Welcome to sailing yacht Alishan

Greetings to All of You ,

 

Here we are with another update. As usual writing  this story has taken more time than anticipated, but hey…..Alishan is out there Cruising!

That PETD (see Q2) was made into an ETD, July 17^th, but can you believe it, just that day Fukuoka got directly hit by typhoon #13 (of all numbers) also known as Shanshan (as in Alishan). So we had to stay put for a few more days. But then we did it.

We dropped the bow and stern lines and sailed away.

 

See here a small selection of our last months in Fukuoka and our bye-bye parties….eh bye-bye pictures …eh bye-bye party-pictures.

Wow! Were those last few weeks tough, but we enjoyed every minute.

 

It all started in early July with the Hakata Yamakasa, Fukuoka’s biggest and most exciting festival, where teams run around the streets half naked, carrying huge floats depicting all sorts of caricatures from Japan’s recent and not so recent history at 5:00 in the morning. (See Q3 2005) Like last year Jaap took part again, knowing it might be for the last time….

 

    

 

This was water team number 1. Marijke, Noriko (the cats’ vet) and her hospital’s nurses kept themselves busy cooling down all those runners and carriers with buckets full of ice cold water. What a happy faces!

 

          In the mean time, Jaap was cruising the streets of Fukuoka the proper way.

 

               

 

 It was a big honor to be chosen to sit on top of that Yama!

Okay, okay, it was only a short stretch and on just an ordinary practice day, but still…  Not everybody ever gets a change to make it to the “top”, let alone a foreigner…

So special thanks to the guys of Doi Nagare.

 

July was our last month in the J.O.B. force after 11 years of workworkwork. However, we loved our jobs for 99%. Looking back, we missed only a very few days. Something we can’t say about our work history in Holland or NZ .  

 

Here we go with some shots from our work related friends at the endless sayonara parties:

 

 

  

 

      At the daycare.    Ojichan & Obachan…..and staff. Thanks for the good times.

  

 

         

   

Our sweetest kids. Aren’t they cute!!

 

 

 Marijke and some of her rabbits.

 

 

Hmm, they grow up and become like our own ;-))

 

 

 

A day in the park at the beach, time to relax and have fun.

 Some of them we’ve known for nearly 10 years. It was fun to see them growing up. Saying farewell was hard.

 

Okay, okay so far not much cruising related topics, but we made so many, many friends in Fukuoka. After all we were there for over 11 years. It’s our “furusato”.

 

 

                    

Here Papa and Mama-rin, first time we met was 17 years ago. Thanks for everything.

 

  

 

 

                      

                 The Party…eh Wadaiko (Japanese drum) members. They can stir up a drum!

 

 

 

The girls of the gym. Will we stay in shape without you?

 

 

                      

The Food Specialists…eh Marathon team.

 From now on we will have to make those road miles without you; that’s gonna be tough. (topic food is no problem ;-))

 

 

 

 Noko Island (English) Tea Time ladies 

 

And our Meinohama Gyogyo Kumia  family bye-bye party:

 

  

  

 There were many happy faces and plenty of food.

 

 

 

Thanks Party support team. We had a super time, and we’ll miss you all.

 

 

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89 year old great-grandpa Nishijima, mastering the trics of a computer game.

Never too old to learn!

 

 

 

And who is this lady? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Remember last time we made that hiking mistake…and climbed the wrong mountain? Well, we took revenge.

 

 

 

Early morning on the way to the top of Mt. Kuju.

 

 

And there we are. No cheating.

 

 

  

Not a bad view…We were lucky that day with 360 clear skies, very uncommon in Japan’s summer.

Hey, I can see your house, but where is the sea?

 

 

 

 

  

   

                           

 

 

 

2 Days later we tackled Mt. Kurodake, in the same central Kyushu area. Pfff, that was hard going! Lots of big rocks and no clear trail. And to make matters worse, it started to rain and thunder towards the end. Over 10 hours up and down. We just made it back to camp before dark.

