Seabird

Grey Pearl

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT

I have not written a blog entry since we left Singapore. It was a great trip from there to our winter marina here in Phuket, Thailand, but all of the memories of the fun we had during that trip were erased in a moment with a horrible tragedy.

On Tuesday, December 6^th, our good friends and cruising companions for the last three years, lost their boat, Grey Pearl, to a fire at our marina in Phuket, Thailand. Fortunately, Braun and Tina were not aboard when it happened. By the time Carol and I arrived at the marina, it was a total loss.

“The Pearl” was more than a boat to Braun and Tina. It was their home, a member of their family and their pride and joy. She took them across two oceans and two continents with safety and grace, from the US to the Mediterranean, through the Panama Canal to Alaska, Russia, Japan and Asia.

It will be hard when we are cruising to look out our pilothouse windows and not see the Pearl.

We have lost our sister ship, but not our good friends. I know that we will cruise together again.

Steven and Carol

Start your own blog now! Free!

Comment on: Grey Pearl

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 12:09:26 GMT

We were very sorry to hear about the fire on Grey Pearl. While we did not know Tina and Braun we feel that we did because we had the opportunity to follow your cruise via your blogs. We wish Tina and Braun well and hope they will be back at sea with you and Carol soon.

Borneo to Singapore

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Thursday, September 29^th, 2011

Departure day has finally come for our trip from Kota Kinabalu, Borneo, to Singapore. I still have not gotten over my pre voyage jitters yet. I’m not sure if it is the fear of the unknown or just the change (however briefly) in lifestyle. As usual, we have tested all systems on the boat and everything seems to be working fine. We decided not to install the infamous Heat Exchanger on the engine as we have limited resources in Borneo for unforeseen parts needed for the installation. If the old heat exchanger fell apart while taking it out and the new one did not fit for some reason, the trip would be delayed.

Day 1

With a few minor puffs of soot, the engines started perfectly and we were off. Wayne Davis on Grey Pearl ( AKA Good Wayne) had masterfully planned our route and determined that under perfect conditions, at 8 knots, the trip would take 99 hours, putting us into Singapore at 11am on Monday morning. Normally, this NEVER works out because of currents, storms, sea conditions etc, so you end up arriving way early or way late. In this instance a variation of six or seven hours either way put us into the most crowded of shipping lanes either before sunrise or after sundown! The weather looked good for the trip. It looked like, from what we could gather from our internet sources, that the weather should be good for the entire four days. Our professional weather forecaster, Bob, was not quite so optimistic, but said this:

“Typhoon Nesat as weakened to the north and continues along a westward heading toward Hainan Island. The pressure gradient that was tightening south of the Nesat has since weakened southward toward Borneo, so the strongest winds you had encountered closer to departure (and from your most recent position report) should continue to subside over the next 48hrs or so.

You still run the risk of a bit more SSE-SE wind once you get over the exposed waters of the South China Sea and they'll continue to arrival Singapore. There will also be the risk of isolated showers/thunderstorms the next few days, but fortunately, with Nesat less weakening and approaching the more western South China Sea, the flow across the tropics has weakened. None of this activity is expected to gain strength or organize into a tropical cyclone.

Along your intended route expect

Thu/29-night: W-WSW to more SW-SSW 08-15kt. Gusty in/near showers and thunderstorms. Sea 2-4ft. Swells W-WSW 2-4ft.

Fri/30: Range W-SW to even southerly through late in the day; 08-15kts. Seas 3-4ft. Swells WSW to WNW 2-4ft, even more NW from late morning through the night.

Sat/01: Become light/variable 05-10kt, Seas 2-3ft with a confused to southerly swells 2-4ft developing through the day.

Sun/02: S-SE 10-16kts, Seas 2-4ft. Swells SSE-SE 3-4ft

Mon/03-arrival: S-SE 10-16kts, Seas 2-4ft, SSE-SE 3-5ft, but less than 3ft to nil over more protected waters nearing/reaching Singapore.

Please continue to advise your position while enroute. Watching/updating. B/Rgds, Bob/OMNI”

Through a source from Braun, we also got a security report, stating that the route seemed to be “reasonably safe” with only four incidences reported and those were only knife attacks.

Well, that’s great news….

Sooo, we were off and running and all mechanical systems were running perfectly. My anxiety started to easy once we were out and I began to enjoy the cruise. Shortly before nightfall, we started to see some large chunks of floating debris. When easily avoided during the day, you just cannot see them at night.

Some of these, like the one in the picture, were mistaken by us as small boats! Turning around is not an option, so you really have to get into the mindset that we should worry about things on the boat that we can control and not dwell on things that you cannot. There are 12 hours of complete darkness every day and it can become a long night if you sit there wringing your hands and worrying about stuff you cannot control. Here is what you see from the Seabird helm at night. The helm instruments provide all the information that we use. As you can see, there is very little visible beyond the windshield.

The coastline of Kota Kinabalu soon turns to the coastline of the tiny country of Brunei. Brunei is a tiny nation mostly known for its vast oil wealth and its most famous leader, the Sultan of Brunei, one of the wealthiest men in the world. We passed the entire country at night and, although we did not see any coastline, we saw lots of oil wells marked by the huge gas flames.

Oil Wells off Brunei

As you can imagine, we stayed well away from them.

A note on our watch standing schedule: Since there were just two of us on board, Carol and I decided to do three hours on and three hours off for most of the trip. It takes a little getting used to for the first few days as you have to force yourself to fall asleep and wake up three hours later to assume the next watch. For the entire four days, Carol and I see very little of each other except for when we change watch. On these long trips, you have to sleep when you can. The 12 to 6am is the toughest. We have this piece of equipment called a Watch Commander that beeps every 20 minutes to keep you awake. If you don’t re-set it, all hell breaks loose with a loud alarm, waking everyone on the boat up. The Watch Commander is not just to keep you awake…..With only two of us on board, one of us sleeping, should the helmsman walk outside and accidently fall overboard, forget about finding someone after a three hour sleep. If the alarm goes off, the most time that will have passed since they went missing would be 20 minutes. We don’t like to think about those things!!

Day two

The thunderstorms started to roll in. We really don’t like them, not because of the rain, but because of the lightning. In the unlikely scenario that you are struck by a bolt, you could lose all electrical function on your boat, including all of your navigation instruments. We therefore try to avoid them if possible. This one below, depicted by the red areas on the radar, was one we could not avoid, as you can see.

Approaching storms

We were fortunate on this one and the others we encountered to be spared from the lightning strikes.

At one point in the middle of the night when I was on watch on Seabird and Braun was on watch on Grey Pearl, we encountered our first problem. Braun radioed me and asked if I saw a flashing red light up ahead. I replied that I did not see it. Braun said it was close and usually meant fishing pots ahead. He turned on his spotlight and scanned near our boat and radioed to me that I was passing between two of them at that moment! There was really nothing I could do at that point so I continued on with my own spot light on. Grey Pearl had to stop dead in the water because they were approaching a long line of them. By now, everyone was up in the pilot house on Grey Pearl and it was a team effort using night vision goggles, spotlights and skilled helmsmanship to navigate around the sea of pots. It has never happened to me personally, but I know of a few instances where the running gear of boats got completely tangled up and the boat stopped dead in the water. If it happens at night, there is really not much you can do in open ocean until morning.

Fortunately, that was our last excitement for the night.

Day Three

The weather was getting really nice. The seas had turned glassy and our speed, which had started out at between 7 knots and 7.5 knots for the first day, increased to a speedy 8. 6 knots, keeping us on an average speed of 8 knots.

At this point, we were passing the “dangerous” areas, but despite that, we did not feel at all in danger and saw very little traffic other than isolated fishing trawlers dragging nets and picking up their pots. The storms were getting more frequent and we did some evasive maneuvers, skirting between some that looked a bit “electric”. It’s easy during the day because you can see them visually and on radar. At night, it’s like playing a video game! We just look at the radar, the chart plotter and twist the knob on the auto pilot! We had to be a bit more careful on this trip because we had decided that, unlike other trips where we traveled one behind the other within a mile of each other, it was better for security to travel abreast and as close as one half mile from one another. So, if GP to a left and we took a right…………. It actually did happen on this trip while Carol was at the helm and she radioed Braun to “pass the Grey Poupon”.

This is as close as we will come to the equator. As you can see on the chart, Grey Pearl (and Seabird) are about 130 miles from it. Had we actually crossed it, we would have been forced to do "King Neptunes Plunge", a ritualistic sort of thing where everyone on the boat must jump into the water!

The Equator

Our last night at sea was really special. Not only was the boat purring along just perfectly, but the speed had stabilized and it became obvious that we would arrive at the crowded shipping lanes in Singapore at daylight. Everything was just perfect……..

Tina on GP: Hey, do you see a light up ahead?

Steven on Seabird: Nope….Oh yeah, now I see it…..Think it must be a fishing boat.

GP: oh oh, I think I just saw a white colored float pass by the boat…..

Seabird: (crap!) I should turn on the spotlight…..stand by…..

No sooner did I turn on our large spotlight that two large white fishing bouys appeared about 25 feet in front of the boat, about 30 feet apart from each other. I slammed the stop button on the auto pilot and heaved the steering wheel to the right, allowing the boat to pass directly between the two bouys. I held my breath, hoping not to hear the sound of a propeller getting tangled in a maze of rope. There was nothing more to be done at this point but to wait. I let out a sigh of relief when 20 long seconds had passed and …..Nothing.

Shortly after that, Carol came up to take her watch. We had decided that on the last night we would do 4 hour watches so that I could take the helm at daylight when we were entering the crowded Singapore area.

Carol’s watch went well with no issues. When I got up for my 6am watch on the day of our arrival, the instruments started to get crowded with ships on the screens.

Entrance to Singapore

It seemed much more organized and manageable entering Singapore than it was in Hong Kong and therefore far less stressful. One of the arrival issues that we were concerned about was the tidal current. If it was against us, our speed would have slowed to about 4 knots. Fortunately for us, it was with us and by the time we got to the Western Anchorage to check in with the authorities, Seabird was traveling 11.7 knots! We entered the Anchorage and floated about until the immigration people came over and we passed the multiple forms back and forth to each other in a fishing net attached to a long pole.

Before we hit the anchorage, we were amidst an international border issue. Two patrol boats, one from Singapore and one from Malaysia, came to a verbal confrontation on the radio, each claiming that they were in the respective sovereign waters. After a verbal spar, the Malaysian boat called Grey Pearl and asked what their destination was. Braun hesitantly notified them that since he was in Singapore waters, he should not answer the question. They responded rather strongly that GP was in fact in Malaysian waters and to answer the question…..Braun wisely agreed and gave them the information they wanted.

Immigration boat and GP

After about an hour, we were allowed to proceed to One15 Marina, another 5 star facility that is equal or better than marinas in the US. After four days at sea, it is really nice to come to a place like this!

One15 Marina

I would be derelict in my duties if I did not mention what a great job Good Wayne did on the planning. I had mentioned earlier that we had planned on taking 99 hours for the passage, assuming an 8 knot speed. As it turned out, our speed varied from between 5.7 knots and 9.6 knots (with a short period of 11.7 knots) and, ready for this? Average speed 8.0 knots! Our passage time? 99.6 hours! Kudos to Wayne!!!

We always meet interesting people at every port and see interesting boats. If any of you recall, several years ago in our blog we did a piece a boat called Earthrace, a biodiesel powered space craft looking boat that was trying to break the around the world nonstop record (which they did). The Singpore version of that boat looks similar, but on steroids at 100 feet long and 100 tons, powered entirely by solar energy (thus named Planet Solar).

Planet Solar

Prop on Planet Solar

Planet Solar has no other mechanical propulsion other than the electric motors and carries 18000 lbs of Lithium Ion batteries which can provide enough power to the motors to run the boat for three days. The entire superstructure is covered with solar panels that pump out 20 killowatts per hour to keep the batteries charged. There is a crew of four on boat and it has no windows, hatches or air conditioning…..no thanks. You can read more about it and the voyage on their interesting website: www.planetsolar.org . Their plan is to circumnavigate the globe and they are more than halfway there.

Interestingly enough, Seabird is also about halfway....

Anyway.....Singapore is an amazing place…..our next blog entry ……..

Steven

Braun, Tina & Wayne from GP. Lisa from One15 Marina

Comment on: Borneo to Singapore

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 17:19:46 GMT

LOVE reading your posts!!! Great job and I look forward to reading more-If and when you get to the West coast, let me know if you need a crew member. Best of luck! Ken Coffee Trader II GB 36-267 Beaverton Oregon

Leaving Borneo

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT

While we enjoy our time home seeing friends and family, a few weeks before returning to the boat , a feeling of great anticipation creeps in. The excitement of starting our next cruise is always there, but with a touch of concern of what you might find after returning to the boat. Sometimes it’s a few leaks, dead batteries, a dirty boat, mold or something that has been rendered inoperable due to lack of use. This year, we were very fortunate. We had a great guy, Cris, here at Sutera Harbor watching after our boats (Seabird and Grey Pearl). Cris checked the boats on a regular basis and reported back to us by email. The outside of the boats were tended to by two guys from the Philippines, Jerry and Mark, who did a great job of keeping the boats spiffy. Upon arrival, everything looked great other than a few items that needed to be used to get back to normal, like the toilets!

Both Carol and I (at least I thought so) expected that since we had clothing in the US and on the boat, that we would not be carrying much back and forth. As it turned out, it was not so! We stopped in California to see Carol’s Dad on the way home and on the way back to the boat, so we needed clothing for several days just for that alone! We also brought a few empty suitcases stacked inside one another, “just in case” we needed to bring stuff back to the boat.

AS IT TURNED OUT, the list of items we needed for the boat kept growing and before we knew it, we had three large suitcases, two smaller carryon suitcases, one large satchel and one (very heavy) knap sack. As it turned out, it was fairly reasonable to bring all of that stuff until we got to Singapore, where the local airline informed us that the one extra large suitcase, which weighed in at 55 lbs, was going to cost us $287 EXTRA, more than the cost of the ticket to get there!! Being that they had us painted into a corner, we begrudgingly agreed to pay it but we will visit that again when we arrive by boat as their website advertised $1 per pound. Braun and Tina had the same problem, multiplied by two or three but had printed out the website and showed it to the agent, but to no avail. Interestingly enough, the next day, the website was changed!! To be continued…………..

This was a long trip, about 25 hours total, but it was not without humor. I had purchased a heat exchanger for the transmission to replace one that was defective, ordering it while we were here in Borneo, but the shipping was close to $500 and we decided to transport it with us upon returning instead. Fortunately, it fit exactly into my carryon suitcase. UNFORTUNATELY, to the TSA agents, it looked like a WMD when scanning the bag with their screens!

The Culprit

I wish I could have gotten a picture of a few of the agents when they saw it on the screen. The reactions ranged from swallowing hard to eyes almost bulging out of the sockets. All of them, however, were very professional and did the obligatory testing on the bag and the heat exchanger. I, for one, am glad to have them on our side and actually checking things that are suspicious instead of just “rubber stamping”. They are the first line of protection for us and I am glad that they are there doing their job.

The other thing we had to do was to make the carryon suitcase with the heat exchanger look light. There was a sign that said “your one carryon bag allowed can weigh no more than 7kg (15 lbs). Well, my suitcase weighed 38 lbs and my knapsack weight 20lbs. In addition, Carol had a 28 lb carryon. Sooo… I hiked the knapsack on my back, stood as straight as I could and towed the suitcase through the gate with my pinky finger, hoping that they thought it might look light. I also practiced lifting it up with one hand and not showing the strain on my face so that I could place it on the belt to the x-ray booth. I am just glad that no one other than me grabbed it as it was pretty obvious upon lifting that it exceeded the limit. I didn’t feel too bad though because I had a 275 lb guy sitting next to me which was more weight than me and my two carryon’s! I guess my punishment was having the guy sit next to me for that leg of the trip.

One thing that Nordhavn owners dread is starting up the engine at the beginning of the season. It is not for fear that it will not start, because they always do, but what comes out of the dry exhaust pipe can wreak havoc on your neighbor (s). Braun’s neighbor, unfortunately, was me and when he started the engine, it belched out black soot bunnies the size of golf balls . Carol and I were just walking down the dock when it happened and saw a remorseful Braun and Tina with horrified looks on their faces. We had to laugh. For us being the victims, gives credence to the saying “what goes around comes around”. Just two seasons ago, when leaving the dock at Hachinohe, Japan, we started our engine, blasting Grey Pearl with the greasy, dastardly dust. Anyway, our case, we just got out the shop vac and scooped it up before it set in to the fiberglass. Revenge is so sweet.

So now, other than filling the water tanks and fueling up, we should be ready to go. This portion of the trip takes us from here in Borneo to Singapore, about a 99 hour trip.

Tuesday, September 27^th

Just after we arrived in KK, Braun and I decided that we should dive under the boats to “tune up the bottom”. We had a diver periodically go down and keep the keel coolers clean while we were away, but we decided to leave the heavy lifting until we got back.

Tools of the trade

Braun in Meditation for a safe dive

So we got our gear out, suited up and under we went. All in all, there were no surprises. We had heavy growth underneath the keel where they had neglected to put anti fouling paint at our last haul out in Hong Kong. There was considerable growth on the propellers and shafts, but the zincs were in good shape as were the keel coolers. Both Grey Pearl and Seabird use a special coating on our propellers which makes it easier to clean them off. With a light scraping and a scouring pad, they were just like new. We went down again later with a powerwasher to touch up the keel coolers and bow thrusters. In a previous blog, from Taiwan, we described what we learned about cruising with fouled running gear and we will never do that again!!

Wednesday, September 28^th

We are scrambling to get everything ship shape for tomorrows departure. You would think that after all of the time we have spent doing this, it would be second nature. Since it’s been 3 months, we are a bit rusty. Starting the engines and going to get fuel brings back all of the items on the mental list. Fueling can be an adventure in this part of the world. Sometimes you have to exit the harbor and attach to a barge in rolly seas, sometimes travel miles to a rickety pier and sometimes they deliver it in trucks to the dock. Here in KK, they have fuel available just across from our slip.

