Day: 5 May 2018

It was going to be somewhat of a race to get through the Philippines, and then journey on to Japan in time make the 11th May start of the Setouchi Rally. At one point, Paul was considering cancelling our places on it and cutting our losses. I did feel for him because along with route planning, he had to take typhoons, wind direction and sea states into consideration as he mulled over the options, as well as to decide on back up plans. His illness in KK had seriously disrupted the schedule. Pushing those thoughts to one side for the time being however, we weighed anchor just after 9am on March 26th and left Ulugan Bay for El Nido, a journey which included an overnight stop at the delightfully named Jib Boom Bay on the way. We arrived there at lunchtime, having made better speed than we had anticipated and anchored in 9 metres of water. The pictures show what a peaceful spot it is.

I was so taken by its beauty in fact that later, when we took the dinghy ashore, I was too busy gazing at the beach, trying to determine whether I was looking at a house or a shed, I didn’t pay attention to watching the depth and checking for coral on the sea bed. An awful grinding noise as we drew close to the beach soon reminded me. The propeller had hit a rock causing its pin to split. I wasn’t sure how serious that was but felt terribly guilty, and relieved when Paul managed to fix it. This lovely, remote picture postcard location, we soon discovered, was home to a family who had set up home on the beach. Three people had watched us arrive and they looked with interest as we dragged the dinghy up the sand to secure it. A young couple were sitting outside a small dwelling made of bamboo. The woman was cradling a tiny baby, and an older woman, presumably a grandmother of the baby, stood just behind her – all of them smiled as we walked nearer to them. Three barking dogs, who looked a bit too keen to investigate us, backed off at a command from the man. Thinking of the many ‘No Trespassing’ signs we’d seen, Paul asked them if it was ok to walk along the beach. The man nodded and despite the language barrier, a conversation of sorts took place about where we were from and where we were going. We learned that they did indeed live on the island. The man was a fisherman and looked pleased when we indicated how beautiful their home was. He was amused when Paul told of his own efforts to catch fish. I couldn’t help wondering how they all fitted in such a tiny house which afforded little protection from the elements – or privacy for that matter. On the way back as we passed the bamboo house, I spotted a much bigger, sturdier structure set behind some trees, complete with a satellite dish! Not so primitive after all then. I didn’t take my phone with me unfortunately so the only picture I have of the beach is the one below, taken from the anchorage.

We would probably have stayed another night if we hadn’t been in such a hurry to get further north. An early start was necessary for the long leg to El Nido so at 6am on a stunningly gorgeous morning with the sun glowing behind a mountain before it revealed itself in all its glory, we motored off on a flat calm sea.

Paul was busy working below on the water maker later that morning while I kept watch in the cockpit. A fishing boat I’d been keeping an eye on suddenly drew alarmingly close and I could see the three men on board gesticulating wildly and – to my mind – angrily. Their fishing net marker buoy ahead was clearly visible but it was still some distance off. Paul came up and said they were warning us to keep our distance. Their gestures (one of which looked decidedly rude to me) seemed to be directing us where to go so we duly followed. One of them held up a fishing net and shook it in our direction in case we hadn’t got the message. I was feeling a bit indignant at their presumption that we wouldn’t have been cautious around the net without their intervention and had to resist the temptation to ‘gesticulate’ in return, especially when Paul said we were never any threat to their net anyway. The detour took about thirty minutes but they seemed satisfied once we had passed their final buoy. We parted with waves and smiles (at least I think they were waving ;)).

