Posted on

We are in Japan

Events are completely overtaking our blog writing, apologies that we have been so slow to provide updates. This is a quick note to say that we reached the southernmost port of Japan on Friday evening, altogether 11 days after we left Subic Bay. The last stretch was a three-night passage from Aparri in the Philippines, as we managed to find the Japan current and flew with a speed up to 8,5 knots through the Luzon strait. This area of sea is known for its roughness, but for the two first nights our only gripe was that we experienced winds contrary to what had been forecast…we were meant to have had a nice beam or broad reach, but instead we were mostly close-hauled, which made the boat heel quite a bit and was not particularly comfortable. However, the seas grew somewhat for the last night and day and became rather confused, and the wind was right behind us, making for a very rolly boat and not much sleep to be had by those off-watch. Nevertheless, the journey went well and we arrived in Ishigaki just before sunset so that port clearance could still be carried out before the weekend. The Japanese port clearance was a very memorable affair that we’ll be writing about more soon (promise!). Right now we are busy drawing up our plans for the so-called “closed” ports that we want to visit in Japan, because the list of ports has to be submitted to and approved by the Ministry of Transport before we can continue onwards.

Posted on

Waiting game

Lil Sis is enjoying her school camp in mainland China, and between her drop off and pick up, part of the family are on a shopping spree in Hong Kong. It is not the kind of activity that one imagines when thinking of Hong Kong and shopping though; they are running around the city’s alleys buying (yet more) spare parts for the boat! It can be a challenge to find technical tools and items in Hong Kong. There are no large DIY or hardware stores, and instead you find that for each item, there is one (back)street where everyone sells that item but almost nothing else. So when you have 20 items to buy, it requires significant local knowledge to find everything, and even then it can be very time-consuming. Nevertheless, it seems infinitely easier to buy spares and other small items from Hong Kong than from the Philippines.

The boat has been around Subic Bay for almost three weeks, and we are starting to get rather itchy feet. The weather analysis has started again in earnest, and considering our success finding bad weather en route to the Philippines, we are taking it very seriously. However, the challenge with sailing is that waiting for the “perfect” weather window may mean not getting out at all, and even perfect windows are not guarantees of good sailing conditions (as we have just learnt the hard way).

All small repairs on the boat have been made, and we have acquired a sea anchor as a replacement for our trusted series drogue which was unfortunately lost when we tried to retrieve it in rather large seas on the trip to the Philippines. Drogues are notoriously difficult to retrieve, and we probably should have waited for calm seas before even attempting to retrieve ours, but by the time the weather started to show signs of easing, we were so ready to get on our way – not to mention ready to exit the hell that is being tied to a drogue in big seas! – that we just couldn’t resist the urge to get it off.

We are now also starting to go through our departure checklists. What shall we eat during our next passage? How much water do we need to carry on board? We have a water-maker, but it is still in a “pickled” (i.e. long-term storage) state, and we need to get it going once underway (it is not a good idea to un-pickle a water-maker in dirty marina water). We need to get fuel, and the propeller needs to be scrubbed once more to remove any sign of barnacles which grow with amazing speed in these tropical waters. We need to handle administrative tasks in the current marina, and need to inform coming ports of our arrival. Are we comfortable that we have paper charts of the right scale for our next leg and do we need further pilot books for port arrival? Are seacocks in a good state and do our bilge pumps work properly? What about fire and gas alarms, and our emergency devices such as EPIRBs and PLBs? Are all the communications equipment in good working order, likewise our chart plotter and autopilot? Do we have enough gas to cook food on the next leg? The list goes on and on.

Whereas the stress factor is high, the excitement over what lies ahead grows exponentially. We hope the waiting game will soon be over and our bow will once again be pointed towards news horizons.

Posted on

Ahoy from the Philippines!

Sorry for the long blog silence, but the reason for it is that we have (finally) been at sea.

On 11 March, I wrote about the conditions that we did NOT want to encounter on the first leg of our trip. I explained that our fear of the first leg turning into a nightmare was the reason why we waited and waited for a good weather window. Eventually, we decided that instead of attempting to get to Taiwan directly, we would sail to the Philippines first, since going south would ensure nicer sailing conditions.

Well, suffice it to say that things did not exactly go according to plan, and despite changing our first destination port and sailing direction, we were completely unsuccessful in avoiding the nightmare conditions I so casually outlined in my post a few weeks back.

We left on the first leg of our sailing voyage on Wednesday the 29th, and arrived in Philippines, yesterday. A trip that was meant to take five days took us ten as we were battling Force 8 winds and 6-metre waves for three nights and drifted over one hundred nautical miles away from our destination. Hunkered down below in a cabin where the temperature was 29 degrees and humidity 75%, with helmets on our heads and mattresses against the cabin walls waiting for the waves and wind to knock down the boat, we swore that we would sell the boat as soon as (and if) we got to land.

Fortunately, with a couple of good meals in our bellies and the comfort of a warm shower here in the Philippines, none of us is of that opinion any longer, and we just feel immense gratitude that we survived the situation and have come through it stronger than before. I suppose there is something to be said for having the worst experience at the outset, because once you get through it, you know you can get through it later again.

We are also in awe of having witnessed the camaraderie of seafarers (such as immediate offers of assistance by commercial vessel captains who we were hailing on VHF to inform them that we are drifting), not to mention the efficient and compassionate support given to us over satellite communications by the Finnish and Hong Kong Maritime Rescue Coordination Centres. We are thankful and humbled by these experiences.

I do intend to write a full report about what happened at a later date, but right now we are again working on the boat (nothing major broke, but there are lots of small bits and pieces to fix) and on healing ourselves both physically and mentally.

Posted on

Strong Monsoon signal in force

Here we are still, boat finally ready but with winds that are rocking the boat already in our very sheltered marina. The Strong Monsoon signal is in force and it doesn’t look much better for the next 10 days. We were thinking of at least venturing out to Macau in the next couple of days, but found out that the Macau port authorities require five working days’ worth of a warning to do the paperwork, which kills that idea as Lil Sis has to be back in Hong Kong from Wednesday next week for a few days anyway (we were originally planning to fly her back from Taiwan, but as it happens, it looks like we won’t be going anywhere before that).

On a positive note, we are getting a lot of the “not so urgent” and “nice to do” action items ticked off from our list.

Posted on

Boat ready, but the weather…

What a busy week behind us! We have been running left, right and centre to collect the last pieces of equipment, spares, school supplies and medication. We’ve also done a lot of administrative work, finalised boat installations, checked the status of gear, programmed radio channels and so on. We are happy to say that the boat will be ready to go by Monday (13 days behind schedule, but that really isn’t too bad!).

However, now that our attention has turned to the weather for real, we are starting to realise (or perhaps the right word is “admit”) that we may have to wait a while still before proceeding eastwards. We always knew that it would not be easy to find a suitable weather window in March, with the northeast monsoon still in full force. Nevertheless, we were hoping for one to appear (surely there had to be some beginner’s luck for us?!). For a little while, it looked like there might actually be a window early this coming week, but it has narrowed down and were we to leave, we would be pushing straight into 25-knot winds after 1-2 days. Not to mention the waves and swell from different directions that the area is known for, which in the words of a far more experienced sailor result in a “washing machine” effect during the NE monsoon. We just don’t want that sort of a first leg on our journey; there would be a real risk that everyone would run off the boat when we reach Taiwan and never return!

So, while fine-tuning the boat and bemoaning the weather over a glass of wine (or a cup of cocoa in the case of the girls), we are considering other, temporary sailing grounds closer to home. Those may not take us where we ultimately want to go, but at least we would get out of our berth.