Trip to Tsushima 2004

Our first cruise with Alishan...

That is of course after the the trip Tokyo - Fukuoka the previous year ;-)

 

End of April. It's Golden Week...and still cold out there.

Wind and sea forecast looked super, so, off we were for the 65 miles to Tsushima, an island half way between Fukuoka and Korea.

And indeed it was nice sailing, just 1 tack with at the end 20 knots of wind speed over deck. All was well o/b Alishan and only Wakame (our youngest cat) suffered some seasickness…poor chibi. But for the rest of the holiday she was okay, and enjoyed her “sea life”

See here our landfall Izuhara port. The main port for the island with ferry connections to mainland Kyushu. Finding the harbor entrance was easy…just follow the ferries…

In Izuhara port there are enough corners to park your boat: mind you, it could be a bit bumpy by times when the numerous Ika (squid) boats are moving in and out…

So don’t forget to bring those BIG orange fenders Yap!!

Tsushima has been made into 2 islands a couple of hundred years ago; they made a pass mid-through the island from E/W….as part of maritime war games. And indeed the pass is wide

(And the bridge high --) enough for Alishan... Mind you on our way back we did run into a 5 knot current…good old Yanmar had no problems, but we were happy we didn’t meet any traffic from the other direction as there wouldn’t be much water left for 2 vessels at the same time…

Of course this is an exemption on how and where to park your boat for the night…Private jetty.

It is part of a new development with…a hot spring around the corner!

There are numerous little coves and harbors to park for the night…but be aware of the oyster/pearl farms.

Anchoring is a bit the pits as most places have rocky bottoms.

See here a shot at Aso Wan. It is wide open to the West, and inside it’s nice cruising. Not  the best for sailing as due to the hills the wind goes around the clock and there are numerous pearl farms…

We didn’t see any other sailboats.

The fishermen face a problem here. Even for Japan, there is still “too” much fish, but transport to the “mainland” is expensive, so the fish is kept in net tanks until the truck/ferry can be paid.

Of course we had to make a stop at Watazumi Temple.

Special dedicated to the Sea and all and everything that “plays” with it…so we did our little prayer for Alishan.

The gates are getting wet feet at high tide only.

   

 Traveling Tsushima North South by car takes over 4 hours (we did half of it with friends). The whole island is rough with decent hills and dense forest. Too bad we didn’t get to see any Tsushima Mountain Cats, native for this island. There are numerous hiking tracks and we love to go back and spend at least a month exploring this island with it’s friendly people, cute little harbors and nice scenery.

 

After a pleasant week at Tsushima, it was time to head back to Fukuoka…under perfect condition for our first try with that biggggg sail.

And with the new “bow sprit” it was a whisk to control the bugger.

We hope to be out there again soon ;-))

 

Boat projects:

Boat projects July 2004

Alishan’s Boat Projects                     as off July 2004

 

A very nosy project was the design, the order to have it made and the installation of an

All Stainless Steel Bowsprit.  

 Easy said but indeed it took a few weeksss…But the result is super!

 

 

The main reason to have a bowsprit is  because it works as a landing platform for ???? Right, getting on and off the boat. We have 2 stern anchors out and are with the bow to the seawall…and now with a boarding board…. It’s so easy to get on & off.

  (Too bad, also for strangers, so for the first time in 10 years here in Japan, we do have to lock up our property).

It also works great when using the Spi (no more pole handling), when we jiggle the anchor up or down, and when we need an extra bollard (oh boy, an other taiphoon is in the air…where are the linessss??)

 

Next project was….To deal with that Rusty Steel under the Onan.

Well, that was “good fun”. For more than a week, every day a few hours lying on the floor in and around the engine room, crawled up as only cats can do ( where were they?) to attack that messy rusty construction. Luckily my arms were just long enough and not having too much body fat around me made things a bit easy.

But the result is there and let’s hope that for a long time I don’t have to handle that rust brush any more.

 

 

Volt Talk

After installing new “house” batteries, 4 times the size we had on board of Jan Haring, we still needed regular charging. Why?? Boy do we use so many more amps on Alishan     (Toilet, shower, lights every where, even the switch panel by it selves….)

So, after a longgggg search on the internet, (not easy if things are in Japanese only) we found a panel we liked. ($$s and output) It’s a Sharp Solar: 70Watt. Made and sold here in Japan (the same panel is in the USA 30 % cheaper, but the shipping cost is a killer).

We know that a 70 watt panel is not enough once we are cruising out there, but we also have that 8 KW Onan sitting on its freshly painted roots…

 

 

 

 

It’s all hooked up now via the Prostar 15 Charge Controller, together they keep the batteries bubbly and happy.  

 

 

Ha, and then we decided to make an effort to sell that Beauty of a Dinghy that came with the purchase of Alishan.  It went over the side, the mast was stepped, the center board went in, the rudder hooked on and the sail was hoisted …..

 

What a sweetheart.  It sails so nice, it’s very stable and looks soo cool!!

And that’s what our neighbor thought as well and he right away made an offer and the deal was closed…Never was it so easy to sell something…. To tell the truth: we wanted to keep it for our selves, probably that’s why. But once cruising, Alishan can take only 1 dinghy: the hard bottom Najad we bought in NZ.

Bye-bye Jr!

 

Then what else was done over the last 3 months?

**Oh yes a major plumbing job on the toilet (an easy to reach valve in the outlet line to stop the reflow (it looks like the anti siphon valve doesn’t work anymore) and to stop completely that toiletty smell…

 Finding that valve: 4 weeks.

 Installing: 30 minutes!!

 Result : endless.

**A new engine room blower went in… (We bought it via West Marine)

**The teak decks got a “teak oil” treatment… so expensive that stuff, (1 liter $75, x 3).

  But, if Alishan had such clean decks when we bought her…We would happily have paid $10,000 more….

**The toe rail got an all new layer of “varnish”. I can’t read the text on the paint tin, but the result looks good. The future will tell us if it’s the right stuff. At least, it’s easy to apply!

(Can’t be said about removing the old coat, but using a heat gun worked best)

** The cockpit table also got a new coat of that stuff…

 

So all in all, we haven’t been sitting around…too bad that we weren’t able to go sailing as much as we liked… but time will come.

 

 

Now we are on the eve of the HARDTOP DODGER project…

Report will come soon….