Grey Pearl at the fuel dock

We arranged to get the fuel through the marina office and took the boat over there at 10am. By 11am, I had only 250 gallons in the tank, which means it was pitifully slow. I had planned on taking 500 gallons, but did not want to spend a good part of our last day here fueling up. We ended up taking on only 350 gallons. The fill rate worked out to be 5 gallons per minute and we are used to at least 25 GPM. The water situation was not much better and it took us from Tuesday morning to Wednesday morning to fill up our tanks!! I think our reverse osmosis watermaker, which converts seawater to fresh at a painfully slow rate, is faster than the dock water faucet! Anyway, back to the fuel situation. I had originally planned on filling all of the 5 tanks, which, since we were already a bit over half full, would have taken 1000 gallons. I was concerned due to the lack of a good fuel filtering system at the dock that we could get stuck with contaminated fuel and overwhelming our filters. On Seabird, we never use fuel that has been taken directly from the pump. All fuel that goes to the engine or generator is taken from a 300 gallon “day tank”, which draws fuel using a secondary pump from the tanks that we fill at the dock. That pump sends the fuel through a 2 micron filter to the day tank where it is used by the engines. It does mean that several times a day during a passage that you must manually transfer fuel to the day tank, but it is a simple procedure and prevents the single most common reason for diesel engine failure: bad fuel. Subsequently, we isolated the new fuel to a single tank. If it is bad, we can easily filter it if needed. A friend of ours, Scot Strickland, fueled up with contaminated fuel in the Canary Islands and did not discover it until he was several hours out to sea. I think he had something like 29 spare filters on board and ended up having to wrap paper towels around them to extend their life. I love the fact that he was able to come up with that idea, but I prefer to avoid the situation altogether.

So now we are down to wracking our brains, trying to see if there is anything that we missed. Right now, I would say we are just about ready. We are looking forward to our 99 hour trip to Singapore. The weather looks good. Our weather router, Bob, has sent us the thumbs up! The next blog update will be from Singapore. We cast off the lines at 8am.

Comment on: Leaving Borneo

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 06:29:20 GMT

Have a smooth cruise to Singapore! I'm jealous of how well your boats survived the offseason. Paddle fast, we are impatient for your arrival. -Ken and Roberta

Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia (Borneo)

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Life in KK

Although KK (Kota Kinabalu) in Borneo was not our final destination for the season as far as we had planned, it was a major stopover for us. It’s not that we did not like the Philippines, because we really did and had a great time there. The people were friendly and the stops, for the most part, were gorgeous. On top of that, traveling with “The Pearl” leaves the door open for excitement, regardless of where we are! The real issue is that, periodically, we need to return to our brand of civilization, which means modern marinas, great restaurants and other cruisers.

KK met our standards and surpassed them. We all fell in love with the place rather quickly and chewed into the tourist brochures with a voracious appetite! And, after a few days of gorging ourselves in the restaurants and repairing our sore bodies with the available massage therapists, we started planning the side trips. The Grey Pearl’s and Seabird’s crew rented a car and headed for Kinabalu Park in the mountains, near Mt Kinabalu, which is a 13,455 foot peak.

Mt Kinabalu

The drive through the mountains up to the lodge was filled with small remote villages, winding roads and frequent deluges of rain, flooding the roads and making it difficult for our DD, one Capt. Braun Jones, to drive. Oh yeah, you would think that among five college educated people, one of us would have thought to get gas before we left. Nope. We had not calculated that driving uphill continuously burned three times as much gas as on a flat surface so we arrived at the peak with about 6 miles left in our tank. The locals, believe it or not, had no idea where the gas station was, and PLEASE do not ask a woman. They really knew nothing because you were told that by their husbands! After asking about six different people, all locals, we found the gas station about 100 yards from where we were.

With a belly full of fuel, we drove into the campground, registered, and were directed to our cabin. It was actually kind of cute, albeit a little dusty. I think it was considered luxury by the locals but by US standards, it was less than 5 stars. We had a living room and two bedrooms, complete with mattresses with a 14 inch drop in the center. Other than waking up U shaped, we got decent nights sleep.

Resort at Mt Kinabalu Park

In the morning, Carol, Tina and I headed up the mountain trail for a walk, leaving the other two to check out the flower beds and avoid any form of exercise. I don’t want to mention their names as they probably now feel embarrassed that they could not make it up the hill……

It was not a terribly exciting trip (other than the drive), but it was our first trip inside Borneo and the company was great! Somehow we always manage to have a good time and things sometimes get out of hand, but this time it was FAIRLY civil. One time while in Petropavlovsk (Siberia)…….well, that story is not for public consumption….

Once back to the marina we did more of the same stuff as before. We had begun to meet a lot of cruisers and when we had arrived, we found our friends from the Philippines, John and Joanne, with their boat docked at the end of our float. We also met two other Nordhavns, both 46 footers Gordon and Collette on Tigerbalm, Chris, Fred and Buster the dog on Arcturus and a couple from a sailboat, Peter and Roslyn. All of this was the makings for some good cocktail parties!! The photo below is of one of the boats at the marina, “Mayan Queen” owned by a Mexican businessman and was the Chief Blocker of Beautiful Sunsets at the marina. It is 305 feet in length. You cannot fathom just how large of a boat that is until you see the blue trawler to the left of it. That boat is 105 feet, dwarfed by the Mayan Queen! The Mayan Queen has 31 crew and based on my estimates, uses about $150,000 of diesel fuel per month, just to power the generators for electricity!!! I tried to figure out how many days I could run that boat for before becoming financially ruined, but it was too depressing.

Mayan Queen

Sipadan Island and the Mabul Water Bungalows

Our next trip was to be our most exciting side trip to date. The island of Sipadan is rated among the top three scuba diving sites in the world and if you are visiting the area, it is a must see. Getting the flights and room reservations was the easy part (well, for myself and Braun as Carol and Tina did all the work). The biggest problem for Carol and I was that Sipadan is a Scuba Diving paradise and we were not certified. In order to take full advantage of the trip, Carol and I both needed PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) certification. We had only a few days to do this and fortunately, at our resort in KK, they offered the training. Carol and I signed up for, and completed a three day crash course and were ready to go. After one taxi ride, a plane trip with two stops, a 2 hour van ride and a one hour boat ride, we arrived at Mabul Island, the home of The Mabul Water Bungalows. MWB is an island paradise, the likes of which most have never seen. The water is pure and clean, the island surrounded by a large reef and white sandy beaches. And that is BEFORE you get to the resort!

Mabul Water Bungalows

As you can see, the rooms are all separate little huts on long pilings, sitting on the reef. Each room is air conditioned and with a balcony that REALLY overlooks the water. The arrival was well organized and we received an orientation informing us of our schedule for the next several days. We wasted no time and our first dive was that afternoon, at the resort. It was more of an orientation dive so that they could determine your skill level. It was an interesting dive and we saw lots of gorgeous fish and coral, just a tease for what was to come….

We had been told before arrival that it was not guaranteed that we would be able to dive on Sipadan Island, the premier spot, which is a national park and they only allowed 140 people per day to get passes, 14 of which were obtained by our resort, which had over 100 people to satisfy. We were very fortunate that they were able to obtain additional tickets for us and the next morning we took a short boat ride to Sipadan. Sipadan Island itself is a smallish island surrounded by a coral reef with about 10-15 feet of water, which is great for snorkelers. At the outside of the reef, there is a coral “wall” that drops 2000 feet almost straight down. Along this wall, about 40 to 60 feet deep, is where the best diving is. The water itself is crystal clear, so clear that Tina Jones, who was snorkeling, could see us clearly! Once down we were just surrounded by schools of fish, most of which I could not name, but included hundreds of Barracudas, 3-4 foot diameter turtles and, yes, sharks. For some reason, you are not afraid of them but they are of you, quite the opposite of what I would have thought. They stay a distance away, kind of ghostly in the distance, which was fine with me.

We had three separate dives there and on the last dive Carol and Braun elected not to go. It was another wall dive and, as before, there were lots of fish, turtles and coral to see. We were floating about 40 feet down when I saw my divemaster start to flail his arms wildly and I could hear him screaming through his regulator, like something had startled him. I looked over and saw this Triggerfish, which is a smallish fish (about two feet long) with a big, toothy mouth. It kind of reminded me of Don Knots in the movie “The Incredible Mr. Limpett”, except his teeth were bigger. He was attacking our divemaster (his name is King) as he was kicking and trying to get away. During his retreat, one of his diving fins came off and was resting on a ledge with about a 1500 foot drop underneath. He refused to go back and get it as the fish was hovering there about 2 feet in back of it with his mouth opening and shutting. I imagine if fish growled, he was doing it!

Mr. Limpett

The Real Triggerfish

Another species of the same fish

For my part, I was concerned that the current would move the fin enough so that it would sink into the depths, and in that situation, it could never be recovered, so I swam slowly over to it with the fish staring at me hungrily. I snatched the fin off of the ledge and started swimming away quickly only to find Don the fish was chasing after me, chomping down on my fins as I moved away. Fortunately, after I got about 15 feet away, he gave up and returned to his spot. My understanding now is that he (or she) was probably spawning and protecting the nest. I have learned since then to stay away from the pesky buggers!

"You don't leave fish to find fish"

After returning from our trip, we kind of settled in to “life in Borneo”. We had lots of get togethers with our new friends, lots of dinners at local restaurants and started to plan our next voyage, to Singapore, which is where we planned to keep the boats for the summer. However, the day before our departure, Carol and I were sitting at the pool, enjoying the surroundings and she said “You know, its really too bad that we have to leave here”. I responded by saying, “So, why are we leaving?” Since we had no good answer, I telephoned Grey Pearl, who was also getting ready to leave with us. A surprised Braun called back and said he needed to think about that, being that we had planned our departure and all the paperwork was being processed by our local agent as we spoke. We met later that afternoon and chuckling, he commented “ There is an old saying – you don’t leave fish to find fish”. Well, the decision was made! We spoke to Simon, the marina manager who confirmed we could stay and we then notified the Singapore marina that we were delaying our trip and so there you are…………home sweet home again (just a different location than we had planned). Braun and I were also fortunate enough to find Cris, a local in KK, who will be looking after the boats while we are gone for the summer.

So ends our cruising season on Seabird……Next season (October) we will be continuing our journey to Singapore and Thailand. Our “current” plan is to spend the winter months in the Phuket area, filled with gorgeous islands, clear blue warm water and good friends. Thanks again for taking the time to read our blog and for all of the supportive emails. We love hearing from you all!

A few more photos.....

Over I go

Sipadan

Planning our cruise

Mabul Water Bungalows at night

Chris, Fred and Buster

Puerto Princesa to Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia

Sun, 05 Jun 2011 00:00:00 GMT

There was an air of excitement on both Grey Pearl and Seabird as we pulled up anchor in Puerto Princesa. As much as we loved the Philippines, we were looking forward to arriving in a few days at Sutera Harbour Resort and Marina in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia. Once again, we were looking to make day trips if possible and Wayne Davis on Grey Pearl, our designated voyage planner, had mapped out several courses of between 5 and 12 hour days. None of the places were anything but anchorages and we did not expect to stay in any one spot for more than one night. We were all getting itchy to get back to a marina with amenities like electricity, other boats and restaurants.

So far, the entire trip through the Philippines was almost eerily calm.

This is what most of the trip was like this year!

Based on our cruising experiences for the last few years, we were suspicious of our good luck. We were kind of looking at the weather charts wondering when the other shoe was going to drop….like with a Typhoon or something. Never happened. Sail boaters had to absolutely HATE this cruising season, relying on their engines 95 percent of the time to get them where they were going. Us, on the other hand, simply reveled in the calm. Each day was 0 to 5 kts of wind and glassy waters with warm tropical air. We still had a nagging problem with our Air Conditioning system and it would not operate while underway. At night it worked fine at anchor. It had to be a simple solution and we would get to it when we arrived at Kota Kinabalu.

Our first stop was an overnight anchor at Rasa Island, 47 miles south of Puerto Princesa. It was like many of the anchorages that we have stopped at, just the two boats, a fishing village and some curious fisherman.

Sunset off of Rasa Island

The wind was picking up to about 20 kts with an oncoming squall and so, even though we were in only 20 feet of water, we let out 200 feet of chain, nearly double what the depth would require. In these tropical waters, we have seen too many times the weather changing drastically in the middle of the night and it would not have surprised me to wake up at midnight to 50 knot winds. With 200 feet of chain out and a 300 lb anchor buried deep in the mud, I would simply fall back to sleep and not worry. Fortunately (see picture above), things calmed down at sunset.

In the morning, at 7am, we pulled up our anchor and departed for our next stop, Tuba River, 78 miles from Rasa Island. Once again, we were relying on 3^rd and 4^th hand recommendations for the anchorage and had no idea what to expect. Getting into Tuba River, based on the chart, looked at bit tricky. Add to that the unreliable charts and we got slightly nervous. Surrounding the entrance for the last 6 miles of the trip were numerous sand bars, shoals and reefs, many of which were either larger or in changed in shape from what was on the chart. We were relying on water color, which, the closer we got to the entrance, turned a muddy brown. All veteran Nordhavn owners are in two categories. Those who have run aground and those who will not admit to doing so. We are in the former. Most Nordhavns are a single engine configuration with a sturdy keel to protect the running gear so going aground, especially on to a soft, muddy surface, is no big deal. You just back off and try again in another direction (of course!). Fortunately, as we eased into the harbor, there were no mishaps and we entered probably the worst anchorage that I can remember. The river itself appeared to be a sticky, dirty mess. The shorelines on both sides were strewn with a mish mash of dilapidated shacks on stilts and run down wooden boats.

Tuba River Anchorage

We ended up anchoring stern to the shoreline, fairly close to a barge that was also anchored, complete with ramshackle housing, chickens and a rooster aboard! Shortly after we set the anchor, the crew started waiving at us. In broken English, they warned that the barge would be shifting on its anchor when the tide changed and would be crashing into us within a few hours. Not wanted to be molested by a 500 ton, run down barge with rusty bolts sticking out the side, we elected to move 100 yards to our port and forward of Grey Pearl to a safer place.

It was probably the poorest part of the population that we have seen. We also stuck out like a sore thumb, which is not good. Our boats, I suspect, had the only running water in the area. Unfortunately, with this much poverty usually comes crime. In the US, that would be the case. Here, it seems that whatever they have, they are happy. They just want to be left alone. As was most of the other anchorages, there were lots of curious people, but harmless. We sort of slept well but were glad to be out of there in the morning.

Once again, we left as early as the tide would allow and headed for Clarendon harbor, 51 miles south of us. Clarendon turned out to be pretty, but isolated island harbor.

Location of Clarandon Harbor

We were really getting good at this routine: Enter the harbor, drop the hook, test our family radios with Grey Pearl, agree on a departure time and say goodnight.

By morning, the plan was to head to another anchorage, as the final passage to get to Northern Borneo would be broken into two legs of 33 and 80 miles respectively. To be honest, all of us were getting a little bored with the stop and go routine. Braun suggested (after we left) that we consider, instead of making two short passages that we make one long run of 97 miles to Teluk Usukan, a protected anchorage in North Borneo. We agreed, and as it turns out, our initial destination of Balambangan Island, the last stop in the Philippines, was not all that safe. Around the time that we were supposed to anchor there, a group of “pirates” attacked a local fishing boat, killing a 19 year old boy. I would not say that we dodged a bullet, but I am happy we decided not to go there.

I guess what made Teluk Usukan such a nice anchorage was the anticipation of the following day, where we would arrive in Kota Kinabalu.

Entering Teluk Usukan Harbor

This is how you KNOW you are in Borneo!

It was only a 30 mile run but in the morning, we were up bright and early, hoping to arrive at Sutera Harbour by lunch time.

The entrance into the KK area was spectacular. Gorgeous islands with sandy beaches started to appear along with other pleasure boats, something we had not seen in quite a while. About a half hour before our arrival, we contacted our agent in KK and the marina manager, Simon to announce our arrival time.

Grey Pearl (left) and Seabird at the dock in Sutera Harbour

Entering the marina was like finding an oasis in the desert after seeing sand for 2 weeks. It is simply gorgeous. Sutera Harbour will rival any modern 5 star resort/marina in the US. I always pictured Borneo as a remote jungle island where the local population lived in grass huts, subsiding on any humans that might wander into their village. Although there are some remote villages, they do not practice those things any longer. Borneo is nothing like that at all and KK is a modern city with great restaurants, lots to do and wonderful, happy people. It is also very safe as they deal with criminals very harshly.

Within the hour, we were all checked in, secured in our slip and really felt like we had come home. There were lots of smiles on Grey Pearl and Seabird.

Next up: Life in KK (and a surprise)

Comment on: Puerto Princesa to Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia

Sat, 02 Jul 2011 00:53:38 GMT

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Comment on: Puerto Princesa to Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia

Sat, 18 Jun 2011 12:25:19 GMT

How nice to hear about you two boats again. We lived on a boat for ten years and traveled to Alaska every year and AZ in the winter. We seem to have got old real soon with all the things to do. I say this to you--do it now. I am sorry for Ken not boating with you. The world is changing fast and it soon will not be possible to do the things you are doing now. God be with you--and a safe journey. Ps--the last time I saw your area the Japs were there.

Busuanga Is to Puerto Princesa

Tue, 10 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT

This portion of the journey (pushpins)

Our stay in Busuanga Island was filled with fun and meeting new friends. It was one of those rare places that we really did not want to leave, but we needed to move on if we were to visit all of the places we needed to before settling in at Singapore for the summer.

We were still trying to avoid night travel on Seabird because of the amount and size of the debris in the water as well as other floating objects in the area, so our first stop was to be a small harbor on Linapacan Island. It was 64 Nautical miles and was not the one recommended by some of the sailors that we had contacted. Many times, the prettiest bays are not the best ones for boats like us who are just looking for an anchorage overnight with the ability to leave in the dark for our next destination. Leaving in the dark from a strange harbor means: No obstacles easily hit, no rocks in the way and a clear path to follow with our “bread crumbs”. I should explain. Both Grey Pearl and Seabird use a navigation system called Nobeltec, which is a PC based system that is interfaced with our autopilots, GPS and AIS systems. One of the more valuable features is the “bread crumbs” feature, which, when activated, tracks you into the harbor using several actual GPS coordinates and leaving a clear path labeled on the electronic charts which is easy to follow in the dark, fog or heavy storms.

Getting in the harbor was fairly easy, but we had to go slow as the charts showed shoaling and the binoculars showed even more! We squeezed through the opening to the secondary harbor and found a nice muddy bottom to set the anchor in. Mud is great holding for us but pulling the anchor up in the morning is a pain because your chain is caked with the sticky stuff. On Seabird, we are fortunate to have an anchor chain washer, which is driven by our hydraulic system and pumps 180 gallons per minute of seawater through a large nozzle in the bow of the boat and directly at the chain. It is actually quite efficient and we generally end up with just a slightly dirty chain.

