Arrived (with a Bang!)
After 11 days at sea, we finally arrived in Okinawa on Friday morning! Unfortunately, our arrival was not without incident (more on that in a minute).
Since our last blog, we experienced some nice sailing. Winds were good, the seas were calmer, and Jen was mostly back to normal. The last couple days we enjoyed standing watch together, enjoying some sunsets and night skies.
We arrived in the area the afternoon before our scheduled arrival. Unfortunately, Japan is very strict about setting exact appointment times for arriving, and so we were prepared to sail aimlessly the night before until we could pull in at our appointed time. Fortunately, authorities gave us permission to anchor in the harbor area which was a very good thing! It allowed us to get out of heavier seas and all get a full night's rest without standing watch! Neal brought his guitar and played some music while we enjoyed the Okinawa night skyline.
The next morning it was time to pull anchor and transit a half mile into the marina. We raised the anchor and got into the marina area as planned. But then disaster struck!
Marinas are normally tight maneuvering areas with many boats at piers. It's considered a "higher risk" operation and the boat captain needs skill to maneuver his/her boat into the designated mooring location. Kind of like maneuvering in a tight and crowded parking lot, but a lot more complicated. In our case, the maneuver wasn't overly difficult and we had sufficient space to do it, but just as were spinning the boat in place, one of the engines did not perform as expected. We tried to "hit the brakes" by putting both engines in reverse, and one of the engines did not respond. It caused us to drift into and collide with another boat along the pier. Although our boat only took minor cosmetic damage in the front, the boat we hit took significant damage and will most likely be a several thousand dollar repair. It was not the joyous arrival we all had hoped.
Our boat captain had problems with this engine (an electric drive motor) soon after we left Vietnam, and made some repairs while we were underway, including some work on the controllers. This is what contributed to our arrival problem. We feel bad for Joe, but he took it in stride. It was a good lesson learned.
Upon arrival we had no fewer than four different government agencies come onboard to clear us before we could leave the ship. Medical (they took our temperatures to make sure we weren't coming into the country sick), Customs, Japan Coast Guard, and one other I'm not sure of. They looked at paperwork and inspected the boat for contraband. After the all clear, we were granted our tourist visas and could leave the ship!
Jen and I are now off the ship. We booked an AirBnB near the marina for two nights so we could support the crew while doing repairs and re-provisioning. After our arrival yesterday, Jen and I went to a Costco and did most of the shopping for the crew's cross-Pacific voyage so they could work on boat repairs. It was a significant shopping trip! Afterwards we went out to dinner, had a couple beers and some good sushi!
We will be helping the crew one more day, then heading to a hotel in the city of Naha on the southwest side of the island. We will be spending 5 nights there and exploring the island before we fly home.
We learned quite a bit about ourselves on this trip. The biggest realization was that we may not be cutout to be as adventurous in our travels as we had hoped. We love to travel and plan to do much more in the years ahead, but some of the more adventurous activities may need to be toned down a bit. This 11 day cruise beat us up! Besides Jen's seasickness, both of us had some stumbles (Jen took a strong hit to a shin, and I have three black and blue stubbed toes.) We still want to do some adventurous travel in the future, but probably in smaller doses!
Peace and Love.