We arrived at Corong Corong around 5 30 and instead of being the only boat in the bay we joined several others. Paul was pleased to spot a boat he knew, belonging to Phil and Eva, a couple he had befriended in Malaysia while I was away in February. We motored around a bit before choosing a spot. Corong Corong is a noisy, busy resort with lots of activity taking place. There were scuba diving boats, fishing boats and jet skis among the yachts and catamarans at anchor as well as kayaks and snorkellers all around us. On the beach, a quiz got underway early in the evening. We joined in for a while as we could hear the questions clearly. The enthusiastic DJ and booming music that followed almost tempted us to go over and join in the dancing, too but we fell asleep instead unfortunately 😉

On the way to check out the town late the next morning, we stopped at Phil and Eva’s boat to see if they knew where we could buy fuel and to get any handy info on the place. They told us the best place to park the dinghy, the short cut from the beach to the town, and recommended places to eat. There didn’t seem to be any shortage of bars and cafes on the beach itself, and there’s no shortage of alcohol here. The heat from the sun in a cloudless sky beat down relentlessly as we made our way along the narrow lane leading upwards from the beach. It took us straight onto a noisy, dusty and chaotic town road.

There were no pavements, and the dust was increased by the amount of building taking place along the roadsides. From what I could tell, more cafes, hostels and two-storey hotels were being constructed. Without the breeze from the sea it felt hotter than ever and we had opted to go on foot to El Nido, only a 20 minute walk but felt much longer in temperatures of over 30 degrees. The traffic consisted mainly of trikes but a fair few lorries and cars contributed to the noise and the stifling atmosphere. Despite all this, the environs were a feast for the eyes. An assortment of quaint houses and shops lined the road, along with souvenir shacks, food stalls and outdoor markets. Life is lived largely outside in this climate so a gathering of children, dogs and chickens among lines of colourful clothes hanging from string attached to porches indicated living quarters.

The ‘back yards’ of both homes and businesses inclined steeply down towards the beach and had been used variously for growing crops, animal pasture and pens, storage sheds, or levelled for construction to expand existing premises. The area is popular with backpackers. We passed several westerners and noticed signs advertising burgers, pizza and beer, which can be enjoyed while watching live sporting events in some of the bars.

The first place we headed for on reaching El Nido was a beach café for a much needed drink and sit down. After that, we had a short amble around to find a bakery and an ATM before hailing a trike to take us back to the village. Interestingly, the trike drivers, when asked how much the journey will cost, always ask you how much you think you should pay. Paul made a ‘no idea’ gesture the first time this happened and the driver shrugged in return, until Paul made an offer, the driver upped it a bit and we got the hang of the system. Some pics taken at El Nido below

The next day (Thursday March 29th) was a bit of a rest day before resuming our journey to Puerto Galera which would be a two or three day passage. Paul went for a snorkel to look at the underwater life near a little beach opposite our anchorage and late in the afternoon we went out to find Corong Corong’s public market. It was a typical outdoor Asian one with buckets of dried fish, and a separate wet area for the pungent fresh fish and meat (and associated flies). The fruit and veg stalls dominated, however, and were as attractive and colourful as ever. We bought potatoes, pineapple, tomatoes, onions, cucumber, peppers and apples, all from different stalls because the sellers are great to interact with and it would be a shame to limit yourself to just one. At other stalls we bought some ‘genuine’ Rayban reading glasses and some organic insect repellent. With everything so cheap, it would have been easy to give in to a spending spree judging by all the designer bags and perfumes on display 😉 Anyway, the insect repellent would be of much more value to us if it prevented any more of the itchy bites we’d been suffering from.

We had dinner in a restaurant close to the beach. It looked as if it might be expensive because it is part of a leisure resort and appeared plush. However, there was a reggae band playing, the menu looked good (and wasn’t too pricey after all) so we had good food, drinks and entertainment all for just over a tenner.