You really don't want to be in front of this

The next morning we left for part two of our journey to another small anchorage called Flat Island. One of the issues in choosing this anchorage was that it was over 100 miles and, even leaving in the dark, it was questionable as to whether we would make it there before dark and the area around Flat Island was riddled with reefs, shallow water and unreliable charts to boot. There WAS as faster way to get there, cutting 10 miles off of the trip, but it involved going through some narrow passes with lots of shallow areas. We were assured by friends that it was doable so we elected to take that route. As it turned out, the passes were not all that bad, but we came across an unexpected obstacle (or obstacles): Pearl farms. Pearl farming is a HUGE industry in the Philippines and they are usually run by the Japanese, who guard the farms very closely, as you might imagine. While traveling to the narrow passages between Dumaran Island and Palawan,

Narrow passage with Pearl Farms

we ran into a giant of a pearl farm, which blocked the entire passage. From a distance, it looked like there were pearl buoys about every 15 feet with large lines attached to them.

Pearl Farm buoys (black colored)

We were very close to the black balls before we spotted them and had to “slam on the brakes”. Grey Pearl and Seabird both assessed the situation and could not see a way to continue on. The problem was that we had wasted valuable time going in this direction and it was too late to go around Dumaran Island and get to Flat Island before dark. Since there were no other anchorage options available, we decided to press on and see if there was indeed a way through the maze. When we got to the farms, it turned out that the pattern of black buoys were less random than we first thought. Do not misunderstand that statement. They were VERY close together, in lines with about 30 feet between the lines of buoys. We crawled along very slowly parallel to each row, under the watchful eye of one of the “farm managers” in a small boat. One of the next problems we encountered was that the “alleyways” were not exactly parallel to the deep water courses that we had plotted and we ended up in some very skinny water and at times, barely missed going aground.

Grey Pearl had a great idea. Talk to the “farm manager” and see if he could lead us through. He did not speak any English, but we are by now accustomed to hand gestures and butchered language (and smiles). To our amazement, he waved us along and led us through the rest of the maze!

Pearl Farm Manager

After about an hour and a half, we were clear of the buoys, thanks to our new friend. We waved goodbye as he did and were once again up to cruising speed. The problem was that we had lost a bit of time. We decided that if we were going to make it to Flat Island before dark, we needed the current with us. Lucky us…… we had it with us for the rest of the way and arrived at Flat Island shortly before a beautiful sunset and a peaceful night’s sleep on the hook.

The passage to Puerto Princesa was just about perfect. It was about 55 miles of calm, blue water. About halfway there, Carol thought that she had spotted a whale. We had seen lots of them in Alaska and knew the look of the spouting water very well. Something was wrong though. We noticed that wherever we saw the spouts, there were small Bangka boats nearby. It took a few minutes, but we then realized what was happening. It is called dynamite fishing. The fishermen lower a stick of dynamite into the water with a delayed fuse on it, move aside and wait for the blast. The underwater explosion kills everything living within; I am assuming, a one hundred foot radius or more. The dead fish float to the surface and are collected by the fisherman. Worse than that, they sometimes poison the fish with small amounts of Cyanide in the water. Yuk….I stuck to Hamburgers while in those islands. Unfortunately, the dynamiting practice also kills coral and it was evident on several of the dives we did while in the Philippines.

I didn't take this photo, but you get the picture

Puerto Princesa

Puerto Princesa, located on the island of Palawan, is the largest city in the southern Philippines. Like the rest of the Philippines, it has a long history and played a bloody part in World War II where the Japanese, trying to prevent the rescue of the advancing allied forces, herded 150 prisoners into a covered ditch, poured gasoline on them and burned them alive. Visiting here today, you would never know that there was ever a conflict at all.

Our arrival here was fairly simple and well charted. We were told that upon arrival, we should contact John and Sissy, the owners of the Abanico Yacht Club, located at the far end of the harbor. We contacted them by phone and radio and they dispatched a small outboard to meet us at the town pier, where they escorted us to the anchorage off of the club.

Puerto Princesa pier and Abanico Yacht Club

Don’t let the looks of the club deceive you. There was a lot of friendship and happiness there. John and Sissy (his wife who is a local Filipino) built and started the club may years ago to teach the local children how to sail. It is now a local watering hole for cruisers who stop (notably us) here and they have a restaurant and bar on premises as well as a wealth of information about the area.

As always, we needed restaurants, grocery stores and touring. The only mode of transportation for us boaters is the Trike, which I spoke about earlier. The difference here in Puerto Princesa is that they are the dominant vehicle. They are everywhere, bumper to bumper (if they had them), loud and pollute like crazy, especially in the cab portion. Carol and I barely squeezed in the little sidecar seat and we are not exactly huge people. We had as many as four crammed in on one trip. The good news is that 50 cents gets you a long ride(the bad news is that my chiropractor will cost hundreds). Also on the first ride we took, a local woman sqeezed in with us and the first thing she did was do a short prayer and did the sign of the cross, I am not kidding!! Carol and I looked at each other and almost jumped out!

We had been reading about the Underground River long before we arrived here. It is a very hot tourist spot and sounded like a lot of fun. The Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park is located about 50 kilometers north of the city of Puerto Princesa. Until 2007, it was considered, at 8.2 miles of navigable river, to be the longest in the world. The river is basically a long, skinny cavern at water level that goes into the side of the mountain .

The trip to get there was a two hour ride in a cramped minivan, but seemed just cavernous compared to the Trikes we rode in. We arrived to a pleasant surprise: A pretty park loaded with tourists and resorts. After several hours of waiting, we boarded an outrigger boat, and arrived a short time later at the beach where the caves were located.

After another long wait, we boarded a small skiff with a guide and entered the caves.

Cave Entrance

The cave was dark and loaded with stalagmites, stalactites, colonies of bats and these amazing small birds that navigate with a sort of sonar in the complete darkness. They make this odd chirping sound (called Echolocation) as they fly through the caves at a high rate of speed, catching insects as they dart through. You should also remember this bird the next time you order Birds Nest Soup in a Chinese restaurant. The main ingredient is the nest of this bird, which is made almost entirely of their saliva.

Thanks also to Braun, aka Lightboy, for volunteering to sit in the front of the boat to hold the torch as we meandered our way through the cave.

Braun carrying the torch

Talking about looking foolish, I was unfortunate enough to have a birthday while with this group. I was forced to wear the infamous Birthday Hat while out to dinner and suffered many humiliations with the insults that I received, and one gift which was north of the xxx rating, and cannot be shown here in this family oriented blog!

Well, so much for Puerto Princesa. We enjoyed it here but after a while, it was time to go. Our next major stop: Kota Kinabalu, Borneo.

Other photos of PP:

Hungry?

National Pastime

Our Cave Crew

Homes along the Puerto Princesa shoreline

Subic Bay to Busuanga Island

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Our route for this segment of the trip

On Tuesday, April 14^th, we said goodbye to Subic Bay. Our destination on this segment was Puerto Galera, a resort island a few hundred miles south of Subic Bay. We are not squeamish as a group to travel at night, but we are always short handed and if we can break any cruise into daily segments, we do it. Our first (and only) stop on the way to Puerto Galero was Hamilo Bay.

The cruise was perfect and the weather was also. My understanding of the weather in this area for this time of year is that it is generally calm, between the Northeast and Southwest Monsoons. For the next several weeks we would need to keep an eye on the weather patterns, as there are some disturbances out there that can turn into Typhoons.

We arrived late in the day and, as you can see, this bay is a typical Philippine fishing village. Everywhere you go in the Philippines, the people are friendly and VERY curious and this harbor was no different. Lots of small Bangkas with people of all ages coming by to see the “strange” foreign crafts. We were glad to be leaving in the morning.

Hamilo Bay to Puerto Galera

After a peaceful night moored in the harbor, at a predetermined time, we pulled anchor and headed towards Puerto Galera. As far as the seas, it was the roughest we will have seen for the rest of the trip in the Philippines – 20 kt winds and 2-3 foot chop, barely noticeable on these boats.

I don’t know if I mentioned it before, but the charts for this area of the world were created a LONG time ago. Some of what you see on the charts is no longer there and there are things that are NOT on the chart that you can now see. Depths are of paramount concern as there are very few buoys in the Philippines. We are fortunate enough to have many different sources of electronic charts, paper charts, blogs from other boaters and local knowledge that is shared with us. When you combine them all, it is a safe way to cruise.

The entrance to the bay was like looking at a picture of what you might envision Tahiti to look like. White sandy beaches, palm trees and small wooden boats everywhere. We entered the channel late in the day and proceeded to the anchorage that we were told about by Dirk, our agent at Subic Bay. Of course, it was just gorgeous!

Carol’s brother Tom was due to arrive in two days and it gave us a chance to get settled at the anchorage. We dropped in about 18 feet of water. Carol and I are VERY conservative when it comes to anchoring. On Seabird, we have a 300 lb CQR anchor when a 150 lb would suffice,

we laid out 200 feet of chain when 100 feet would do and we pull hard on it after it sets to make sure that we do not wake up in the middle of the night on a reef. Because of all this, we sleep very well at anchor, just as we do if we were at a dock. We have given in to the lure of living in luxury. We really tried to live in a natural state, with hatches open to the fresh air at night etc, but damn, it is HOT here. We gave in and so did Grey Pearl shortly after and we ran the generator and air conditioning every night!

One of the first stops after arriving was The Puerto Galera Yacht Club. It was a short dinghy ride away, right next to the town. Both crews from Grey Pearl and Seabird rode in to have dinner that first night at the club. It was really a fun place with Ex Pats from different parts of the world galore.

Braun is shown above explaining how to make a proper Gin and Tonic to the Waitress.

Tom arrived on Saturday by ferry (see below)

It was good to see him and he stayed with us for a few days.

One of the many ways of traveling in the Philippines, aside from the Trikes, is the Jeepney. They pile sometimes as many as 20 people or more in them for local transportation.

I never got a good answer as to the origin of them. They LOOK like they may have been old Jeeps at one time, hence the name, but somehow I think that they are simply old truck beds that they weld stainless steel panels to and paint them with wild colors. You be the judge. All I know is that after a mile or two with 20 or more others crammed into a small area, I would choose to walk. I actually did not partake in that adventure!

The scuba diving and snorkeling in this area is superb. We took the dinghies to an anchorage recommended to us and used snorkels and diving equipment to see the giant clams that lie 20 feet below the surface. They look like something out of a science fiction movie and had their own human guard on the surface telling us not to touch them.

Before we left the area, we took the dinghies to Sabang, another town close to where we were anchored. It was quite a festive places with numerous floating bars, floating jet ski rental places and loads of hotels on the beach.

We were getting ready to leave the area when a guy on the floating jet ski kiosk started waiving us away. Evidently, his mooring line (if you want to call it that) was floating just below the surface in front of us and we did not see it. I tried to avoid it but cut it in half. Normally, the line would tangle our prop but it was so flimsy that I just cut it. I thought he would be furious, but in typical Philippine fashion, he just smiled, waived me off and indicated that it was not a problem. I saw that theme over and over again here. I think that even with the little that most of them have, they are a happy people.

Puerto Galera to Busuanga

The road (actually ocean) to Busuanga Yacht Club, our next major stop involved several nightly stops in various anchorages. For our second day and night, we stopped at an interesting little inlet called Illultuk Bay.

Not only was it a peaceful anchorage, but it is the home to a really cool animal reserve called Calauit Island. The story is that President Marcos wanted to create a “little Africa” on one of the islands and so in 1977 he ordered all human inhabitants out and he imported 18 species of African animals including Giraffes, Zebras and Crocodiles, all of whom run free with the exception of some of the smaller creatures and the predatory types like the Crocodiles. We had an interesting tour with a group of other boaters.

C'mon....say CHEESE!!

One interesting animal, shown below, is the Asian Palm Civet, part of the cat family.

Ever get offered an expensive cup of Kopi Luwak, or Civet Coffee in a fancy restaurant? Before you get too excited about the exclusivity of it, this is how it is made: The coffee cherries are first eaten by the Asian Palm Civet (shown above). The beans are then excreted by the cat in its feces. The feces are picked through by the workers (nice job) and the beans are extracted for processing, ending up as your favorite (and most expensive!) cup of coffee. Evidently, the digestive system of the Civet cat processes the beans and makes them smoother and less acidic…… the guy who is holding them does not look to happy either.

I think I will stick with my Starbucks Columbian!!!!

Busuanga Yacht Club

Just a short hop from Illultuk Bay was another cute harbor that housed the Busuanga Yacht Club.

It was another picturesque spot and we were guided in around the various hazards by Mike, the owner of the resort and Yacht Club. Instead of anchoring, we pulled up one on the several mooring available. Usually, we hesitate, because of the mass of our boats, to use moorings. These, we were told, were anchored into the bottom by three 55 gallon drums filled with concrete and buried into the mud with more holding power than we could ever use. After we were anchored, we looked over and spotted something on Grey Pearl that was definitely a first for us (and maybe anybody). There was a LARGE BLACK DOG sitting on Grey Pearl’s bulbous bow.

There are many theories on the purpose of the bulb on the Nordhavns but I would bet that Jeff Leishman did not design it for a dog perch! As it turned out, the dog regularly swims the harbor looking for friends.

The Yacht Club and resort had a great restaurant that was lots of fun and we ate there nearly every night that we were there.

As you can see, the sunsets were also to die for.

As it turned out, they offer lots of diving expeditions and the five of us went on one that was near an old gunboat from WWII .

The boat we went in was a typical large size Philippine Bangka. I found the engine quite interesting. It is an old Japanese Toyota diesel truck engine, not even marinized, with a 4 speed manual transmission complete with a clutch!

The diving was just great. I had not done it in a few years so I took a refresher course, diving down 40 feet. Carol and Tina snorkeled and saw as much as I did, which was great for them. Braun and Wayne, both experienced divers also went down with their tanks. I really wish Ken and Roberta from Sans Souci had come with us. This is the part that Ken always talked about. Peaceful anchorages with clear blue water for diving.

I found the dive quite energizing, but I think it was quite tiring for Braun and Tina

Thanks to Mike and his crew for making our stay here in Busuanga so much fun. Thanks also to Rory and Shelly for making our acquaintance also.

Next stop….Puerto Princesa

Comment on: Subic Bay to Busuanga Island

Sat, 11 Jun 2011 16:41:17 GMT

There is no need to apologize for not naming each and every photo. just letting us dreamers see what you are experiencing is enough for this dreamer. Please keep up the good work and please stay safe.

Subic Bay, The Philippines

Fri, 08 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Subic Bay Yacht Club (Seabird and Grey Pearl docked)

Our plan was to stay in Subic Bay, The Philippines for about one week. As always, our plans are cast in goo and subject to change depending on many things like: How much fun we are having, the facility we are at, quality of the restaurants and the time it takes to fix things that were broken along the way.

Our friend, Doug, who traveled with us from Hong Kong, had to depart, sadly. It is amazing how little things like a REAL JOB can get in the way of having fun! Doug had to catch his plane back to the US in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, which was about 50 miles away. In the US, you simply hop onto Interstate Highway whatever, and in 30 minutes you are there. Here in Subic Bay, you have to either take a seaplane or a cab, which takes about 2 hours, believe it or not. We went back and forth on the benefits of both and decided that it might be more fun for Doug in the cab, so that he could get a flavor for the REAL countryside. Doug departed in the afternoon, reporting back to us that it was an “interesting” cab ride which took him through some “interesting” (again) parts of Manila. The Philippines, in general, is a country of either very rich or poor and not much in between. The poorest live in conditions that you would never see in the US and it is very evident as you travel to Manila by car.

The first thing I wanted to do was to get the internet and phone situation under control. We have done this so many times in other places that we know the procedure very well. Carol and I both bought SIM cards for our unlocked GSM phones nearby and we became instantly set up with phone service. The SIM cards were $2 each and the time is pennies per minute. Once we were set up with phones we found a shop that sold “3G” USB internet modems. To say that it was 3G is a stretch and it was more like the old dial-up internet in the US. Again, it was cheap and did a reasonable job sending emails and limited (if not slow) internet browsing.

One of the nicest things about the Philippines is that, because of the large US military presence early on, they adopted many of our systems, such as driving on the right hand side of the road and 60 cycles, US style electricity. After a little haggling by our agent, Dirk, he convinced them to go the extra mile for us and hook us up to a large amperage service, which easily powered our boat including (most importantly) the air conditioning. By the way, now that we were back at a dock, it worked flawlessly. The problems we have were definitely related to the high engine room temps underway.

On Grey Pearl, plans were already underway to go to Manila for a few days and we decided to go along. The main question was: Do we take the cab or fly on the seaplane? We decided to do both. We would fly to Manila by seaplane and come home a few days later by cab. Carol found a great hotel, made reservations and then we went on to make our “plane reservations”. Since the plane could only seat 4, we had to break it up into two trips. Furthermore, our pilot, Mike, informed us that he could only take 500 lbs including luggage. Wayne, Jose, Braun and I happily volunteered our “actual” weights to our skeptical wives, who then produced a scale, making us get on. Ok, so the guys estimate was off slightly (or more). So we went from “no problem” to “ok, you can bring two pair of underwear, two golf shirts and a toothbrush”. Fortunately, the girls convinced Mike to accept a bit more weight and it ended up with me, Braun and Wayne (with almost no luggage) on the second trip and Carol, Tina and Jose with all the luggage on the first flight.

Seaplane to Manila

Wayne dropped them off at the plane and reported back to us warning that this was not exactly American Airlines. Carol called to caution me about the quality of the trip, but it was too late as we were just taking off when she called from Manila. I used to fly a bit in a small Cessna back in the 70’s and this plane looked all too familiar. It was definitely from the same era and loud and clunky. Our pilot, Mike, was a grumpy ex military guy who found no humor in my question about food and beverage service on the flight. It seemed to take forever for the plane to pull up from the water in the bay and even longer to get over the mountains. “Keep your hands off the wheel!” he barked at me after we got into the air. I ended up sitting in the front as Braun and Wayne voted me to sit there as I was the only other one in the plane with any flight experience. If anything happened to Mr. Grump, I was the designated guy to bring them to safety. I tried to discreetly ask him questions about how the plane flew so I would know, but he just gave me a dirty look and put his headphones on for the duration of the flight. The flight turned out to be without incident and we landed near a rickety free floating dock. When we were about 30 feet from the dock, the pilot opened his door and hopped on to one of the pontoons and when we got close to the dock, he leaped, with surprising agility, to the dock, holding on hand on the wing strut! He then pulled the plane into the float, grumbled something nasty to the Philippino helper at the dock for not being quick enough and instructed us to get out.

After finding the girls and the Hotel, we started to make plans to visit Corregidor Island, about 48 Kilometers by ferryboat from Manila central. Corregidor Island is of historic significance as it was the main guardian for the defense of Manila Bay dating back to the 16^th century. When under Spanish control, Corregidor Island, at different times, was a penal institution, a customs port and always the first line of defense for Manila Bay. Because of its strategic location (see map) it was also a signal outpost which was used to warn Manila of an attack by hostile forces from the sea.

