 of its space dedicated to "take away" food...  And all reasonably priced.

 I have to say that I am liking these few days we are spending in a "first world" marina.  Today we dumpster dived a nearly perfect sail (we will use for parts) and a nearly new replacement jib sheet!  All free!  These folks seem to replace stuff when it gets dirty....

We have moved our dinghy off the davits at the back of the boat and deflated it and lashed it to the foredeck on top of the sailing dinghy.  In really big seas, we have decided this arrangement will be safer...

We will spend the next few days finishing up some repairs before we depart for Osaka which is 650NM northeast of us.  We will re-connect then.

Cheers!

Heading Home.....

After many months of agonizing, Shelley and I have made the decision to make our way back to Canada.  We decided that I still need more medical attention and Canada is the best place for us to do that.   We had to decide whether to continue across the Indian Ocean, around the horn of Africa, then across the Atlantic Ocean before heading a few thousand miles up the east coast of North America before arriving home.  Or head north to Japan from Malaysia then east to British Columbia.  Whether or not we stop in Alaska along the way is still up in the air. 

This route is much shorter than continuing west, but will be a much more difficult passage.  The good news is we are picking up our friends, Christina & Derek in Japan so will have their help making the longest part of the passage.

SO..... Today (or early tomorrow) we will leave Tiomon Island where we have checked out of Malaysia and make the 2000 nautical mile run to Japan on our own.  This should take us between 17-21 days depending on wind.  Our plan is to make this a non-stop run across the South China Sea but we are prepared to make changes along the way if we have to.

In preparation for this trip we hauled Blowin Bubbles out of the water last week for some much needed repairs and maintenance and now feel she is ready to make this passage home.

We were SO LUCKY to find an amazing boat yard here in Malaysia who provided us with outstanding work at a great (fair) price.  The NG Boon Boatyard really caters to the commercial trade but were very willing to work with us to get Bubbles ready to go.  As a result of the accident, I am unable to do much of the physical labour that I would normally do.  That said, the cost at a boatyard at home would have been thousands of dollars more than what we were able to get the work done here.

The workmanship here was outstanding and the men working on our boat took great pride in their work.  We completely sanded the bottom and painted 3 coats of bottom paint, we had them sand the decks and cabin and we repainted it. There was a small chunk of our rudder missing from a small bump we got in the Marshall Islands which is now completely repaired and painted.  they also polished the topside above the waterline.  All this for around $1500 Canadian! 

Very sophisticated scuba gear!

Bubbles REALLY needed some TLC....

The small bump in the rudder

We stayed in a small hotel just down the road with air conditioning, a pool and a shower for $30 a night which made the whole experience more fun.  The only problem we had was that Ramadan started while we were here so that meant the only place where we could buy food between sunrise and sunset was Kentucky Fried Chicken or a Chinese Restaurant!  Good food, but we were a little tired of it by the time we left. The hotel included breakfast in our price so we ended up being the only people in there every morning!

We went back in the water and made our way to Tiomon the check out...

We will post another blog once we reach Japan so for now take care everyone....