On Good Friday morning, when everyone back home would be tucking into hot cross buns, we weighed anchor and negotiated a tricky gap between two headlands to save going around the whole island. It was bit of an anxious time in case there were shallows and coral but it turned out fine and saved us a bit of time. The Filipino navy called us on VHF just as we had got all the sails out; they just wanted to know our last and next port of call. The sails stayed up all afternoon and we hurtled along at 6-7 knots for most of the day with no engine. After a dinner of pasta and pesto in the cockpit, I took the 8 until midnight watch under the comforting glow of an almost full moon. There was a bit of a tense time when I had to keep my wits about me among a host of fishing vessels. We were surrounded by them and your sense of perspective gets distorted by staring at so many bright and luminous lights. I thought I’d tweaked the course sufficiently but grew so alarmed by the proximity of two very brightly lit squid boats that I called for Paul to come up. I was worried about nets getting caught in the propeller, not to mention incurring the wrath of the fishermen – although it would have been too late by then anyway. Paul tactfully said he wouldn’t have got quite as close as that (I think he said we could have shaken the Captain’s hand across the decks) but thankfully all was fine.

We spent the last day of March at sea. For a while I actually believed we were heading for a place called ‘Dead Man’s Bay’. It wasn’t until Paul later referred to it as ‘Decapitation Bay’ that I realised he was jesting! A new course had been set so that we could have a night at anchor and Paul told me that there had been pirate incidents in the vicinity, but they happened such a long time ago there was nothing to worry about (!). By late morning we were tacking to reach the anchorage on a sea heavy with a swell that rocked us gently from side to side. This motion is easier to move around in than bucking up and down and is less likely to cause sea-sickness (for me anyway). By now, we had advanced north of Palawan, close to the island of Mindoro in the South China Sea. At 1 30 we were in a bay looking for a spot to set the anchor but there was a lot of rock on the sea bed so our first attempt failed. We moved further along and set in 13 metres among several fishing boats. One of them came up to have a look at us and the family on board waved and smiled. Hopefully they are pleased to see yachts visiting the area after pirate activity put many off going near the Philippines.

It was nice to have a break from the watches, but the tiredness that builds up from the alternate four hours on four hours off regime soon caught up with us. Both of us crashed out on the cabin bunks and were in a deep sleep by 9 30. The Spanish-sounding name of Puerto Galera would be our next port of call as the race to get to Japan in time for the Setouchi Rally begins in earnest.

It’s been a while since my last blog, mostly because we have been racing through the islands trying to get to the start of the rally on time. Normally I don’t like rushing, and taking on bad weather because of a deadline is something you shouldnt really do on a boat. However, our 2 week rally was meant to be the exploring bit of our visit here, so I don’t mind the rush, also I’m very much testing the boat before our pacific crossing. If the mast breaks, or the rudder falls off, we have a god chance of being rescued and getting to a port safely, not so in the North pacific, where rescue options are quite limited, out of range from helicopters, you have to rely on a satellite picking up your distress call and a merchant ship in the area diverting to help you. Usually you have to scuttle your boat when your saviour arrives. So I’m happy to push the boat and ourselves on this trip. We will have a few weeks before we depart for the USA to rest and make any lasting alterations we need. So far I have managed to check quite a lot of systems out in real conditions, we have had some very rough weather over the last few weeks.

Before we left Ishigaki we had a bike ride along the coast, It’s very pretty, and also very shallow with reefs extending tens of miles offshore.

I managed to get the boat status changed with customs, from a ‘special’ ship to a ‘coastal’ ship. This means that for the duration of our stay customs don’t give a hoot what we do or where we go. They wouldn’t give me this status because as a special ship, I had to give them my plan for our route, and that included a port that we hadn’t yet received permission to visit. When I wanted to leave they wouldn’t let me because this port on our route hadn’t been cleared. It was quite farcical, as I resolved it by saying I was going to one port, approved, then leaving Japan. they kept asking me if that was true, and I kept saying yes, so they changed my status to coastal ship, I said I might change my mind now and not go to that port and might go elsewhere, they just looked at me and said, we don’t care what you do, you are a coastal ship now. Since then they have ignored me at each port, despite the marina manager or harbour master calling them. Also the coastguard don’t seem interested. It’s gone from the most bureaucratic system ever to the most lax ever!