Corregidor Island (lower left side of map)

During World War II, under the command of General Douglas McArthur, Corregidor was the main headquarters for the war in the Philippines. After McArthur was ordered to leave the island, Commander Jonathan Wainwright was promoted to temporary Lieutenant General and put in charge of the island. When the island became under siege by the Japanese, Wainwright, out of concern that there would be a massive loss of allied lives, chose to surrender all of the Philippines on May 6^th, 1942. He was then taken prisoner of war and moved to several detention camps until liberated by Russian troops in Manchuria in 1945. He was given the Medal of Honor, much to the chagrin of Douglas McArthur, who felt that he should not have surrendered.

In September, 1945, he returned to the Philippines to witness the surrender of the local Japanese commander. Today, Corregidor remains much as it was after World War II, from the bombed out buildings to the large guns and mortars.

Mortars on Corregidor

After touring Corregidor, we spend a good deal of time simply walking around Manila to get a feel for the city. It has some beautiful buildings and hotels, but for the most part, we saw a lot of impoverished areas. I needed to find a store to add time to my telephone SIM card, so I asked a local shop keeper to direct me to the nearest location. He told me to go to the end of the street, go left and travel about 2 kilometers. After walking a bit, Wayne, myself, Braun and Jose began to sense that we were walking into a BAD area. At one point, out of nowhere, a small boy came up asking me for money for food. Before I knew it, about 8 others (kids) surrounded me in a coordinated effort to distract me so that one of the others could pick my pocket. When they started rubbing against me from all sides, I knew what was going on and shoved them all away. Braun and Wayne were behind me by about 40 feet and saw what was going on. Fortunately, we were able to get rid of them without further incident. Going from there back to the better parts meant walking for another 20 minutes through very bad areas with a bit of uncertainty of what could happen. My understanding now is that nearly all of these kids work for “syndicates”, where all the collected money goes to a local boss who provides the kids with the bare necessities of food and shelter.

Upon arriving back to the marina, we started making our plans to leave for our next location, a short hop to an overnight anchorage in Hamilo Bay, then on to Puerto Galera.

Before we left, I needed to fix the air conditioning circulation pump that had fried on the way to Subic. A friend found me a local electrical shop who, for about $60 US dollars, traveled to the marina with a helper, removed the pump, took it back to the shop, rebuilt it and returned it the next day, installing it! I shudder to think what that would have cost in the US!

Next stop: Hamilo Bay

Oh, by the way, this is the main method of transportation around towns in the Philippines

Our "cab" and driver in Subic Bay

They are 100cc motorcycles with side cars that are semi enclosed. Two of us squeezed in one day to go look for some boat parts!! They are VERY noisy and rough riding, but cheap, usually about 50 cents to go anywhere.

Steven

Hong Kong to Subic Bay, The Philippines

Sat, 02 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Route from Hong Kong to Subic Bay- 588 Nautical Miles

Well, departure day has come fast. It is becoming a mad scramble to get the boat “tweaked” for the passage from Hong Kong to Subic Bay, The Philippines. Some of the items that were supposed to be fixed for the trip have failed (infant mortality, as they call it in the boating business). Our new Hydraulic powered cooling pump started leaking and we had to replace it, only to see it leaking again. We had a third one shipped from the US but decided that it was the wrong kind of hydraulic motor for the job.

Our friend Doug arrived from the US to make the trip with us. Fortunately for us (probably not for him), I had an extra pair of hands on board to help me fix the problem. Our friend Kevin, who lives at Gold Coast Marina, volunteered to help us find a new, more suitable pump. We traveled to Mong kok, a town about 15 miles from the marina and found a hydraulic shop that had a suitable motor. Of course, no way was it going to fit properly, so we had to find a machine shop to adapt it. Again, Kevin to the rescue! The three of us found a guy in a machine shop in Tuen Mun about the size of two normal closets and some old junky machines. For the equivalent of about $100 US Dollars, he machined the shaft on the pump, made a new adapter plate and machined a bushing to make it all fit together. At first he told us it would take three days (yikes, we were leaving in 30 hours!). Doug said “offer him more money!!!” Great idea, I did just that and it worked. He spoke no English and how we got across what we wanted is still a mystery to me.

Doug and I spent the balance of the next day trying to get the damn thing to work only to find that the motor was too anemic for the job! Ahhhhrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!! With departure only about 20 hours away, we decided to go back to the original electric pump from last year. It used a lot of electricity, but we know it worked. We were missing all kinds of parts so we pieced together what we had and made it work. We crossed our fingers, started the engine, and, it worked!!!

Provisioning is always a big deal when you are headed for distant lands. You never know what to expect for stores when you arrive and on this trip we were planning on spending most days and nights at anchor, with just a few stops at docks where there might be food stores. Carol and Tina (on Grey Pearl) spent several days in Hong Kong shopping at various stores as no one place had everything. Some places took orders and delivered and others they did by cab and bus. By the time we left, we were fully stocked. We do not starve on Seabird or Grey Pearl.

After a few mechanical checks, we were saying goodbye to our friends in Hong Kong and Seabird along with Grey Pearl (Braun and Tina Jones) were ready to cast off in the morning…destination Subic Bay, The Philippines.

Day one: Saturday

It was really great to be cruising again, especially leaving Hong Kong harbor in the daylight! If you read our previous blogs about our arrival at 2am in the morning, you will know that was not a fun experience. This day we saw all of the stuff we missed on the way in. Hong Kong is a wonderful place and we will miss it along with all of the wonderful people that we met there.

Our trusty weather forecaster, Bob, located in the US, gave us a fairly good window for the three day passage to Subic Bay. Day number one was to be smooth, day two deteriorating a bit and day three was to be fairly smooth. As usual, Bob was right on track for the first day. It was a beautiful cruise so far with the engine and all equipment performing just perfect. Getting used to the three hour shifts took some adjustment and the first 24 hours are the worst. You take the helm for 3 hours, and in this case, because we had Doug along, we rested for 6 hours. The first night is difficult as we are normally sleeping! Getting up and taking the helm in the middle of the night is disorienting, especially if you did not have much sleep…….because of equipment failure number one…..

“Oh crap….it’s getting hot in here”………….Last year, toward the end of the cruising season, we were experiencing a strange occurrence with our air conditioning system. We have what is called a Chilled Water System in Seabird, which is very unusual for a boat this small. Instead of having compressors that send Freon to the air handlers in the various areas of the boat, the main compressor in the engine room cools a loop of water to 45 degrees and sends it through large pipes throughout the boat to the air handlers, which cool the cabins. It is a very expensive system but uses about 1/3^rd of the energy of a conventional system. It normally works extremely well, but for some reason, when the boat was underway and the engine room was hot, we would get a fault error indicating flow had stopped and the system would shut down. A flow switch error could mean many things from a blockage, to a seized pump to a bad circuit board. Since back at the dock in HK we had gotten a few other errors, it was diagnosed to be a bad board, which we had replaced during the winter. In our first opportunity to test it under hot conditions, it failed. Seabird is not a good cruising boat when you are trying to sleep in your cabin underway with no air conditioning on. All hatches and ports need to be closed and it gets very hot and sticky, making sleep a difficult proposition. We knew that we were in for a tiring trip as there are NO TECHNICIANS AT SEA!! We resigned ourselves to the fact that for the next three days, our sleep patterns would be changed to napping at best. Well, at least the weather was good and everyone on board had a great attitude.

Problem number two….. It seems that our inverter system was not able to operate in charge mode without overheating the batteries as we were getting a warning light. This was not a huge problem and could be addressed after we arrived in Subic Bay as we have back up charging systems that will operate off of the generator. In retrospect, I wish now that we had tested it before we left the dock….lesson learned and it turned out to be an easy fix.

Day Two: Sunday

Another problem was that we are all HUGE Uconn Husky basketball fans and we had no way to watch the final four. Tina Jones, on Grey Pearl, graduated from Kentucky, who Connecticut was playing in the Semi Finals. Since we are twelve hours different in time zones, we resorted to calling Carol’s sister on the Iridium satellite phone Sunday morning about every 10 minutes for an update, transmitting the updates by VHF radio to Tina on Grey Pearl, who was NOT happy with the final outcome! (on Seabird, we were VERY pleased, and that’s all that matters!)

Late day two was when the weather started deteriorating. The winds were on our port beam directly at about 30 to 40 knots at the peak, with scary wave heights. At one point, Grey Pearl reported they showed rolling over 30 degrees on their meter. I shudder to think what would have happened if our stabilizers had failed (Actually, I do know, you head more into the swell, tack and make it a much longer trip!). We did not have the meter that showed the actual roll, but we did have the verbal meter, when one of us, or all three of us, would swallow hard at seeing a particularly large oncoming wave, shouting an expletive or two, which I can only describe in this blog as !!#?**#!!**@@!!!, or something like that. Sleeping that night was particularly difficult being hot and nearly rolling off of the bed many times.

So what do you do for fun when the weather is so crappy..? Well, on Seabird, we decided to have a barbeque!!

Cheeseburgers in Paradise (300 miles from land!)

The waves had subsided somewhat temporarily so we fired up the grill and had cheeseburgers! It was a little challenging, but the burgers nearly flipped themselves so it was not a lot of work. With three people having good attitudes and not bothered by poor conditions, it made the trip a lot more fun. We also looked at the positive side: The engine was running good, we had plenty of electricity and water and we were not cruising alone, which, for problem number three, helped tremendously.

Day Three: Monday

“Hey Steven, I was trying to get water out of the faucet and nothing came out”………uh oh…..that could only be bad….the pump failed, we had a leaking water tank, blew a hose somewhere or something else. Boats have a LOT of nooks and crannies and problems never seem to occur in easily accessibly areas or in calm seas. I immediately noticed that the bilge pump in the engine room was going off so I went there only to find water gushing out of the weep holes under my tool box. I then went and shut off all of the valves to the various areas of the boat at the main manifold and started to hunt down the problem. I checked the water tank and fortunately, it looked like we only lost 50-75 gallons out of the 1000 gallons that we hold. Also, we have a bilge pump light in the pilothouse but for some reason, every time it went off, we were looking elsewhere. On Seabird, we also have a high water alarm if the pumps get overwhelmed. The pumps, in this case, were keeping up and the alarms were not activated. Anyway, for the life of me, I could not locate the leak. The engine room was 130 degrees, loud and it was rough conditions. I called Braun on Grey Pearl on the VHF radio to see if he had any ideas. As it turned out, he had the exact same problem a few years back and told me where to look, which was deep inside an alcove under some floorboards. Getting at it in the engine room meant unloading a large area of spare parts, emptying the alcove and removing the floorboards in that area. After doing that and squeezing myself into the compartment, there it was, staring me in the face….a three way splitter with a rusted hunk of crud which at one time was a hose clamp, sitting in pieces near the splitter. To verify this was the problem, I had Carol turn the water valve on and off for a second, spraying me in the face, but it was a happy face because we had found the problem. Working in a cool engine room at the dock is easy, but it is never fun underway. Ten minutes later, 3 lbs of water weight lighter, soaked in sweat, with scrapes and bruises, I emerged victorious and we now had a working water system.

Day 4: Tuesday

This was an exciting day for us. The rough weather was to subside, Uconn was playing for the national title and We were arriving late in the day to Subic Bay. Early morning (Monday night in the US), We began harassing Carol’s sister Tina, who was watching the game in Connecticut, about every 10 minutes. She finally got tired of getting up to answer the phone and demanded that we call her cell phone, which she kept with her for the rest of the game. Well, Uconn won in an ugly game, but it was party time on the Seabird!! That set the mood for the day and weather started to calm substantially, it became tropically warm and we could see land! We had our first cup of coffee in three days and we were getting excited about our arrival in Subic Bay.

Subic bay is a fairly large harbor and the entrance was fairly straight forward, well marked with bouys and our charts were accurate. It is here we notices a strange phenomena in the distance. We saw these skinny little boats scooting along at 15 kts with outriggers on both sides for stabilization. As it turns out, they are a common phenomena here in the Philippines called Bangkas. They have very small Briggs and Stratton lawnmower engines in them directly coupled to a small propeller with no neutral and reverse! There are so many scooting around the harbor, it kind of reminded me of water bugs!

As it turns out, they have much larger versions of the same boats with large engines and are used for ferry boats. I will post some pictures of them in a later blog.

We were met at Subic Bay Yacht Club by Dirk van Straalen, a local agent who was referred to us by our agent in Hong Kong. For a reasonable fee, they make your arrival go very smoothly. We were guided into our slip, wired up for power and we were temporarily smothered by local officials, with whom we traded paperwork and small fees for about half and hour. Once we were checked in, we asked Dirk about getting some day labor to wash and wax the boat. He referred us to his nephew, Jason, who would work for us for P600 per day, or about $14 US dollars…..that sounded awfully good to me after paying Hong Kong and Japanese workers for the past year! Well, time to get busy and fix the air conditioning pump as the average day here at this time of the year is about 95 degrees!

Comment on: Hong Kong to Subic Bay, The Philippines

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 20:44:51 GMT

Hey guys just popped by ur site to see the latest and greatest. Loved the cheesburgers in paradise 300 miles off shore with the swells in the background. Hope you are enjoying your adventure, be safe, and keep up the updates. I actually do read them!!! Cheers, Cheryl the important "C" in C'Cap....LOL

Comment on: Hong Kong to Subic Bay, The Philippines

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 20:36:59 GMT

Glad that you and Carol are safe and sound....What an adventurous trip!! I look forward to reading your blogs. Ed and I met you two at Fran's New Year's Party this year and lucky for us you have our email address, and get to enjoy your adventure. Hope you enjoy the Phillipines!! The Basketball was the best this year...We love the Uconn girls and they were so close!! Maya couldn't do it alone!! The guys did pull through!! We have had days of cloudy and chilly weather, but finally now it is in the 70's. Stay safe and enjoy!! Looking forward to hearing from you.. Dianne and Ed Elie (old boaters at Seaport Marine, Ocean Yacht, named Razzmatazz)

Hong Kong - Preparing to Depart

Sat, 19 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Hello again from Hong Kong! It seems like forever since I last blogged on this website and it actually has been about six months. It was tough leaving Seabird all locked up for the winter but it was nice to get back home again to the US. We spent a few weeks in California, then Connecticut and finally, Florida, where we spent most of the winter months.

First and foremost, both Carol’s and my hearts go out to the people of Japan and their recent tragedy. We spent nearly a year there on and off and got to know the Japanese very well. They are the kindest, most warm hearted people that we have met in our cruising. There is an air of innocence about them that everything is taken care of and it was all taken away in a flash of violence. As of right now, I have not heard from anyone that we know who was personally affected, but we traveled extensively through the country and met many people from that area. We are praying that they are safe.

The flight back to Hong Kong was VERY long. It was 36 hours from the time we left Florida until we arrived here via Newark, NJ, Anchorage Alaska, Taipei Taiwan and finally Hong Kong. Lots of sleepless nights and sleepy days for a few weeks!

We got down to business as soon as we arrived, actually BEFORE we arrived. A crew from Seattle preceded us and worked on all three boats to fix or improve them mechanically. Thanks to Jeff Sanson from Pacific Yacht Management from Seattle for another job well done. We had some nagging problems that needed attention. Our Generator seemed to overheat at will. Craig Hatton from Hatton Marine in Seattle replaced the water pump and the thermostat and all seems well.

Another nagging problem we had was that we simply used too much electrical power underway to run without the generator on. The result was that we ended up putting lots of hours on it that were unnecessary. After investigating, we found that about 50% of the power we used was from the Jabsco 110v water pump used to cool the Naiad stabilizer oil tank. We also had a rather smallish alternator (160 amps) that charged the house batteries underway and seemed to be always running at full blast and fairly hot. The solution was fairly simple. Doug Janes, who works with Jeff, recommended last year that we change out the electric water pump for a hydraulic one driven by the Naiad stabilizer hydraulic pump.

He changed out the old Naiad pump with a new one that could support the extra demand and added the hydraulic powered water pump also. Doug then changed out our old 160 amp alternator for a new 320 amp alternator and also bypassed the 3 stage regulator (those tend to make the alternator work harder). I have to say that Doug is a brilliant guy when it comes to anything mechanical on a boat. Everything $eems to work fine now. Problem $olved. All it take$ i$ per$everence, a good mechanic and a few boat Unit$.

I replaced a defective 50 cycle battery charger with a new and different brand. All I can say is that I will never buy another Xantrex product again. Customer service?.....what’s that?

In a few short days, Doug had just about all of my problems resolved. It is safe to say that he is just about the best all around systems mechanic that I have met……..and he travels!!

As I am typing this, Seabird is out of the water for bottom maintenance.

Being that most of you are from the US, you cannot fully appreciate the experience of hauling the boat here. First of all, just getting to the boatyard proved to be a challenge. We were first told that you needed a Cruising Permit issued by the government just to move the boat 16 miles from the marina to the boat yard. To get that, you had to pay $400 USD plus have an approved insurance policy. Ok, no problem, you would think. I am insured by Lloyds of London, so it’s a piece of cake, right? Nope, Lloyds is not on their approved list. Option number two is to hire a Pilot for $800 USD to take you the 16 miles. We opted for plan C which was to have a friend on the dock, Alan, who is a Hong Kong licensed captain, come along for the ride.

Bart, from Asia Yacht Services, located at our marina here in Hong Kong, arranged everything in advance for us with the boatyard as we were not familiar with any of the services here. We were very fortunate to have someone to do that for us. Also fortunately, Braun on Grey Pearl and Sans Souci preceded me and let me know what to expect. Let’s start by saying that land in Hong Kong is a precious commodity. Forget about what you know about boat yards in the US and elsewhere. Here, they are a “slipway”, which is a wooden structure that goes into the water, similar to a railway but on wooden rails, and pulls you out. The entire facility is only about 20 feet wider than the boat itself!

Our facility is the one with the gray canvas hanging down

Notice the water under the boat!

You are not entirely out of the water either. About 50 feet of the boat is suspended about 3 feet above the water in the harbor. No one in the yard speaks English so you have to arrange everything in advance and be fortunate, as we were to have Dennis Mok, a local consultant there to translate. Dennis is also the Naiad stabilizer service person here. He removed the fins and replaced the seals for us as well as helping guide us to the yard on board.

Dennis Mok installing Naiad Stabilizer seals

Here is another picture of the yard next door hauling out a boat.

Next door to us at the yard

The work here at Sunny Marine Services has been very good and reasonably priced. They work hard all day and everything came out just fine. This year, I had them put on a product similar to Propspeed, but made in Japan which is supposed to keep the props clean. I will be interested to see how it works.

I cannot wait until the launch tomorrow. Evidently, they simply let the chain go and you rapidly slide back into the water with a splash!

