Tosashimizu and Tannowa (Osaka)

We had a rough overnight passage to Toashimizu from Yakushima.  That said, once we entered the well protected port things improved quickly.  We were greeted by friendly Coast Guard and Customs people and even to Police sent a man to visit to make sure that we were okay.

We tied up on another tidal wall where we knew we were expecting some very high winds over the next 24 hours.  The winds came, and we felt almost nothing.  it was wonderful.

We explored the small village and picked up a few groceries.  We even found a barber who spent over an hour giving me the most incredible haircut and shave ever! It was a little expensive, but the experience alone was worth it....

 

We learned about a street market so we visited it and found the biggest attraction was North American treats like french fries and corn dogs... Who knew...

Our best moment came when a lovely man knocked on our boat and with only one word of English handed us a beautiful pencil drawing of our boat and said, "gift"  and tried to walk away.  Shelley asked if he would let us take his picture and he said yes...  What a beautiful gift!

After the low passed the sun came out and the wind came on our nose as we tried to complete our journey to Osaka.  We beat against it for a few hours then decided we would be better off burning fuel and getting into the lee of the Osaka harbor as soon as possible.

By the next morning we were calmly motoring to our new home for the next week while we wait to pick up Christina & Derrek.

The Tannowa Yacht Club must have been quite a place in its day.  Today it looks a little tired and run down, but the people here more than make up for the facilities shortcomings.  We are way out on the farthest dock which makes to walk to the club house an event, but it is very peaceful where we are.  We hadn't been docked more than a few hours when a very distinguished gentleman (Mr. Yoshida Tsuneo) visited us and asked us to fill out the foreigners visitor log...  In it we found some old friends!   What a treat!  We will add our page before we leave.

The marina manager has been so helpful.  Yesterday he took us to a large (Walmart like) store where we did a big provisioning for the crossing.  I think we will either love or hate noodles by the time we get home....

We will post one more blog before we head out around the middle to end of next week...  Cheers!

Testing Radio Updates....

At sea, we have extremely limited access to the rest of the world. Without a satelite phone we only send and recieve "text only" emails less than 10 kilobites (very tiny), at limited times during the day.

That said, on our 40 day or so crossing we don't want folks to think we are gone forever, so we will try posting a weekly position report on to our blog...

This is just a TEST POST, to see if it works...

Cheers!

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Yakushima Island, Japan

The word we keep saying here is beautiful!  Everywhere we turn there are lush colors and nature at her beautiful best.  From 7000 year old trees to dozens of waterfalls the people of Yakushima take great pride in their lovely home...

The trip here from Okinawa was not the easiest run we have ever made.  After 2 1/2 days of rough seas and uncooperative wind we arrived here exhausted.  We made our way around the inner breakwall and side tied to the rough wall with the fenderboard out we feel quite comfortable.

We went to bed just after supper at 5:30 pm and didn't wake up until the next morning...  really tired I guess...  This morning we decided that since we only had one day here we would make the most of it and rent a small car and explore the island...

What a good idea that turned out to be... We had 6 hours to drive 40 kilometers...  No problems we thought.  We arrived back just before the deadline.  The roads on the other side of the island narrow down to less than a lane width in some places and if there is on coming traffic, someone usually has to back up a little.

Here are a few pictures of our awesome day....

 

 

Yes, That is the centerline of the road, and no, they are not moving out of the way....

 We stopped for lunch when we saw the ONLY English sign...  A lovely small restaurant with great local food...  We have never had a Mackerel pizza before!

The only difficulty here is at low tide when we have to scale the wall to get on or off the boat...  We borrowed a ladder but got yelled at.  Since we didn't understand the man, we just smiled, bowed, and put it back where we found it... (we would have done that anyway, we were just waiting for the tide to rise).  Oh well, not everyone can be happy...

Not quite low tide....

High Tide....

We will leave on the high tide in the morning and get as far up the mainland as we can overnight.  We need to find a port by Thursday afternoon, as there is a nasty low scheduled to pass over on Friday/Saturday.

We will add more when we get to Osaka...

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....