Kathy will give details of the passages better than me, they all seem to blur into one big battle with the wind. We had some sunny days, but mostly wet and cold. What we did have was wind, and plenty of it, and with the wind we usually got big waves, up to 3 metres often. At one point it was very bad, but everything worked, and we sailed most of the time, hardly using the engine once we left port.

Our first stop after Ishigaki was Yonabaru / Naha on the island of Okinawa, we arrived into a newly built marina on the east coast, lovely people and the manager came out to greet us, for the first time in months we had running water and electricity. Although we hardly need it these days with the solar panels and the watermaker, it was good to go crazy with the shower and leave it running hot water for minutes on end!

Japan has a lot of these guys protecting everything, I think they are called Shiso.

Yonabaru doesnt have a lot to offer, but a few miles over on the west of the island is the big city of Naha, we went looking for a bus to visit and see the castle and markets, I asked a man walking down the main street if he new where the bus stop was, and he insisted that he give us a lift in his car, he took us right to the castle which was really kind of him.

The castle is well old, 15th C I think,

This is a mockup of the layout.

Some nice architecture, disguising the fact that most buildings here on the islands are made of chunky concrete, and tend to be very boxy, designed for earthquakes and tsunamis

The market (above) was great, but everything in Japan is quite pricey, at least compared to what we have been used to, in actual fact it’s not that different to the UK.  Below you can see they have some unusual offerings.

Crime is very low here, people rarely lock up there bicycles, and like below, these cylinders were left on the dock where anyone could nick them, they were there for all our time in town.

From Okinawa we headed up to Miyanoura, a nice port on the island of Yaku-shima, This is a gorgeous island full of wonderful mountains, forests, hot springs, wildlife etc etc. We were running a day late because the previous marina here couldn’t accept us when we planned, due to being closed on Tuesdays! When we arrived we tied up to the only wall we could find, but it was very rough and high, and had a lip that the boat would slip under at low water, so I tied up, took another hit on the cap rail, fortunately on the section I need to replace, but I also lost the bow light (port) when a wave threw us onto the wall. I headed off to explore the port for a better berth and was directed to an inner harbour I hadn’t even seen when we entered by a local fisherman. You can see us on the wall below. We need 6 feet of water to stay afloat, the local fisherman looked worried when I said 2 m water, he shrugged and indicated ‘maybe’. The tide was going to drop by another metre so I took out the lead-line and measured around the boat, on the quay side we had 1.5 metres, on the offshore side we had 3.5 metres, so I figured we might just make it. In the end we didnt touch bottom, but must have been close.

The wall we were now on was much kinder, and you can see below how we rig up the fender boards to protect the boat and fenders

Later on we had a walk around the island, I had planned to hire a car for the day, but we had to leave the next day for Fukuoka, so we didn’t get to see the 3000 year old cedar trees. However we did get to feel the very peaceful mood of the island. Later we found a small funky bar/cafe that did nice food.
One thing I have loved about Japan is the food, standards are very high here, everything tastes amazing, the fruit and veg is the tastiest I have ever had. The fish is so fresh and also very good value, I bought a loin of tuna the size of a small loaf, for about £6.

The trip from Miyanoura to Fukuoka  took three days and nights and was quite rough, the wind was in the high 20 knots, Near gale force and the waves grew to be quite seriously threatening at times.  by now I had the boat prepared, I have been tuning the reefing systems, gybe preventers, jackstays etc, so sudden increases in wind don’t catch me out. 

You can see above at times we recorded 14.1 knots on the GPS, this must be when we got thrown off waves. We had the wind behind us most of the time, this has the effect of making things seem a lot calmer than they are. At one point as I was heading up the companionway to the cockpit when a big wave hit us hard and swung the boat around by about 45 degrees, this caused a crash gybe, this is where the boom flies across the boat from one side to another. This is really dangerous and has been the cause of many casualties on yachts, fortunately my preventers (ropes tied to the boom)  took the sting out of the gybe, but not as well as I had hoped, so there’s work to do there.