Sign of the Times

Here is something that I did not expect. Here in Hong Kong, you see very few American built boats. Most are Asian built with a few European designs. While at the boatyard, we came across a bunch of American built boats built by Sea Ray, Carver and Maxim. We were told that it was becoming common here to purchase large lots of repossessed boats in the US, ship them here, fix them up and sell them at attractive prices (and profits).

Repossessed boats

Being a boat lover, I cannot help but think there was some sadness felt by the former owners. I did ask about electricity on the boats as they are all 60Hz boats and Hong Kong is 50Hz. The response that I got was that 90% of the boats in Hong Kong are not hooked up to shore power and mostly sit on moorings. My assumption is that they start the generators every so often to keep the batteries topped off.

FLASH News

We finished earlier than expected and launched this morning. The experience was pretty amazing. They do, in fact, simply grease the skids and let you go backwards at a pretty good speed. Had I not known in advance, it would have been quite unnerving.

On the trip back to the marina, we found one problem that we have had for two years was resolved and was a pleasant surprise. We have had an elevated exhaust temperature and I have been frustrated time and time again in trying to resolve it. I had the bottom cleaned extra good and the props and other running gear under the water ground and polished. As I said previously, I also had a product put on the propellers similar to an American product called Propspeed.Supposedly it makes the prop slicker and more resistant to growth. We shall see.....As you can see by the photo, it almost looks like a varnish on the prop.

Prop before cleaning and coating

After the polishing and coating

The result is that my exhaust temp dropped over 100 degrees! It is now almost normal at cruise speed.

As in typical Asian fashion, the yard workers were friendly and industrious. This guy pictured was drooling over our boat, if you can believe that! He is used to old beat up fishing boats and ours must have looked like a luxury liner to him. Carol invited him in for a tour. I guess he was very excited.

After the boat was launched a Sampan came by to extract the three workers who launched with us. These Sampans are a business in itself. In most of the fishing harbors, all of the boats are moored out and rafted to each other. The families live aboard and their only transportation to and from shore are these Sampans. They transport the fisherman, deliver groceries and run errands for them. They are rickety wooden crafts proudly owned by the drivers and are powered by a single cylinder diesel engine that sounds like its ready to blow up (but they don’t!)

GSSR Jr?

This year, as some of you already know, we will be cruising without our good friends Ken and Roberta on Sans Souci. Ken and Roberta decided to forgo this part of the trip in SE Asia and go straight to the Med. As you are aware, the pirate attacks are no longer limited to large ships. Four Americans, sadly, were killed recently by Somali pirates in a highly publicized story. More recently, four adults with several children who were cruising on a sailboat in that region were also attacked and boarded. They are still being held captive at this writing. Needless to say, Ken and Roberta were not interested in the risk, so they had their boat lifted onto a freighter last Sunday and at this moment the boat is headed to the Med. We will miss them this year but plan on cruising with them again in 2012, when we arrive in the Med.

Sans Souci leaving Gold Coast Marina

Being loaded onto the ship

Sooooo......is it GSSR Jr or GSSR III? Probably we will just call it another GSSR because it really doesn't matter. What matters is that Seabird and Grey Pearl will be moving on in April. Our plan is to travel to the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore, where we will arrive in June. The route we are taking is very safe and many boats of all sizes do it without any issues. We will be sending out regular blogs as both Seabird and Grey Pearl are equipped with fairly high speed satellite Internet devices that will work anywhere in the world that we travel.

For the trip from Hong Kong to the Philippines, we have our friend from home, Doug, coming with us. Doug traveled with us on our initial voyage from Florida to Puerto Rico, 25000 miles ago. Having a third person aboard really lessens the load on Carol and me. It is the difference between getting 4 hours of sleep at a time and 6-8 hours. We rarely ever sleep the 8 hours and it is more like 4 good hours and two napping hours. That being said, if the weather is crappy, we all go several days with very little sleep. You really need to have a good sense of humor to do this stuff.

Oh, by the way, for security purposes, we are not disclosing our exact route this year, but you will know soon enough!!

Longer term, we plan on leaving the boats in Singapore or Malaysia for the summer months as it is very hot there. We will return at some point this fall and take the boats to Thailand for several months. In the spring of 2012, our tentative plans are to ship the boats from Singapore to the Med, where we will spend a few seasons on the boat.

Lastly, I apologize for not reporting much over the winter, but there was nothing really to report (about the boat). I assumed that not many would be interested in mundane things like weekly boat washings and bilge checks!

Sooo…..The boat is ready and so is the crew!! Our next blog will be after we leave Hong Kong unless there is some “breaking news”. This should be an exciting trip for us, or, maybe I am hoping it is not……….

Comment on: Hong Kong - Preparing to Depart

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 11:50:09 GMT

Wow, you are living the dream you always wanted. I am happy for you both. Moved to live on Beaver Lake in Ware, MA. New email will get to my facebook page for some pics. Would love to see you in the future.

regressing........

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT

I was not planning on doing another blog entry from Hong Kong, but Ken sent this to us from the US, who got it from Bill Harrington, our friend and guide who traveled on Sans Souci while in the Aleutian Islands. Attu is the furthermost out of the Aleutian Island Chain, was a really fun place and I am sorry to see it shut down.

Grey Pearl anchored in Attu

The following is an excerpt from the article written by USCG Auxilarist Drew Herman

Even after World War II ended, young Coast Guard recruits at the electronics school in Groton, Conn., promised not to say the word "loran" and risk a leak about the top-secret navigation system that guided American bombers to targets in the Pacific.

"Everything was very confidential," said Don Funk, who manned the loran station on Attu Island for 13 months starting in 1946.

Not that he had much opportunity to tell anybody about his job as he stood watches on the most remote island of the Aleutian chain--close to Russia than to the mainland of Alaska.

"It was isolated duty," said Funk, now 86 years old and a resident of Lansing, Mich.

When the need for secrecy ended, the long range navigation system, or loran, revolutionized navigation for mariners and pilots, helping Alaskans settle the state's vast interior and develop the nation's most productive commercial fishing industry.

But manning the remote posts needed to operate the system remained one of the loneliest jobs in the world, until the last Coast Guardsman left Attu on Aug. 27, 2010.

The decommissioning ceremony for Loran Station Attu took place one day later than scheduled because dense fog typical for the Aleutians forced a Coast Guard C-130 to divert to nearby Shemya Island overnight. The airplane from Air Station Kodiak brought Funk and other guests and dignitaries to the island for a few hours before leaving with the entire 20-man crew.

If any of the folks who were manning the station read this blog......thanks so much for your hospitality while we were anchored there. You made the trip a wonderful experience for all of us on Seabird, Sans Souci and Grey Pearl.

Oh, one more thing and sorry to those of you who already received the link by email. Sea Magazine had a great article in it about the GSSR. here is the link:

http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/15b55866#/15b55866/67

Taiwan to Hong Kong

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT

I need to fess up - We have actually been in Hong Kong for a few weeks now but I am just getting around to publishing the blog…….

Weather windows seem to be a rare commodity these days. I understand that we are in the middle of the Typhoon season but I did not understand that weather systems that are not Typhoons, but still pretty crappy, are out there all the time. We use “Omni Bob” for our weather routing. All three of us have used him for many years and have great confidence in his forecasts. Just on this trip, he had given us the “go” sign as we had a decent window. The night before we were to leave, he sent us an urgent email telling us to wait as a system was developing. It took great restraint to keep the faith in Bob as three other forecasts told us to “go”. We ultimately held back based on Bob’s forecast and he was right! I don’t know this for sure, but I think the commercial forecasts are based on percentages. If they see a system developing and it looks like it is less than a 50% chance that it will affect an area, they need to make a call, so they say it won’t. The problem is, they don’t tell you that it’s a 49% chance that it will or a 20% chance. I don’t like those odds and Bob is sensitive to those percentages so we trust him.

On Thursday, July 22 we received an email from him that Friday and Saturday were a “go”. Braun and Tina had not arrived back from their China trip yet but were due to arrive Friday. I emailed them and told them of the window and that we should really take it and they agreed. Braun, Tina, Wayne and Pat arrived late Friday and started making preparations to leave on Saturday am. I have to hand it to Braun and Tina in the way that they prepared the boat so fast for the trip.

On Saturday morning we were all ready to cast off. Once again many of the Ta Shing group was there to send us off. After confirming the weather with Bob, we said our goodbyes and motored out of the harbor. The seas were calm and there was no wind, which, not only for us, but for Grey Pearl it was a real treat. Wayne was not feeling well and needed some rest. Calm seas go a long way to help with that.

We have cruised over 25000 miles on Seabird and if we have ever had a more beautiful trip, I cannot remember it. This is the kind of trip that you could easily go for 10 or 15 days straight and arrive fresh. The wind never gusted over 5 knots, the seas were just about dead flat and to top it all off, we had clear skies and nearly a full moon the entire way. We saw a number of ships and fishing boats but they were easily identified on radar and/or AIS so we had no trouble avoiding them.

Grey Pearl underway in calm seas

Ken had taken this trip a few weeks before us and had strongly advised us not to enter Hong Kong in the dark. There is a tremendous amount of ship traffic in the channel and not a lot of places to move aside. In order to do that, we had to time our departure right, guess at the currents and cross our fingers. To arrive at a specified time after a 48 hour trip is not usually easy, and this was no exception. Ken had encountered very strong counter currents along the way up to 2 kts and advised us to take that into consideration….we did….but the problem is that the currents never materialized. It went like this:

Steven: “Grey Pearl this is Seabird”

Braun: “Seabird, Grey Pearl, whats up?”

Steven “Hey Braun, I was thinking that we should slow up a bit as it looks like we will arrive in the dark”

Braun: “I kind of like to get there as fast as possible and then if we have to, cruise around outside until daylight, but if you want, we can slow down”

Steven: “Ok, I will slow down to 6.5 kts for the rest of the trip”

Braun: “ok, Grey Pearl will do the same”

A few minutes later:

Steven: “uh, Braun, my boat doesn’t seem to want to go that slow. I think we have strong currents WITH us! I can only go as slow as 7.8 kts”

Braun: “I guess that means we go with my plan”

Braun and I also talked about the inevitability that we were going to arrive in the dark, something we had really wanted to avoid. After a brief conversation with Tina, who was then on watch, we agreed that we were both tired and didn’t want to wait until sunrise to enter the channel if at all possible. If the traffic lane looked “reasonably” clear of ships, we would go for it, but, I think we both knew that we had made our decision to go in regardless, although we didn’t specifically say that.

About 25 miles out we started to encounter a great deal of ship traffic. Unfortunately, they were not following any pattern and we were seeing ships coming toward us, with us and crossing our path in large numbers at a very fast pace. Tina was on watch on Grey Pearl and I was on watch on Seabird. It was about 1am and it started getting really crowded. This is where AIS (Automated Identification System) is an invaluable instrument to have. For those who do not know what it is, it is a device that transmits your position as well as receiving other ships position. All the boats appear on the electronic charting system and on the radar (as shown below) as a small, boat shaped icon.

AIS targets entering Hong Kong

It gives the name of the ship, the destination, the course and speed, and, most importantly, TCPA. TCPA means Time to Closest Point of Approach, which in layman’s terms means how close they will come to hitting you and when , which gives you plenty of time (sort of and usually) to either contact them to alter their course or for us to alter our course. There are strict rules as to who has the right of way and usually if you contact them, they will yield. I say usually because sometimes they ignore you. In cases like that, we choose not to play chicken and use common sense. They are WAY bigger than we are and could flatten us like a pancake, so we move out of their way. It definitely got a little hairy but as soon as we entered the main shipping lane, things seemed to get a little more orderly …..for a while.

Tina and I kept in radio contact the entire way in. At one point, she noticed a ship coming from behind and the CPA (Closest Point of Approach) on the AIS showed that he would be passing at under 50 yards. Both of us tried to contact the ship but more than likely they did not speak English and ignored us. They are ALWAYS supposed to have an English speaking person on the bridge but in reality, they do not. Tina left the bridge to wake up Braun who came up and also tried to raise them, with no success. He immediately took evasive action and turned sharply to the right and slowed down, which was the right thing to do.

Hong Kong Harbor arrival at 5am

After that, everything seemed to be fine until we entered the main harbor. It was almost surreal. The moon had slightly illuminated the harbor, just enough to see the hundreds of ships either anchored or moving around randomly. It really got kind of scary as large numbers of them were passing us, crossing our paths and heading towards us. It was difficult to tell which ones were moving and which ones were not. Fortunately, Carol had awakened and come up to the bridge. It was definitely a two man job to avoid a serious problem. Some boats had lights on and some did not which made it really difficult. We always try to keep calm in these situations and try not to yell. At one point, Carol said “Over on the right”. I looked and a very large tugboat was crossing our path about 100 feet away. He had the right of way (not that it mattered) and we veered off sharply, avoiding a collision. The rest of the night went like that, but fortunately, it was almost sunrise, and when it came, it was a VERY welcome sight.

5:50am - Sunrise (note the moon)

Another hour later, we spotted the entrance to the marina. The sun had risen and the visibility was great. Braun still did not have his bow thruster working so we decided that I would go in first, dock the boat and then try to find a place for him to dock that was easily accessible. When I got to our slip, Karen, from Asia Yacht Services, was waiting for us and helped us in. Ken, Roberta and Shelby arrived shortly afterward. They had been spending a few days away from the boat in Hong Kong, basking in luxury at a hotel! As it turned out, Braun’s slip was a bow in and reasonably accessible. The problem was that the slip was about 3 inches narrower than the boat! We ended up putting him in a temporary location until he found a more suitable slip the next day.

I was a little concerned about the electricity situation. Hong Kong is a 50 cycle, 220 volt environment and Seabird is a 60 cycle boat. We prepared for this long ago but really never knew if it would work. To add to the problem, if it didn’t, we would have to run our generator all the time as we had a failed inverter that needed replacing. As it turns out, we would have had to run the generator anyway because it is so hot here that you could not go 1 hour without air conditioning!!

After about 2 hours of the electrician’s time in fiddling around with our cables, we had power. Everything seems to work perfectly and with a great sigh of relief, we started to settle in. Gold Coast Marina is a great, modern facility with good internet, spa services available and lots of restaurants to choose from as well as an exercise facility that we can use.

Gold Coast Marina complex

Seabird's new Berth

On the down side, it is 98 degrees during the day and I measured the temperature on the bow deck of Seabird with my infrared gun at 166 degrees!!! I will however, take that over the climate that we were in last year at this time in the Aleutian Islands.

There is an odd phenomena here at the marina. There are lots of people who live in these, well, sort of, houseboats like you have never seen before.

House Boat

The above pictured boat may LOOK like a fancy seagoing yacht of about 90 feet, but it is in fact a houseboat built in China. They are very shallow draft very flat bottoms and have about 4000 feet of living space aboard. Some of them had to use what little bilge space they had to fill with concrete so that they would be stable at the dock! They have a tiny engine capable of moving from one calm locating to another, as long as it is not rough out. They stay at the dock ALL the time and have no cruising capability whatsoever. Unfortunately, my understanding is that Hong Kong has now severely limited live-aboards and many marinas are not allowing them any longer, aside from the grandfathered vessels. That results in a no-market for these vessels, which is bad for the owners. One owner reportedly is planning on shipping his boat to Thailand aboard a ship in order to sell it.

I was anxious to hook up our new inverter so that we would have stable power. It had arrived here about 2 weeks ahead of us and we scheduled an electrician to install it. After it was installed, I noticed a red light on the unit. It was labeled “Low Voltage Alarm”. Huh!! We checked the voltage coming in and it read 13.8 volts, perfectly normal. That could mean only one thing and sure enough, I checked the cover and the company had inadvertently send a 24 volt inverter instead of the 12 volt that I had ordered! It is a good thing we did not switch it into the system as we would have fried our batteries with 24 volts. It is one of the reasons that I really like to be there when any mechanical work is being done on my boat. Technicians tend to miss those things, not as a rule, but enough times where a lot of damage could be done to the boat. Victron was really good about it and sent a replacement by Federal express the next day no questions asked. Fortunately, my old inverter has been “hanging in there” so we do have power.

Unfortunately, our inverter issue continued. All of a sudden, our washing machine refused to work. No power to the unit at all. Carol and I pulled it out of the little alcove to find that the socket was dead. We checked the voltage at the breaker and it was fine. I spent several hours trying to trace the wire to see if there was some sort of a void, but the path was so convoluted that I decided it was easier to run a new wire from the plug to the AC panel. I did that and a few hours later we had power to the washer and it seemed to work fine. There were a few odd things working in the electrical system on that leg and I started questioning my installation. I decided to do a quick test on all of the circuits and found that, somewhere, there was a neutral and hot wire crossed. On any three pronged plug there is a neutral wire, a ground wire and a “hot” wire. I figured for sure that I had crossed two wires somehow and rather than pulling the washer out again (a 2 hour project), I decided it was easier to just cross the neutral and hot at the electrical panel (yeah the lazy way out). I did it and found no difference. A lightbulb went off in my head and I immediately went to the new inverter installation and found that the electrician had crossed two wires inside the inverter! If you look closely at the photo below you will see that the black, white and green follow a pattern on the left that was NOT duplicated on the right.

Notice the white and black wires reversed

An hour later and lots of swearing, I had it fixed and all is well in electricityland aboard Seabird. The fun never ends here on board.

Thanks to all for your supportive emails this cruising season. I read every one of them though sometimes I forget to respond in a timely fashion. There are many hundreds of people who get my updates by email and thousands who read the blog on line. Sometimes you begin to wonder if anyone is actually reading this stuff and it is nice to hear from people, most of whom I have never met!

Ken, Roberta and Shelby (the dog) from Sans Souci have already left Hong Kong to fly back to the US. The night before they left, we had, what is now becoming, the “Annual Goodbye Dinner”, where we start to go our separate ways after we have arrived at our destination for the cruising season. This year, the dinner was graciously hosted by Ken and Roberta at the Four Seasons in Hong Kong. It is always a bit sad to see the season end. We are a special group and get along very well.

Front L-R Tina, Roberta, Ken

Back L-R Braun, Carol, Steven

Braun and Tina on Grey Pearl left here last week to fly back home also. We are staying until late September to spend the winter in Florida with some side trips to California. Our plans for next season, finally, are beginning to take form, but they are far from being locked in cement, more like Jello,molasses or at best, putty right now. More on that later………….

Comment on: Taiwan to Hong Kong

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 08:28:41 GMT

Thank you for taking the time to post your travels. The shipping traffic you described reminded of leaving Yokohama in the evening with ships climbing all over you. That was back in November of '06 aboard the Walkabout.

Comment on: Taiwan to Hong Kong

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 16:06:31 GMT

Always good to hear from you. Can not believe the Summer is almost over !!! Have a safe trip home. Conn Tool will never be the same. To me ,that is a little sad. Regards.

