Tweed Underway

Aha!  At last some news of Tweed on the move.  After more than a week of planning our ports of call through the Inland Sea, we submitted a cruising plan with the Department of Transport.  This was done with the much-appreciated help of our Japanese friend, Sakae Kiyotoshi who went out of his way to advise us of places we could call at along the way to Osaka.  Approval came through and we were free to go. 

 Shabu shabu lunch with Sakae

We left Odo Marina in Fukuoka at 7:30 this morning, waved off by our friend Mitani, and arrived at Oshima Island, 21NM to the northeast at 11:50, position 33 deg 53.804N, 130 deg 26.145E   It was a very cold morning with ice on the dock so care was taken when casting off the mooring lines which had held Tweed there since mid-August, 2010.

 Mitani waves us off from Odo Marina

There was a very light breeze from the east-southeast which helped us a little along the way otherwise we basically motored the whole way under sunny skies.  With stories of previous cruisers finding it difficult to get a mooring in the harbour we were lucky enough to have a local yachtsman out from the mainland enter the harbour before us.





We first tried the fishing harbour with no luck and then noticed him waving us around to the ferry boat harbour.

There was a long wharf in there with nice rubber fenders and we were soon safely tied up.

Since then two more yachts have arrived, both Japanese, one about 30-feet and the other 45-feet long.  So now there are four of us here with only two of us staying overnight.  We will depart early tomorrow morning for Tobata in Kita Kyushu port.

Traditional pottery octopus traps no longer in use as they have been replaced by modern plastic ones.