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....