Arrival in Taiwan

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Tainan, other than being the third largest city in Taiwan, is the home of Ta Shing Yachts, the company that built all three of the Nordhavns in our group. Of all the Nordhavn boats that they have produced, all were exported and not a single one has ever returned to the factory for a visit. We were the first and, boy, were they ever excited! So were we. The coast guard met us outside the harbor along with another private boat to lead us through the entrance to An Ping Harbor. I was told that we were going to get a warm welcome and fully expected to see 4 or 5 of the managers waiting for us to welcome us and help us tie up. What a miscalculation that turned out to be!!!! Click here to see a short video shot by a Ta Shing employee showing our arrival:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLAUv05NglU&feature=player_embedded

We were greeted by a good portion of the factory personnel, large welcome signs, a tent, a band complete with dancing dragon dancers!!! There were champagne toasts, lots of laughs and an introduction to the warmest, friendliest people we have met.

They could not have been more hospitable. We had a 130 kw land based generator waiting for us and they had all three boats wired up for power in a few hours. It may not seem like a big deal, but we have been running our generators for several weeks since leaving Nagasaki.

Tim Juan, the president of Ta Shing, hosted several lunches and dinners for our group in the first few days. The highlight was the barbeque dinner at the factory one evening that included us as well as all of the Ta Shing employees. There was great food, good friends and, …….a Karaoke Machine with a huge stage!! Most of us participated. Some sounded good and some not so good! I actually did it for the first time, doing a duet with Tina Jones which roughly resembled the Everly Brothers “Bye Bye Love”. My understanding is that the "Bye Bye Love" song was ok but before that I sang a solo of "The House of the Rising Sun" and if the Taiwanese used the hook, I would have gotten it. Hey, I was just tuning up!!
Tina also did a duet with Roberta and Jonn Merrill had a hard time putting down the microphone once he got going!! Jeff Merrill did a hilarious version of Tina Turners “Proud Mary” complete with dancing girls!

What was really exciting for us was the factory tour.

Ta Shing has two factories in Tainan. One that produces the 72 and 76 and one that produces the 64, 68 along with the 56 foot motorsailer (www.nordhavn.com) . It also “used to” produce the 62 like ours. Production was supposed to end years ago but orders kept flowing in. They are now telling me “no more 62’s” but I did notice a twinkle in Tim’s eye and noticed that there was no plan to immediately cut up the mold.

I pleaded with them to at least mow the grass around the mold but I don’t think they took me too seriously. I for one, hate to see the N62 phased out, but I also understand that they want to spend their time on new models.

I could not have been more impressed with the quality and craftsmanship and engineering at Ta Shing. They have something that other manufacturers do not have, and that is 50 years of experience in building yachts. Their woodworking expertise is incredible. I watched them carving out elaborate pieces and finishing them by hand. I come from a manufacturing background and appreciate computer produced products, but what they are doing can only be produced by 50 years of experience. I came away thinking that if I were looking to buy a new boat, I would look no further.

As long as we were here at the factory, the three of us decided to take advantage of being here by having them repair and add things to our boats. What better place to do it than the factory that built the boat? We had some nagging issues. Our ceiling fabric was 13 years old and it was starting to separate from the panels. There is a foam backing which, over a period of time, starts to deteriorate, making the fabric sag. Ta Shing removed every panel in the boat (all 66 of them), brought them back to the factory and made them just like new. At the same time they rewired all of the ceiling lights with quick disconnect plugs. We also had them fix many old fiberglass issues, shallow stress cracks, leaking deck prisms etc etc. They did a magnificent job. They are such proud workers and good enough is not in their vocabulary (in Chinese OR English!)

Well, all good things have to come to an end and our departure date was coming. Braun and Tina, along with their guests Wayne and Pat, had left for a side trip to mainland China. Braun was having more extensive work done on his boat and needed to stay longer. Sans Souci and Seabird had made plans to leave….and we did……sort of…..

Our departure was similar to our arrival, sans dancing dragons and the band. Everyone showed up. It was very sad to be leaving. We had made such good friends here. We departed the dock and headed out for Hong Kong at 7am. About 20 minutes out I noticed that my exhaust temperature, which had been running high anyway, was running at the max, but at a very low (1400) rpm. This alone was problematic as it would delay our arrival in Hong Kong to late in the afternoon. I attributed it to growth on the prop and bottom and figured it would wash off over time. I went down into the engine room and I noticed that the oil temp on the main engine was running about 15 degrees warmer than normal along with the transmission oil temp doing the same. I didn’t like the situation and after a few hours, I radioed Ken and told him I needed to turn back. He wanted to do the same but we encouraged him to continue on as he had guests flying in and hotel reservations. Normally, we don’t like to leave each other but I was in no danger and we were within a few hours of land. The plan was to turn around, head back to Taiwan but anchor outside the harbor so that I could dive down and check out the running gear, particularly the prop and keel coolers. We found a suitable anchorage just outside An Ping Harbor. It was a bit rolly but we anchored and I dived down using my compressor and regulator. The first thing I noticed was that the prop was completely fouled with these tiny white worms, coating the prop with about ¼ inch on both sides of the blades. I scraped as much as I could but the water was very rough and the boat was bouncing up and down creating a dangerous situation for me. After about 20 minutes of getting pounded under the boat, I came up, did a brief sea trial and decided to come back into the harbor and get it resolved.

We checked in again, which was painless with the assistance of Rachel, at Ta Shing who arranged everything. We were hooked up and checked in within a hour or so. They offered to get us a diver, which we did, to clean the bottom better. To make a long story short, we ended up staying for another week because of weather issues. It seems that you only get 3 day windows and then a tropical Cyclone pops up or a Typhoon.

We plan on leaving tomorrow morning with Grey Pearl (July 24^th) transiting to Hong Kong. We have a good weather window so we need to take advantage of it.

Yesterday was a day of odd experiences. In the early morning hours, sadly, a man in a minivan drove off the pier, committing suicide about 100 feet in front of our boat. When we got up in the morning, a bunch of fire trucks were there and they had divers pull the body out of the water. A short while later, they pulled the van out and left it for the police to check out on the pier.

About 4 pm we had a severe thunder and lightning storm. The wind and rain were whipping by the boat at about 50knots. I was beginning to wonder if a Typhoon had developed. Carol and I were sitting in the pilothouse watching out the windows when I noticed that the wind was beginning to move the driverless van. It picked up speed and was heading right toward our boat! There was nothing that we could do but watch and hold our breath. I could not imagine what was going to happen next. Fortunately, at the last second, the van veered off to the right and plunged off of the pier, into the harbor, about 5 feet in front of our boat! As it turns out, the van went underneath the boat after plunging into the water and we were asked to move the boat back so that they could hoist it out again!

It was a very close call and all I could think about was how in the world would I explain to my insurance company that I was in a collision with a truck?

Tim and his team surprised us by inviting us for a "Goodbye" dinner. It was so nice of them to do that as they had already done too much for us. As in every lunch and dinner we had with them, it was very special. Places that you would never find on your own.

We look forward to leaving in the morning but are sad to leave such great friends. Thank you Tim, BK, Rachel, Lillian, Cooli, Al, Mr. Tung, Eric and everyone else.

Thank you Ta Shing!

Zamami to Taiwan (and in between)

Sun, 01 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT

The original idea was to head directly to Ishigaki from Zamami. The problem was that there was a storm coming in the next 24 hours that would keep us hunkered down for the next three or four days. We decided to call our agent and see if he could get us into a small island called Myako. Other than a calm, crystal clear anchorage, my other favorite experience is to dock at a local fishing village with lots of friendly people. Myako is just such a place. It was tricky to get into, but once we were there we thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a very quaint place with a fun town just a short taxi ride away. The weather reports that we had previously gotten proved accurate and for the next three days it was windy and rough, and we were very happy to be at the dock.

Myako to Ishigaki

Myako to Ishigaki, our departure point from Japan, is about an 85 mile run. Even in the worst current conditions, we felt that if we left at 5am, we could arrive the same day. The trip was fine with reasonable conditions and no other problems other than my nagging high exhaust temperature problem. Being that the MAN is non turbo charged and non electronic, it should be solvable by a good “shade tree” mechanic. This time I want a guy with good common sense to look at the engine and not rely on answers to problems that he needs to find in a book somewhere or in a computer. My thought now is that it is something as simple as not enough air or a timing issue. I will find out when we get to Hong Kong, hopefully.

When we arrived in Ishigaki we headed toward our designated pier, only to find that it was a HORRIBLE dock. It was directly in the traffic lane in the harbor and boats were flying by at 15 or 20 knots (large ferry boats) leaving huge wakes. I watched the waves crash against the pier thinking that in a days time, there would be a lot of damage done to Seabird, Grey Pearl and Sans Souci if we docked there……here we go again. I don’t think the local agent thought much about this or actually visited the pier before making arrangements. Ken tried to dock there but was getting pummeled and decided to move. We all searched separately for a suitable place. Neither Braun nor I had good detailed charts for the harbor and the depths were suspect. We crept around for the good part of an hour before I pulled into a small basin with a suitable protected pier and tied up to the dock. Braun followed and Ken found another spot nearby in a different basin about a quarter of a mile from us. The local boss of the fishing harbor came and told us we were welcome to stay, fortunately, as we were out of options. No electrical power, of course, but we were now used to running our generator all the time. Even though it is miserly with fuel, running it an extra 600 hours was depleting our reserves and we would need to take on fuel before we left….another story in itself.

Joining us in Ishigaki was Jeff Merrill, from PAE, the company that produces Nordhavns and his son, Jonn. It was great having them aboard for the trip to Taiwan. There is a big difference have two extra people on board on a long trip. The off watch time is increased to 6 + hours and you arrive at your destination well rested.

Ishigaki is the last Japanese Island going south. It is distinctly Japanese, but it seems the further south you go, the less formal the people are. The umbrellas to shield you from sunlight go away and the dress is very informal, more like what I am used to being a shorts and t shirt kind of guy.

Fuel Story

We had a good time in Ishigaki and our agent, Furuno san, had arranged for us to get fuel at very favorable prices ($2.65/gallon vs $5 per gallon in Ashiya). The only trick is that we had to check out of the country in order to qualify. No problem. We would simply clear out at night, get fuel in the morning and then leave, right? No way. We were informed that we had to clear out, get fuel and leave in the same breath. Not only that, but it had to be done in the afternoon so we could not leave until late in the day, which we were trying to avoid. The agent emailed us and asked if we wanted MGO or MDO diesel fuel. I'm thinking well, I just want boat diesel fuel. We had been through this with Ken in Nagasaki and determined that MGO was roughly the equivalent to what we get in the US.

Ken called on the radio and then told me that they had stopped fueling him thinking they filled his tank with the wrong grade of fuel. After he told me what they gave him, I contacted Bob Senter from Lugger Marine and here was his response to me (Thanks, Bob):

Hi Steve,

MDO is an old standard that refers to heavy fuel oil used in large displacement, slow turning commercial marine diesels. It may have very high sulfur content that would be damaging to your engine. MGO seems like the closest thing you can get to low sulfur #2 diesel. Here's some info on the fuels:

An ASTM standard (D2069) once existed for marine diesel fuels, but it has been withdrawn. It was technically equivalent to ISO 8217. While some marine diesel engines use No. 2 distillate, D2069 covered four kinds of marine distillate fuels: DMX, DMA, DMB, and DMC and residual fuels (see alsoISO marine fuel specifications):

DMX is a special light distillate intended mainly for use in emergency engines.
DMA (also called marine gas oil, MGO) is a general purpose marine distillate that must be free from traces of residual fuel. DMX and DMA fuels are primarily used in Category 1 marine engines (< 5 liters per cylinder).
DMB (marine diesel oil, MDO) is allowed to have traces of residual fuel, which can be high in sulfur. This contamination with residual fuel usually occurs in the distribution process, when using the same supply means (e.g., pipelines, supply vessels) that are used for residual fuel. DMB is produced when fuels such as DMA are brought on board the vessel in this manner. DMB is typically used for Category 2 (5-30 liters per cylinder) and Category 3 (= 30 liters per cylinder) engines.
DMC is a grade that may contain residual fuel, and is often a residual fuel blend. It is similar to No. 4-D, and can be used in Category 2 and Category 3 marine diesel engines.
Residual (non-distillate) fuels are designated by the prefix RM (e.g., RMA, RMB, etc.). These fuels are also identified by their nominal viscosity (e.g., RMA10, RMG35, etc.).

At one point, we thought that we would have to be pumping all of the fuel out of Sans Souci's tanks. All signs pointed to that they probably filled his tank with Bunker fuel, a very low grade fuel that was harmful to the newer, sophisticated engines. After about an hour of going back and forth, and MANY tiresome discussions, they decided that it was indeed the correct fuel and that all was good. By now it was getting late and neither Grey Pearl nor Seabird had fuel. All of their assurances did not prevent us from taking precautionary measures. Braun had a fuel testing kit that tested for water and Jeff Merrill searched the yard for a stick long enough to go to the bottom of the truck tank. The fuel guys were a little taken back by this, but then again, most of their customers don’t travel more than 3 or 4 miles offshore!

FINALLY, we got our fuel and left. It was a nice feeling that we were finally able to get out of there. After a bad docking experience, bad fueling experience, horribly hot weather and a bad haircut on top of all that (another story), we were off. We headed out the shortcut which was recommended to us by a local guy. Ken was in the lead and suddenly, Ken got on the radio and said that the exit did not look good. We looked out between the two buoys and saw breaking waves, which is a REALLY bad sign, usually meaning shallow water (like there was a beach there).

If you look at the picture below (click on it to blow it up), you can see the waves breaking in the distance in front of Sans Souci.

Rather than risking going aground, we elected to turn around and spend a few extra hours taking the long route. Once out to sea, we were all very happy and looking forward to our arrival in Taiwan, a two day trip.

Ishigaki to Taiwan

I was hoping for an “uneventful” trip and that is exactly what we got. Generally, the three of us really overwork the weather issue and there are no less than ten meetings or radio conferences between us before we leave. We are definitely over prepared and it has served us well over the past year or so. Nordhavns are built to cruise in the most unimaginable conditions safely, but it doesn’t mean that it is perfectly comfortable and that we look forward to it or enjoy it. Sometimes you just get caught in the stuff even though the weather was supposed to be clear. Those are the times I am glad to be in a Nordhavn. On long passages, you can encounter simply miserable weather for days at a time. Head seas with 25-30 knot winds may not seem like much when you are doing a 3 or 4 hour passage, but over a period of 4 or 5 days, the 7 to 10 foot seas that go along with that can wreak havoc on a lesser boat not to mention the crew. For instance, after a day or so of constant pounding, cabinetry can start to deteriorate, drawer fronts fall off, refrigerators loosen from their mounts and all hell can break loose. Other things, like deck hardware, fittings and even your anchor mounts start to fall apart and windows can fail. Big “picture windows” in the pilothouse are great at the dock, and show well at boat shows, but in the real world, waves can hit and smash the ¼ inch glass flooding the pilothouse, pretty much dooming the boat. There are a few manufacturers that are making big claims about their boats, but none of them can match the 4,000,000 ocean miles that Nordhavns have gone. One in particular has been very vocal in criticizing Nordhavn, touting a new boat that they are producing as a better passagemaker, but without a single mile under its hull. Go figure. Like Dan Streech, PAE’s president says, “talk is cheap”. I can tell you from experience that this 13 year old boat has been pounded for days on end in simply awful conditions without a single structural failure. So there!!

Anyway…..Jeff Merrill (From Nordhavn) and his son Jonn joined us for this leg of the trip. It was great having them aboard.

The difference between having a three person rotation vs a two person watch is that you can run 3 hour shifts and still get 6 hours of sleep, which is a huge advantage. Jeff is an experienced passagemaker and we had no problem leaving the helm to him in the middle of the night, while we slept soundly. It was also Jeffs birthday on July 3^rd and we surprised him with a cake and a bit of humiliation in having to have his picture taken with the “famous” Seabird Birthday Hat on! (see below). I think it was the middle of the night when we did this!

Fortunately, the two day passage to Taiwan tested NOTHING on the boat other than the crew growing bored with the current against us all the way. But finally.....There was more than a tinge of excitement as we spotted our last waypoint and the entrance to the harbor in Tainan. To be continued……..

Nagasaki to Zamami

Sat, 31 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Nagasaki to Amami North

We were a little sad to leave Nagasaki. We were only supposed to stay for a week but it seemed that every time we planned on leaving, one of us would come up with an excuse to stay. Not that it was hard to convince the rest of us!

As usual, we planned the passage to our next destination, an island south of Japan called Amami. The forecast called for calm seas and we ended up with just enough crappiness to make the trip a little uncomfortable. It was a 33 hour passage, the kind I hate. For some reason, three and four day passages are easier for Carol and I to do by ourselves rather than a single overnight. The first night of a passage is the most difficult and after that you get into a rhythm and things go much more smoothly. Add a little choppiness to the single overnight passage and it becomes kind of an irritation.

We arrived in the first Amami anchorage , dropped the hook in calm water, had dinner and went to bed. The next morning we left for our next anchorage, in southern Amami to wait out an impending storm.

Amami North to Amami South

Our trip to the southern part of Amami was uneventful as it was a 40 mile passage on the leeward side of the island. We arrived at our “designated” anchorage in the afternoon. By “designated”, what I mean is that in Japan, you cannot simply pull into any harbor and drop your hook. The Coast Guard decides where you will go. Unfortunately, the designated anchorage was kind of open to the impending storm and would have been dangerous to us. Therefore, we looked at the charts and found what we thought would be a safe (and great little) anchorage. We all dropped the hook in about 45 feet of water and realized that we had found a real gem! Of course, a bit later on, it appeared to be Ken’s turn to entertain the Coast Guard. “Anchorage closed! Must move now” was the word that Ken got from the Coast Guard visitors on his boat. To make matters worse, during his conversation with them, while trying to convince them that we needed to stay put, Ken forgot that he was filling his hot tub on the upper deck and it started overflowing and spilling down on top of the Coast Guard guys! I think it was then that Ken turned to Braun on the radio looking for guidance with our Japanese officials. Braun, ALWAYS a quick thinker, informed Ken that we needed an anchorage no more than 50 feet deep to allow enough scope for the impending heavy winds, knowing full well that EVERYTHING nearby was deeper. It is always good to evoke the “safety issue” when all else fails, or for that matter, if you happen to be drenching your official visitors with hot tub water!!

Amami turned out to be a great place. We did some diving with Ken’s gear under our boat to remove some excessive growth on the running gear. Carol scraped the waterline (see below) and got enough mussels for a dinner for two (if we were so inclined, which we were not!).