On this last leg we saw several shark like fins in the water, and finally for the first time in Aisa, we were joined by some dolphins.

I had put a waypoint in to miss some rocks on the chart, the height of rocks isnt normally shown, so it’s always a surprise to see them towering out of the sea.

Sometimes a fishing buoy will appear out of nowhere, at one point I was pondering how deserted most of the sea was, and keeping a constant watch wasn’t really needed so far offshore when a bloody submarine surfaced about 0.5nm from me. quite a sight.

We passed many islands, often uninhabited, but this one stank of sulphur, so I presume it’s still an active volcano.

The sea was very rough and the wind growing to 30 knots when we arrived at Fukuoka in the middle of the night 2AM, I had hoped to find my way into the marina with the help of the full moon, however the cloud cover took most of that advantage out. We were being tossed around the bay trying to identify the entrance to the marina, you basically have to come off a rough sea and into the marina, I was worried if the wind was as bad in the marina as outside I wouldnt be able to control the boat, never mind finding somewhere to tie up. I had a rough plan of the marina, but it wasnt matching up with what I could see. In the end we nudged the boat in and found it to be quite calm in there, I found an empty pontoon, and at 3AM we tied up and crashed out. I expected to be woken about 8am and told to move, but no, they left us alone, when we woke up around 9:30, I went to the office, they assigned me a new berth, and told me they didn’t need any ships papers, and as the authorities were on holiday due to ‘Golden Week’ we wouldn’t be bothered. Bliss.

The marina above is next to a big wheel, which is part of a huge outlet mall.

Later we went for a walk and found the locals all down on the river at low tide, cockling I think.

Below is the view from our berth, this morning a gang (not sure of the correct collective noun)  of jet skiers appeared Kathy ponders the instructions for the fender covers we make from a kit of tubing and cable ties.

I managed to fix most of the problems we had earlier, the LEDs were rebuilt for the compass, I have bought a new starter battery, and the boom cover has been restitched.
I have the AIS over wifi working reliably now, part of this meant trashing the wifi routers, and I couldn’t get wifi to the outside world working, but now it is, we have good wifi on the boat via the marina.  Moving the aerial on the wind sensor module seems to have solved that problem.

Yet new things break at a pace, the sump pump switch for the shower has failed, both of our toothbrush charges packed in, why?

I tried to get the blog to update with emails from the sat phone, but so far it only publishes the title, not the body of the email, so I will have to post empty blogs with very long interesting titles if I want to update from offshore.

Tomorrow morning (Sunday) at 7AM we leave to head for the inland sea, its about 200nm to the start point of the rally, and we have 5 days to get there, so it should be a breeze. We will be passing through the Kanmon strait, a very busy shipping route, but also one with very fast currents, On Monday when we enter the currents will reach up to 7knots, they also have the effect of pushing you into the path of oncoming ships at one narrow place.  I’m not too worried, I think I have the timing such that the tide will push us through very quickly and the whole passage through the strait will be less than 2 hours, also having sailed up and down the Mersey, I have some good experience with strong tides.

Plans are evolving as we progress, currently I think we will leave the boat in Seattle for several months and return to the UK earlier, I have lots of things I want to do with the boat once we get to the USA, including bringing the mast down for a service. we may return in the new year, do some work, then head up to Alaska or Vancouver for the spring/summer, leaving Mexico till the following year. If we do this, then we have more time for the pacific crossing, and may be able to break up the trip with a stop at the Aleutian Islands, somewhere I have been curious about since I first saw them on a map.

Once again, we won’t have much in the way of Internet access now, Kathy has a SIM with 500mb left, so we need to wait until we find public wifi again. At least now I have the Airmax working well again, I might be able to get connections from the boat.

Paul Collister