Underway!

After a lot of planning, preparation and waiting, our journey has finally begun! We departed via the mouth of the Saigon river at daybreak on Monday, July 7th. To say we were all excited to finally be leaving would be a huge understatement. Jen and I loved Saigon, but we were VERY ready to go!

I took us about 5 hours to exit the river channel and enter open ocean. However, there was a lot of local fisherman boats for the remainder of the day that we had to keep an eye on, especially trawlers pulling nets behind them. We had to dodge several net buoys/markers. We are now in the South China Sea.

Since then we've had mostly sunny weather (with the occasional rain shower) and gradually heavier winds and seas. During my Navy days, when wishing someone well who was departing, we would say "Fair winds and Following Seas". Fortunately, that is exactly what we've had so far and what we are expecting for most of the trip to Okinawa. And it's a good thing the seas are following us because they are gradually getting bigger, and the winds have been 20-25+ knots (about 23-30 mph for you landlubbers). As I type this update, I'm looking at swells of 6-8 feet, and some larger.

We haven't seen any marine life yet, but we did see a couple interesting things. As we exited Saigon, there was a large, offshore Wind farm off the coast. We also saw several offshore platforms for oil or natural gas, each one had a huge flame coming from a stack high above. Last night we could see the flame from 20 miles away.

So far, Jen and I have spent the majority of our time "standing watch", resting, or cooking. We've accepted the job of cooking most dinners since it's something we can do to help. Some of the other "chores" we are less capable of (such as fixing our marine toilet...it's not like the ones you use at home!)

We are predicting the trip to Okinawa will take 7-8 days, but it's heavily dependent on the weather. So far so good. And it looks like our internet is working well. I've already done one WhatsApp video call from out here...crazy!

As this is the first time we've done a blog like this, we are not certain what you want to know about. Please send us comments and if there is anything you want to know or want us to write about, let us know. There are no dumb questions (trust me...Jen and I have already asked enough dumb questions for all of us.). And to see where we are in real time, use the links in the previous post.

Thank again for following us. Peace and love.