Braun and Tina had gone for a walk on the Island and told us about a “fish farm” about a mile down the road. Carol and I went there the next day and met a guy who worked there. It turned out to be a Tuna research facility. They started with eggs and after they hatched into small tuna, they moved them to larger and larger bins until they were old enough to survive in the largest enclosed pen. Inside the pen was a 700 lb tuna that was 12 years old. Usually they do not keep them that long but simply release them into the wild.

Amami to Okinawa

Our trip to Okinawa was another one of those single overnighter pains in the butt. It was 155 miles and the only stop we could make along the way was a closed anchorage where you needed permission to stop. That permission usually takes a week so we decided to keep going to Okinawa. To add to the misery, we really, for the first time in our trip, had no place to go when we arrived. Our agent, Furuno san, tried just about everywhere, but they all maintained that they were too full, too shallow or just no how, no way! There was a flurry of emails and satellite phone calls during the passage and we pulled every string that we could. Ken found an American, John Rutherford, who told him that he thought he could get us into Ginowan Marina. We called Furuno san, who called the management there and they informed him absolutely not. We were getting closer and closer with no place to stay. Furuno san finally got us a pier near downtown, but it was not available right away. We still needed a place for the night. John contacted Ken again and basically told him to ignore what the management said and just come into Ginowan when you arrive. We had a conversation on the radio between the three of us and decided to go with John, a guy none of us really knew. I am not sure why we did this other than we were desperate. John met us with his boat outside the harbor and led us in the winding narrow channel. I am glad he was there. Fishing your way into that harbor for the first time would have been difficult on our own, to say the least.

Ken was the first to dock. I came second and just before pulling up to the rough pier, Ken called me on the radio and said there was a problem. “Steven, the immigration guys just told me that we are not approved to come into this harbor and must leave now”. I asked Ken exactly what they said and Ken replied “ they said ‘wrong harbor, must leave now!!’ “ I asked if they were polite about it and he said “no”, which is REALLY unusual for this culture. Braun got on the radio and said “lets just pull in and worry about that later”. It was a bold move and the officials seemed very upset that we were doing this after they told us to leave. Fortunately, we were able to get the local agent on the phone and he convinced them that we would get an “official change of location” shortly, which we did.

John, a retired US Military guy, turned out to be a terrific guy, who had lived in Okinawa for 30 odd years or so. He set us up with all kinds of information and introduced us to his friend, Myagi (as in The Karate Kid!), a local who befriended us and actually gave us his car to use for the week.

Okinawa was fun. It was also one of the few places in Japan where people did not seem overly impressed in any way with Americans. Its not that they were rude in any way. They were typically Japanese in their politeness and manners. They are FAR more casual than mainland Japanese people and the island is filled with American military people. You read a lot about the anger that they feel in having our military bases there and we were expecting the worst in treatment. Quite the opposite. Everyone went out of their way to help us in any way they could.

At this point we had been running our generator for the better part of a week, shutting it off only at night while at anchor. Okinawa was different. It was VERY hot and humid. We found that we needed air conditioning 24 hours per day and never shut the generator down. As it turned out, the situation did not change until we got to Taiwan. That meant LOTS of oil changes, one every ten days. People have asked if the generator noise gets irritating after a while. Number 1, it sure beats roasting to death and Number 2, after a day or so you almost do not hear the generator any more. I don’t know if it actually gets quieter, but it seems to. We had a new 16kw Northern Lights generator installed before we left Seattle and it is markedly quieter than the old unit that it replaced.

Thanks again to John Rutherford and Myagi, who made our stay in Okinawa a great deal of fun. Thanks also to Furuno san, our agent for his efforts. He flew down on official business and we had a chance to have dinner with him, John and Myagi at a local restaurant before we left Okinawa.

Okinawa to Zamami

Zamami is an island that we were REALLY looking forward to. The satellite pictures showed sandy beaches and clear, blue water, similar to what you would see in the virgin islands, complete with coral beds and white sand. As usual, we had limited information to go on as to where we should anchor. The best plan was to look at the charts, the expected wind and the Google Earth charts. All that pointed to a secluded little anchorage that looked just perfect! We were told that there were even mooring balls that we could tie to. When I asked John Rutherford about them, he looked at me with kind of a quizzical look. He said “the mooring balls are quite large”. I said that I had tied to many in my day and the fact that they were large did not bother me. ………yet.

Here is what we found and how we had to tie to them. Since Braun had two others on board, he lowered his tender and had Wayne motor over to the “mooring ball” and tie on to it. As it turns out, it was a monumental task (see below). They were about 10 feet in diameter and 3 feet high, more suitable for a ferry boat than a small cruiser.

Ken watched what was going on and meandered over to a beach about a mile from where we were attempting to moor. After about half an hour, Wayne had us secured to our mooring. We didn’t like it. It was a complex hookup and we felt that at some point if the wind picked up we would chafe through the line or swing back into the large ball. It was also kind of rolly. Meanwhile, Ken called on the radio and said that it was perfectly calm where he was and he planned on dropping the hook and staying there. He mentioned that there was plenty of room if we wanted to move, and we eventually did. What a great decision that was. Braun on Grey Pearl was soon to follow. Where we ended up was a calm, crystal clear anchorage with great snorkeling and diving. This is what we were all waiting for and we had no intention of leaving for at least three days…….but then…..

The weather gods decided not to sympathize with us. The following day, at about 4 pm, we had a radio pow wow. The weather was turning bad again and if we did not leave right away, we would be stuck for a week or more. Arrrgghhhh…..! Not that I would have minded being stuck there for a week, but we had to arrive at Ishigaki to pick up our guest, Jeff Merrill from Nordhavn and his son, Jonn, who would be travelling with us to Taiwan, where our boat was built at the Ta Shing factory. Sooo…..off we went , into the sunset once again.

Next stop - Miyako

Comment on: Nagasaki to Zamami

Sat, 31 Jul 2010 04:50:01 GMT

SUBJECT: RE: Nagasaki to Zamami The picture of Wayne standing on the mooring buoy is a classic. Very cool! -Ken W

Ashiya to Nagasaki

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

It does not seem that we have gotten very far. If you check the “Live Tracking” button on the web page you will see that we are docked in Nagasaki, which means we traveled about 450 miles in 3 weeks. We still have about 1250 miles to go to get to Hong Kong.

Nagasaki, as it turns out, is the reason we have not moved on after over a week of sitting in the harbor. Originally, we talked about going to a folksy little Dutch village called “Huis Ten Bosch”, about 50 miles north or Nagasaki. The accommodations for the boats were questionable there so we kind of tossed a coin and ended up skipping Huis Ten Bosch and going directly to Nagasaki from our last port, an anchorage called Hirado. It turned out to be a GREAT decision. After we got here the dockmaster decided that, instead of two of us at the dock and two at the rough sea wall, he would allow all four of us to use the floating docks, complete with electricity! We took a side train trip to Huis Ten Bosch and, although it is an interesting place in a “touristy” kind of way, it cannot compare to Nagasaki.

Nagasaki is a wonderful, vibrant city and the marina is right in the heart of it. We have all agreed that it is, so far, our favorite location except for Ashiya, which we all agree is the overall favorite. It is filled with great restaurants, museums and monuments, the most touching being the Atom Bomb museum and the Peace Park. We visited Hiroshima, but it seems that Nagasaki was particularly hard hit because of the geography. Nagasaki is situated in kind of a “bowl”, surrounded by mountains on all sides, and in a fairly small area. When the bomb exploded, it nearly obliterated everything in the city to the size of small pebbles in many areas. In the picture below, note that at one time there was a city there.

ca. 1945 NARA

One of the advantages to not just “passing through”, as many tourists do, is that you get to meet and know the local people. As in all of Japan, the people you meet are warm and helpful. Two days ago we went into a shop to look at some clay dishware at a shop owned by a gentleman named Tagawa who was 10 years old when the bomb exploded near his home. He told us his parents were both killed but that he has many American friends. It was truly a lumpy throat kind of moment.

Desperate Housewife

It is difficult in Japan to find daily labor for mundane tasks like cleaning the boat at a “reasonable” cost. In Nagasaki, it seems, there is no help for these tasks at ANY PRICE, the evidence of which is in the above photo! Just to be fair, all three of us are equally “desperate” and do the same tasks ourselves [see below - Tina on Grey Pearl]. Having said that, it is far rarer to see the upper photo !! Kind of like finding a four leaf clover.

It looks like we will be leaving here on or about Wednesday, June 9^th and heading on an overnighter to a small island 250 miles south of here called Amami. It is only about 200 miles north of Okinawa and hopefully where the “balmy” weather begins.

Ashiya to Nagasaki – Part 1

Our two main stops between Ashiya and Nagasaki were Hiroshima and Fukuoka. A good part of the cruising was in the Seto Naikai, or the “inland sea”. If you take a look at the map above, you will see that it is nearly enclosed an all sides by land and for the most part, easy and smooth cruising. The difficult part of the trip is dodging the ship traffic. Here is a picture of a typical day in the Inland Sea as seen on my radar.

EVERYTHING that comes into Japan by boat that needs to go from West to East in Japan, it seems, must pass through the Inland Sea. When you add to that the considerable ferry boat traffic, it adds up to a situation not unlike the LA Freeway at rush hour!

Both Carol and I are familiar with the “Rules of the Road”. I have always assumed that it was the same everywhere. Recently, after a particularly hairy close call with a ferry boat, I asked a local friend who has the right of way here. “Steve san” , he said, “small boats have no right of way in Japan”. Was he EVER right! On the second day of our trip Seabird was last in line of our group and we noticed a 300 foot ferry coming up behind us to our starboard. At the time, we were passing through a narrow passage between two islands and, since he made no indication otherwise, we assumed he would pass us to the starboard and continue on through the pass. While he was next to us, with no warning whatsoever, he suddenly turned to his port at about 30 degrees, squeezing us between his vessel and the rocks to the port of us. I had nowhere to go so I slipped the transmission into neutral from full cruise, waited a LONG second and slammed it into reverse, quickly moving it to full throttle. My hope was that I would simply stop dead in the water and let him pass in front of me. Unfortunately, hydrodynamics were not on my side. As he started to cut us off, the ferry started to suck us into his path and Seabird spun around 90 degrees so that we were perpendicular to his port side and closing fast. Time flies when you are having fun, but I assure you that I was not. The whole incident probably happened in about 15 seconds but it seemed like minutes, culminating when his stern passed our bow with only about 10 feet to spare. Sorry I don’t have any photos of the incident……… but I was kinda busy. Not quite a “pee in the pants” moment, but close!

Travelling by boat in Japan is not without problems. In the US, you simply get into your boat and go wherever you want. In Japan, even with our “Domestic Boat” status, every stop we make is a major project involving the Coast Guard. They are extremely courteous and polite, but we are questioned and asked to fill out paperwork at every port. One night, at about 9pm, while at anchor in a sleepy little harbor (Kasado Shima), a bright spot light pierced our windows into the salon. Carol and I were watching a movie and were a bit startled by it. Japan is a relatively safe place so we were not anxious about opening the door to see who was out there. It turned out to be the Coast Guard and they requested to come aboard to inspect our paperwork. Language, unless you are fluent in Japanese, is ALWAYS a problem in situations like this, but, we smiled, they smiled, we all bowed many times and after they were satisfied with our paperwork and answers to their questions, they took copies of everything and were gone. Interestingly enough, they did not feel a need to board the other boats and they just passed them by and took a few photos.

Hiroshima

I won’t get into Hiroshima too much in this blog as we have visited there before and dedicated some text to it in a previous blog. We had a bit of a different perspective this time as we were docked at the local marina as opposed to staying in the hotel. We had a lot of fun there and the marina people could not have been more gracious. As in most of the other ports we have been into, perfect strangers came to the boat in groups and offered us gifts of food. I don’t recall that happening in Miami!

We ran into my Brother in Law and nephews while here as they were performing on stage. They were great as usual. One of the songs that they wrote and recorded is called “Voices Sweet” which is about finding their relatives in Japan. While in Hiroshima, we finally met them and had a great time at lunch. They do not speak much English but we have found communicating with the Japanese fairly easy and they appreciate any effort you make to use their language.

Birthday boy and girl

One good thing about traveling in this group of boats is that we are always looking for a reason to celebrate something. Fortunately for us, Hiroshima was no exception and we got to celebrate not one, but two birthdays! Mine came first and Sharry (from Starr) had hers shortly afterward. For mine, we had a group dinner at the restaurant near the Marina and for Sharry, we had one at one of the restaurants in the Mitsui Garden Hotel. For Sharry, we had the more “esoteric” type dinner of Shabu Shabu, which is where they put the boiling soup on the table and you dip the various items into it and cook it. I could say that I actually baked the cake for Sharry but it would be refuted by everyone that knows me! Mine was a pizza and Italian food place and Sharry actually did bake the cake for me!

My next update will be our trip from Hiroshima to Nagasaki and MORE on Nagasaki. Too much for one update!

Comment on: Ashiya to Nagasaki

Sat, 05 Jun 2010 06:58:03 GMT

Reads like this leg of your journey is a lot of fun! Thanks for blogging with photos!

GSSR 2 - Departure from Ashiya

Sat, 01 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT

GSSR 2 Underway!

This is just a very short blog entry to let everyone know that we have now left our winter port of Ashiya and have begun the journey that will lead us to Hong Kong.

This is a relatively tiny journey compared to last season's odyssey that took us from Seattle, Washington, up to Alaska, out to the furthermost of the Aleutian Islands, to Kamchatka, Siberia and on to Japan. This years trip will be at a more leisurely pace and with much warmer weather. We are currently located in Takamatsu, which is a fairly large port about 75 miles to the west of Ashiya. It was kind of an interesting and complex trip, as it turned out and not without some unwelcome danger along the way. I will get into that in a few days in my regular blog entry.

In the meantime, our "Live Tracking" feature on the home page is fully operational again, so if you are inclined to see where we are at any given moment, simply click on it and follow the instructions on the page.

Until my next entry....

Steven

Comment on: GSSR 2 - Departure from Ashiya

Wed, 05 May 2010 22:14:29 GMT

Steve and your wife hope you will keep as warm as you can ,You can be as happy as possible. Hope the Engine will not dissapoint Harald

April 2010 - Ashiya, Japan

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Weather has been downright crappy since we got back to Japan. I don’t know why, but we were expecting a bit of balmy weather and sunny skies. People here tell us that “normally”, March and April are fairly nice months with moderate temperatures and sunny skies. We have had ANYTHING but that until this weekend. We actually had snow and hail one day. All that changed this weekend for the annual “Cherry Blossom Festival”. The Cherry Blossom Festival is really a big deal here in Ashiya as well as the rest of Japan. Of course, the blossoms themselves are the main attraction, but people of all ages come out to stake their spots along the “blossom trails” as early as 4am! By mid afternoon you see thousands of people with their blankets having picnics, Japanese style, of course, musical groups and rows of food kiosks that sell everything from the stuff you love………. to the other stuff (yech!).

The real reason we returned to Japan so early was to oversee the installation of our transmission for the main engine, which had been our winter long project that we had been nudging along by phone and email since December. We had been dealing with two sources: Mill Log Marine in Kent, Washington and Mizuno Marine in Osaka, Japan. Mill Log had been rebuilding our PTO (Power Take Off) which drives the hydraulics from our transmission and Mizuno had been overhauling the transmission itself. In early January, we got word from Mill Log that our PTO overhaul was complete and they had shipped it to Jeff over at Pacific Yacht Management in Seattle, who was getting together a container full of stuff for all three boats which was to be shipped by freighter in January (a whole ‘nother story, filled with expense).

We arrived here on March 2^nd and after contacting Mizuno, we scheduled our transmission to be installed the following Monday. I actually enjoyed the process of watching the teamwork to install the transmission. I have put the photos in sequence to give you a sense of the project, but it is one of those adventures that “you had to be there”. I was truly AMAZED at how fast they got the transmission into the boat. They had the scaffolds built outside and inside the boat and the transmission was in place in about 3 hours.

I have come to admire the efficiency in which the Japanese mechanics operate. They go right to work and there is not a lot of wasted motion. Their politeness and desire to please the customer are typical Japanese.

The PTO arrived just in time to install the hydraulics on to the transmission. I cannot let this moment pass without thanking Mill Log Marine for such a job well done. They billed me very fairly for the work that they did and billed me nothing for all of the help they gave me over the phone and by email (hours of it!) to deal with the transmission that was being fixed in Japan. Without them, I could not have gotten the job done.

Everything seems to be operating well with the exception the exhaust temperature, which is still too high. It is running about 200 degrees over what the manufacturer says it should run. Right now we are checking the injectors to see if they are calibrated properly. The plot thickens on those too. I just found out that there are two separate sets of specifications for the injectors on my engine. I am in the process of finding out which one is correct. That said, on the high temp of the exhaust issue, 99.9% of boat owners do not even have exhaust temperature gauges!! Maybe I should just unplug it and the problem will go away!

We had the pleasure of hosting our Seattle based maintenance crew a few weeks ago. Jeff, the owner of Pacific Yacht Management of Seattle and his crew, Nick and Doug, can fix just about anything on a boat. I had a list of about 10 items needing repair, Braun had a few items and Ken had the lion’s share of stuff which needed to be attended to. We installed a new Perko 19” spotlight (see the photo below), a new battery charger, installed some new digital gages and power monitors, and diagnosed a nagging freezer problem (the condenser fan was operating backwards!) and quite a few other items that we had planned on. Jeff’s guys are great to have around and I was very impressed with their ability to solve problems quickly and move on to the next project. I highly recommend them to anyone in the Seattle area needing work done. It was not cheap to fly them over to here so you can bet that I appreciated the overall value they provided. Below is a picture of the crew getting ready to munch on one of our Japanese favorites...Okonomiyaki, prepared by chefs Yashushi and his wife, Taiko at their restaurant.

SMOKE in the ER

In the middle of one of the repairs, I smelled a familiar smoky smell. As soon as I smelled it, I knew what it was: the stop solenoid on the main engine. We had had the problem while traveling through the Aleutians last year, and I thought we had fixed it but evidently not correctly enough. The company that had done some work on my dashboard in the pilothouse had reconfigured the breakers so that the Fireboy system no longer operated from the start battery but from the house battery. Anytime you shut the 12v power on the boat, it shut down the Fireboy system and actuated the stop solenoid on the engine and kept it on until it fried. Anyway, we fixed the problem for good this time, but I will ALWAYS keep a spare on hand……..

