After almost three months in Australia we returned to Tweed in Odo Marina, Fukuoka, last Wednesday. Yes, more than a week ago so how come no blog? Life is so busy when you are a cruising yachtie, that's why!
Japan welcomed us back with warm toilet seats at the airport plus lots of Christmas decorations. It was a long stint with flights to Cairns then Tokyo Narita, overnight in a nearby hotel, a 2-hour 'limousine' bus ride to Tokyo Haneda to wait for our 2-hour flight back to Fukuoka. Collecting our baggage we were greeted at the door by Yaap from Alishan who dropped by to ride the train with us back to the marina. What a nice surprise.Christmas display at Haneda Airport
Tweed was still floating happily in her berth with no apparent ill effects from some of the winds that had passed by during our absence. It is now late autumn and most of the deciduous trees have dropped their leaves, the temperature has not been above about 19 degrees and has been down to about 10 in the mornings. Not too bad when you are prepared with nice warm clothes.
We settled back into life aboard quite easily getting things shipshape, doing some shopping, getting the laundry done, etc. We finally tracked down a pre-paid modem sim card on Saturday and what's more it worked in our Sierra Air Card modem which we bought in Malaysia - a saving of about A$250 by not having to buy the Japanese one.
Sunday saw us up before dawn at 5.00 to go across to the fishing harbour for the Sunday fish markets. Apparently it is a lot bigger and busier during the warmer months but is now a lot smaller. Many different fish and lots of crabs (small), octopus and shellfish on sale. As the market nears the end prices drop as people come in for the special prices. There were also some fruit and veg on sale which made a nice change from the supermarket.
Crabs, right, are a lot smaller than we would see in Australia
A trip to the shopping precinct of Tenjin by Pam with Marijke from Alishan proved fruitful in buying a pre-paid mobile phone at last. It seems pre-paid is not a big thing in Japan and we had not seen them anywhere during our passage up through the islands south of Japan, including Okinawa. We then visited a cat exhibition which featured a photographic display of cats in many situations and for a cat-lover it was quite interesting. There was also the obligatory gift shop selling almost anything and everything to do with cats. Then downstairs to a large food hall/supermarket to find something to eat and to just browse all the amazing things you can buy to eat in Japan.
Tuesday Pam met Marijke once again and this time it was off to a dam in the hills to do a spot of bird watching with the local group. The dam has some Mandarin ducks on it and we saw about 120 of them but all too far away to get any pictures. We did see some other birds as well including a diving bird and some pied wagtails. It was a nice day out in the hills and although no bird pics to show there were some nice autumn leaves to photograph.Autumn colours in the hills around the dam
Leaves from an almost-bare Gingko tree blanket the surrounding area
Tuesday night, Anton from Sea Rover, hosted a barbecue aboard his 19m Warram catamaran. He has just returned home from hospital where he had surgery for bowel cancer. He was very lucky to have found it when he did and will soon be leaving Sea Rover for a few months while he returns to South Africa until he is back to full health.
Jon has been busy doing some 'boy' stuff. Sorting out a problem with the generator - the starter motor armature needs rewinding; putting the mainsail back up where it belongs; re-installing the autopilot after its trip to Australia for repairs; re-installing the forward-looking sounder; replacing light bulbs in various places, etc. and generally getting things back together again. Needless to say, he still has not looked at the diesel heater which is not working and needs to be fixed before the weather gets too much colder.
And the reason for our visit to Australia? Here he is, the cute little Alfred James at 10 weeks old.
