Arrived safely back in Okinawa via Hong Kong on Thursday. We left on a late evening flight with the lights of Perth and its surrounding areas giving a brilliant display, the Swan River clearly outlined in black making its way to the Port of Fremantle. No hiccups until we landed in Okinawa when the Immigration officials picked up that we had actually stayed longer in Japan during a 12-month period than we should have! Oops... After some explanations we were kindly stamped in for another 90 days. All going well we should be well and truly out of Japan in a lot less time than that.
Tweed was still afloat and all was well on board apart from the expected leakage of gas from the refrigeration and some mould in places. Not to be unexpected considering she had been totally closed up for 3 months during the hot and steamy Japanese summer. The solar panels had done their job and the batteries were 100% charged. Work has begun on getting Tweed shipshape once more - sails and running rigging on, canvas and covers on, replacement inverter installed plus numerous other expected and unforeseen little jobs - stainless steel polishing, installing a new plug for the 12V laptop adaptor, replacing the switch on the cockpit light, re-gassing the refrigeration system... the list goes on as usual.
This year has been a very busy year for typhoons with the last one passing fairly close to the east side of Okinawa before wreaking havoc further north on mainland Japan. Now another one is developing but is predicted to cross Luzon in the Philippines before heading for somewhere on the coast of China. As well there is another system in the South China Sea which will probably go the way of Vietnam and yet another system which could develop near the Marianas, the breeding ground for most typhoons in the North Western Pacific.
The weather has been slightly cooler than when we left making life and sleeping so much more comfortable. With a weather eye out we will continue with the shipshaping until it looks like a good time to make our way to Ishigaki and depart Japan for Taiwan.
Tweed was still afloat and all was well on board apart from the expected leakage of gas from the refrigeration and some mould in places. Not to be unexpected considering she had been totally closed up for 3 months during the hot and steamy Japanese summer. The solar panels had done their job and the batteries were 100% charged. Work has begun on getting Tweed shipshape once more - sails and running rigging on, canvas and covers on, replacement inverter installed plus numerous other expected and unforeseen little jobs - stainless steel polishing, installing a new plug for the 12V laptop adaptor, replacing the switch on the cockpit light, re-gassing the refrigeration system... the list goes on as usual.
This year has been a very busy year for typhoons with the last one passing fairly close to the east side of Okinawa before wreaking havoc further north on mainland Japan. Now another one is developing but is predicted to cross Luzon in the Philippines before heading for somewhere on the coast of China. As well there is another system in the South China Sea which will probably go the way of Vietnam and yet another system which could develop near the Marianas, the breeding ground for most typhoons in the North Western Pacific.
The weather has been slightly cooler than when we left making life and sleeping so much more comfortable. With a weather eye out we will continue with the shipshaping until it looks like a good time to make our way to Ishigaki and depart Japan for Taiwan.
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