On the lighter side of things, Carol’s birthday crept up on me after we arrived here. I wanted to do something special and I operate well under pressure so I waited until the last minute to do my thing. I commandeered my friend Paul and his lovely wife, Emiko to help plan a surprise dinner for Carol. Check out the photo of the birthday cake with "Happy Birthday" written in Japanese. I invited everyone that I knew here, which consisted of Jeff and his crew, Paul and Emiko and Olivier and his wife Yuri. Emiko arranged for a private room at a local “Italian” restaurant, Bellini, and away we went. Carol was very surprised and was thrilled to have all of our local friends together for a dinner, and the food was just spectacular. It is Italian, but with a Japanese flair. To top off the evening, the Maitre D sang a song in English to Carol. His voice was smooth and soothing and probably a little TOO smoothing for Jeff as he fell asleep at the table. Too bad I couldn't add the snoring sound to the photo!

Sumo Wrestling

A whole group of us went one night to Sumo wrestling. I really didn’t know what to expect other than what I have seen in small video clips of two huge guys banging into each other. I always thought that they were just fat, but was I ever wrong! I met a friend from New Zealand who knew a lot about these guys. They are bred from their teens to be Sumo Wrestlers and it is a centuries old sport which remains basically unchanged. Their training is very intense and they are solid muscle, covered by a layer of fat, which makes them look the way they do. There is a definite pecking order amongst them based on the individual records and skill level. Their diets consist of HUGE portions of a Japanese dish called Chanko-nabe. It is sort of a stew made up of chicken, Tofu and fish along with lots of vegetables- to the tune of 20,000 calories per day!! The young, inexperienced guys take care of the top guys. They have to help groom them, wait on them hand and foot, and for all their effort; they get the scraps of food that are left.

You would think that with all that high calorie food and by their appearance that they are lumbering oafs. That could not be further from the truth. They are extremely fast; hit each other with the intensity of a freight train and you can hear the impact of the collision way back in the nosebleed section that we were in.

To give credit to their more romantic side, my understanding is that these guys are very famous, make a ton of money , are highly regarded in Japan and get ALL the best women. I was told about one guy who weighed 500 lbs and married a 90 lb model!.........Yeah, I asked the same question and I did get a VERY interesting and candid answer based on fact but I cannot print it here…….. So anyway……….whew……..

Also on the romantic side, I don’t know if I mentioned it before, the Seabird is docked directly in front of a wedding chapel that hosts between 4 and 10 weddings per day. It looks like a cross between a HUGE mansion and a church and they churn out brides like you wouldn’t believe. The highlight of the wedding is when the marina sport fishing boat pulls up in back of our boat and the bride and groom walk up a portable staircase on to the bow of the boat for a short ride from our end of the marina to the other end.

The plan is for the three ….oops, now four boats (and maybe more) to leave Ashiya at the end of April. We are thrilled to have the fourth boat, Starr, a 75 foot Northern Marine, with our good friends Don and Sharry on board, to cruise with the GSSR group through the Inland Sea. Starr arrived a week ago after taking the southern route from Seattle to Hawaii to Japan.

Our plan is to stop in Hiroshima, Fukuoka, Nagasaki, Okinawa and Taiwan before arriving in Hong Kong in late July.

Speaking of Taiwan, Ta Shing, the Taiwanese company that manufactures many of the boats for Nordhavn, including all of the GSSR fleet, sent two guys from the factory to visit us for a few days. We are considering having them do some improvements on our boats while we are there and they were kind enough to send Al and Mr. Tong up to Japan to see us! It was great having them here and we are looking forward to visiting their factory in Taiwan as well as getting some expert work done while we are there.

Finally, it is always nice to see friends from the US. Our friends Rick and Sandy stopped here for a few days on their way to Taiwan and Hong Kong. It was great to see them and we introduced them to the finest Sushi in Ashiya. They arrived just in time to see the Cherry Blossoms in bloom! While in Hong Kong, their flight got delayed on their trip to Germany from there because of the Icelandic volcano. They ended up coming back to Tokyo to spend a few more days before flying back to the US the other way. They love Japan as much as we do and Rick got a chance to practice his patented "secret" chop stick trick again for the sushi chefs!

Sorry for the loooong blog, but I tend to get distracted and forget to post them in a timely fashion. Our next update should be from Hiroshima.

Oh, one more thing... some people have asked to make the photos in the blog larger. All you have to do is click on the photo and it enlarges.

Steven

Comment on: April 2010 - Ashiya, Japan

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 08:51:31 GMT

Always good the hear from you ! So happy all is going as planned. I did have the opportunity to go to Alaska last Aug. The 1st week Sandy and I did the land thing by Train and the 2nd week did the cruse. The weather was great. Sandy and I saw Mt.McKinley in its full glory also saw meny animals. It was a religious experience. Thanks for the inspiration. Hope you have a great trip !!! Your friend always

Winter 2009-2010

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

This is my first update since just prior to Thanksgiving and the reason is that we had left Japan by air back to the US for ………vacation?? It has been a nice getaway for Carol and me. We spent time with our families, caught up with old friends and, of course, went to a boat show!! We put the boat "to bed" in Ashiya, Japan for the winter months. The temperature there is fairly moderate and rarely gets below freezing so we did not winterize the boat and left it in the water. We hired a person to continuously check all three of the boats periodically and report back to us on any issues. So far so good.

All of the time here in the US has been spent between California and Florida. Here in California, we have spent time with Carol’s father which has been just great. It is always fun to visit with him and we spent Christmas with him, Carols two sisters and three of my nephews. I was kind of in charge of their entertainment and we went on ATV’s in the desert and go-carting too. Supposedly, the intent was for me to be a positive influence on the boys but that ended when I got into a fierce battle on the go-cart track with some other drivers that ended with me being escorted off the track. My nephews thought it was kind of cool, but their mother was not amused. She inferred that I would never be trusted again….

We traveled to Florida to see my Mom and my sisters. We surprised my Mom with a 90^th birthday celebration. She still plays golf several times per week, drives her car, is as sharp as ever and fun to be with. We then traveled from Miami to Stuart to Vero Beach to Ponte Vedra to Naples to Vero Beach to Bonita Springs and finally ended up in Miami at the Boat show. I think we slept in 9 different beds in the three weeks we were there!

We are just now preparing to return to Japan and prepare our boat for the next segment along with our good friends, Ken and Roberta on Sans Souci and Braun and Tina aboard Grey Pearl.

If you read Ken’s blog you know that we have a ton (literally) of stuff being shipped to Japan. Pleasure boating in Japan is nowhere near as big as it is in the US, so spare parts and boat stuff in general are hard to come buy. Boat stuff for little ships like ours is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to find. Braun has this friend who ships stuff overseas all the time and advised us to get a small (20 ft) container and load it on to a ship with all of our stuff inside. We all shipped hundreds of items to Seattle over the winter to load into the container which ranged from coffeemakers to anchors, gallons of oil and coolants, computer parts, ropes, screws, hose clamps and a PTO. What’s a PTO?? I will get to that in a minute. It requires its own story.

Thanksgiving

Just before we left Japan, we spent a lot of time thinking about how we should spend Thanksgiving. The biggest hurdle was the Turkey. I am not even sure there is a word for Turkey in Japanese and I had NEVER seen one in a store! One day Carol looked at me and said “COSTCO!!!!!!” Sure, why not? Anyway, we made the multi vehicle trek (bus, train and another bus) to Costco (in Japanese, they call it Cost-ee-co). ..Cute…. Well, sure enough, they had plenty and we invited some friends over for the feast.

Our good friend Olivier, who is a pastry chef by trade and a great overall chef, suggested we brine the turkey which involved soaking it in our wash down bucket in salty water for a day and then cooking it. We were a bit wary but it came out just fine. Olivier also made the dessert, which rates a picture of it'sown (see above)!

We also invited our friends Karin (from Bristol, CT) and Paul and his wife Emiko. Everyone brought something and it turned out to be a wonderful feast shared with great friends, which is what Thanksgiving is all about!

Mechanical issue

The extended downtime for boats is a great opportunity to get things fixed or refurbished and we wasted no time in fixing what has been a perplexing problem for the past year and a half. Boats are a bit like your children and after you have been around them long enough for extended periods, you can sense when things are not running right. Some of the symptoms were glaring while others were subtle. First, before we left from Seattle on the trip, I noticed that the engine, when started from cold, was running rougher than normal and we were spewing an inordinate amount of soot from the dry exhaust. Once warm, the engine would run fine (seemingly), but would not idle correctly when in gear. It was almost as if some big huge guy was down in the bilge with his hands around the shaft, trying to stop it from turning. We also had a substantial amount of vibration while at cruise speed.

While in Seattle, we had the boat hauled, the shaft and propeller removed and inspected. We also had the cutlass bearing removed and replaced as well as aligning the engine. We also had the injectors replaced, the fuel pump rebuilt, the compression checked etc etc. All of this had a minimal effect on the performance and I was being convinced by many that there was nothing wrong and that I expected too much from the drive train. They said it was running fine and it was the cold weather (or maybe my imagination?). Based on that, we left for Alaska.

I still felt, with all the work done, that the engine was running poorly. My exhaust was hotter than normal and the entire engine room was hotter also. Just as we were approaching Ashiya, Japan, I decided to check every item in the engine room with my laser heat gun. I found that the PTO, which is a device located on the aft side of the transmission and used to power the hydraulics, was running about 100 degrees above normal. When we got to Ashiya, I had local mechanics pull it off and we found a shot glass full of metal ground to the consistency of coffee grounds and big chunks inside!

We sent it back to Mill Log Marine in Kent, Washington and had it rebuilt. They commented to me that it would be smart to pull the transmission also, as the core issue may be inside there. Ok, now we have a BIG job…..but they were right to suggest it as it turns out.

We gave the job to Mizuno Marine and their excellent mechanics who took great care (see pics) to make sure that there would be no damage to the inside of the boat as they pulled the 700lb transmission out through our salon! We decided that as long as the transmission was out, we may as well do a complete job and are replacing all of the bearings, clutch plates, seals and oil pump. The worst thing that could happen is to get it all back together only to have to tear it apart again at some point.

Inside they found not only worn clutch plates, but a bearing had spun in the housing. I contacted an old friend of mine at Sikorsky Aircraft who works in engineering and he suggested how we should repair it by boring the housing oversize and inserting a sleeve.

The biggest problem now is that the PTO is on a ship not due to enter Japan until the middle of March. With a little luck, we should have everything back together shortly (hopefully before we arrive!!).

Upcoming Trip

All of us are getting a bit anxious and excited about the next part of the trip to the Inland Sea, Okinawa, Taiwan and Hong Kong. The trip to Taiwan should be especially exciting as that is where the three boats were built, by Ta Shing. No Nordhavn has ever returned to the factory and my understanding is that they are very excited to see us. Jeff Merrill, who works for Nordhavn, plans on catching up with us in Japan and travelling with us to Taiwan.

So……..Here is our approximate path for the coming cruising season starting in April and ending in July. The total length is about 1600 Nautical Miles.Click on it to Enlarge>

Until next time….

Steven Argosy

MV Seabird

Comment on: Winter 2009-2010

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 04:18:12 GMT

Helo Steve, after sometimes being a bridge for the Geabox repair, I finaly visit your ship today, Well I was happy to c every things goes well despite of the injectors nozzel. Well we will do our best to make sure that the service we provide you guys will contribute to make your dreams true. Wishing you all the best Harald Edward Engineer

Comment on: Winter 2009-2010

Thu, 25 Mar 2010 17:36:31 GMT

Given your names and info by an old friend, Paul Faust, and now am anxiously awaiting your return to Japan and the ongoing journey. Paul sent it to me probably because my husband and I sailed a bit while we lived in FL and knew I'd love following your adventure. We so miss being on the water. We now live deep in the heart of TX, San Antonio. Wishing you smooth seas on your journey.

Comment on: Winter 2009-2010

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 18:29:20 GMT

Glad to hear you have been having a good time and that the reduction gear problem is solved. Have fun. Bill H.

Comment on: Winter 2009-2010

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 14:32:04 GMT

It was nice to see you two for Elinor's 90th. Keep those barnacles off the hull. love Judy

Ashiya, Japan update

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT

We are only 4 days away from Thanksgiving Day (depending on whose time zone you use) and I just realized that we have been living in one place (Ashiya, Japan) for almost three months! We have seen and learned so much here that it is difficult to put it into a blog entry short enough to hold anyone’s interest long enough to finish it.

One of my primary goals in living here was to try to learn the Japanese language, which has proved to be a daunting task. It is almost impossible to live here and function without knowing at least the basic words and phrases as most do not speak much English at all. Compounding the difficulty is the written language, which consists of three different alphabets of letters and symbols which, to the untrained eye, mean nothing. Most of the packaging in stores is written in Japanese and Carol and I have no idea what the contents could be! Sometimes we just guess and that gets very interesting at the dinner table!!

We have been making progress on the spoken language. It is different than western languages as the literal translations, because of the culture here, are VERY different. For instance, when you meet someone and they introduce themselves to you, a common response from you would be “Yoroshiku Onegai Shimas” which is a SORT of “nice to meet you”. However, if you were to look up the real meaning, what you have just said is “I beg you for your kindness”!! To simply translate the words “nice to meet you” into Japanese would get you a quizzical look and a polite smile and they would have no idea what you meant!

In October, we traveled to Beijing to meet our Visa requirements to leave Japan temporarily after 90 days. We found China interesting, visiting the various temples, shrines and of course, the Silk Market along with the Great Wall and the Forbidden City. Upon returning to Japan, we caught a train to Hiroshima to meet up with my Sister Carla, her husband Lloyd and my two nephews, Alex and Nick, who live in Hawaii. They have a band (Manoa DNA) based in Hawaii and are extremely popular here in Japan. They travel here once per month to play and I am amazed at how popular Hawaiian music and hula are here. Check them out on their website www.manoadna.com . Alex wrote an original song (Voices Sweet)about tracing their ancestry to Hiroshima and finally meeting them. The song had many in the crowd close to tears.

Hiroshima itself is a must see in Japan. You might be surprised when visiting the Peace Memorial Museum, near where the A Bomb was detonated in World War II. They are very candid with the historical facts, who was to blame and so on. The big theme there is to work to end the proliferation of the weapons. It was a moving experience to have visited there.

One of the most fun places we visited while in Hiroshima was the island of Miyajima. It is one of the many islands in Inland Sea and reminds me a lot of visiting small island towns in the US. The first thing that startled me was the population of small deer. They are not in the woods, but actually hanging around town amongst the people. In Miyajima, they are kind of like dogs. The wander about town, looking to snag something out of your pocket and do not mind being petted.

We took a tram up to the top of the mountain where these monkeys with BRIGHT RED skin are scurrying about. They are nowhere near as domesticated as deer and really hate it when you stare at them.

WHAT THE HECK IS OKONOMIYAKI??

One of the many people we met here were the owners of a small restaurant in Ashiya that serves Okonomiyaki.

Okonomiyaki is a popular griddle fried food that consists of batter, egg and cabbage. Selected toppings and ingredients are added which can vary greatly (anything from meat and seafood to wasabi and cheese). Okonomiyaki is sometimes translated into English as "As-you-like-it Pancake". However, this may be misleading. Though it does consist of batter cooked on a griddle, okonomiyaki has nothing of the sweetness of fluffiness of pancakes, not to mention that it is usually filled with octopus, shrimp, pork, yam or kimchi. At the table, there is a hot griddle in the middle where the food continues to cook and keeps it warm. You kind of just take your chop sticks and grab some for your plate. It really is a lot of fun

What also makes this restaurant fun is that aside from the food being great, the owners are so much fun. Everyone who visits us here is treated to dinner at their restaurant.

THE MAGNIFICENT SHINKANSEN

Traffic in Japan is much as you would think. It is an Island not much bigger than the state of California and has a population of 127,000,000 people. Please note also that a good chunk of the country is mountains and people do not live there, the concentrations being around the cities. Travel by car is expensive with tolls and congested. Japan has created an infrastructure of trains to ease the problem. The local trains go just about everywhere, are VERY safe and incredibly clean. It is not uncommon to see 8 yr old children riding the train by themselves or with friends.

For longer distances, people use the Shinkansen (Bullet Train).

There are hundreds of these sleek, speedy trains about Japan and are used by people traveling hundreds of miles instead of using aircraft. The inside is like a business class airline seat, whisper quiet and the train travels at nearly 200 mph! You can make reservations if you like or simply show up to buy a ticket at the train station, hop aboard and go! Even more impressive, the Shinkansen has an on-time record of being within 6 SECONDS of the scheduled arrival time in over 10,000 trips. The pricing is not cheap and in many instances is equivalent to airfare, but with none of the hassle of security lines and getting to and from the gate.

For our real local travel to stores and such, we purchased 2 bicycles. For these, Carol and I went the cheap route purchasing single speed bikes referred to here as “Mama Chaddies”. I have been afraid to ask what it means, but I suspect it is refers to the fact that mothers are commonly seen riding these around town with a couple of kids in tow and groceries hanging off the sides. I would hesitate to call these bikes macho by ANY stretch of the word, but I am only here for six months and can take the hit.

As I mentioned before, we have had a few visitors from the US. It seems like (and is) a long trip but the intrigue of Japan seems to lure people here and I don’t blame them! In October we had Carol’s brother Tom and our friend Holly come to visit. Neither had been to Japan before and we had a busy couple of weeks visiting various towns with temples, shrines and restaurants. Carol and I just love the food here. Holly was a sport and tried just about everything. Tom, I believe, may not ever acquire a taste for Japanese food and would end up very skinny if he lived here. We had lots of fun but I wished the weather had been better for the time they were here.

Just last week we had our friends from Seattle, Don and Sharry come to stay with us. They are seasoned cruisers and recently took their boat, Starr, from Seattle to Honolulu. They are planning to visit here next year and absolutely loved the country of Japan. They adapted very well to the culture and have long been Japanese food lovers. It was great to see them.

A few weeks ago we were invited to visit Nagoya by two people we met here in Ashiya who were interested in our boats and our trip. We hopped on to the Shinkansen and were greeted by our host, Nori and his father. They own two Grand Banks trawlers and had just come from Seattle where they met with Nordhavn representatives. I think some day they may buy one. In any case, they were very gracious hosts, inviting us to their home for lunch and dinner, introducing us to their families and giving us a tour of their businesses and their town. They have shown interest in cruising their boats with us in the springtime as we have nterest in visiting South Korea, where they are citizens.

Lastly, and most important, the marina staff and the boat owners here have made us feel so at home. If there is anything we need for the boats, the management is quick to act and very accommodating. We have also met quite a few of the boat owners and they have graciously invited us to barbeques and yacht club events. Much of this was at the boating seasons end so we hope to reciprocate in the springtime.

Oh, one more thing: The Japanese children are about the cutest you have ever seen. This is just one of the photos we have taken.

Happy Thanksgiving to all from Japan!!

Steven and Carol