Later people told us: That mountain is good for once and never again. We fully agree!

 

Anyway what did we do afterwards?

 

 

  

 

 Of course.

 

 

We also made a pit-stop in Hita.

 

Right between climbing Mt. Kuju and Mt. Kurodake Nobuko Kakoh came over with daughter Shiho, son Keisuke and friend Kenji Murao. We stayed in a place along the river in Hita, a small hotspring town in Oita prefecture. The hotel let us use their summer kimono selection and the girls had a real dress-up party that took hours, because choosing the right one cannot possibly be done in one minute.

 

 

 

 

 

     

 

The evening meal was served on a river boat. Part of the attraction was a show of cormorant fishing. A few boats came by with the birds swimming alongside or sitting on the bow, all neatly leished up. A basket in the boat with some small fish showed what should have been their catch, but this time it was just for show. Some cruelty against animals law has made a stop to this kind of fishing and the birds are now just kept as pets.

 

 

 

The next day we drove around in this beautiful mountainous area, found lots of good spots, and good food and just enjoyed each other’s company.

Thank you for such a wonderful memory of Kyushu! And the Kakohs.

Getting Alishan ready

 

It was not only play and party.

Prep-work had to be done before D-day…. 

 

 

                   Marijke found another 100 kg of goodies to be sent to the islands.

 

 

 

 Oops, some, no, most of this had to go on board.

I don’t know how, but somehow we did empty that storage place. The garbage collectors got a good share though.

 

 

  

And then it was time for the ever returning stress of hauling out. We decided to do it again at Marinoa, just across the river. Under the watchful eye of the world’s number 2 Ferris wheel we cleaned, waxed and painted the hull. This time we had decided to do most of the work ourselves, despite the heat, still somehow thinking in Jan Haring terms and measurements. Well, we found out that 43 feet is a lot of boat!

 

 

 

3 days later we could see the shining result of our hard work

Alishan was ready to start making the miles.

 

 

 

Then followed the radar installation project…it’s always handy, while out at sea to have an extra watchman up the in the mast ;-)). We scored the radar via Westmarine. They had a 12 hour online discount run…just by chance happened to notice it.  Including the shipping, we saved ourselves heaps. (Furuno, “made” in Japan, shipped to USA, sold to us online, back to Japan in the same box and still $500 cheaper than bought locally)

 

 

 

Marijke found some zebra camouflage stuff for the dinghy cover…now we only have to look out for those penguins…are they still in Madagascar?

 

 

 

Some food prep. At this moment of writing we haven’t had the opportunity yet to open and try one as we are given fresh fish left and right by the Japanese fishermen.

Now that’s okay with us, after all we Love Sashimi.

 

Another prep item was the medical care for Wakame and Nori.

And did we get the change to learn and practice. Nori was so silly to get into a serious cat-fight and ended up in the pet hospital for 3 weeks. The bill made us almost broke. 

Hmmm, and doctor Noriko went to Bali for a well earned surf-holiday afterwards…

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 Here is Marijke visiting Nori in his capsul-hospital bed.

 

 

  

Hands-on training in giving Nori his injections, under the watchful eyes of doctor Noriko.

What a team work.

 

 

 

Bye-bye Meinohama

 

 

  

A few nights before our departure there was a superb fireworks show and this was the final bang!  We enjoyed our stay in Fukuoka till the last moment.

 

 

  

Picture taken from the big Ferris Wheel when our cabin was right at the top…Not Marijke’s favorite location. We were lucky with this great bird eye view of Fukuoka.

Down there is the harbor where we lived for 11 years.  One day we will be back but now the islands and oceans are calling us.

 

 

 

 This beautifull flag was given to us by Miyoko and Kunitoshi. Alishan will show the colors!

Here Miyoko, Fukuyo and Hitomi & Marijke.

 

 

 

 Due to a 3 day delay in our PETD because of that typhoon Shanshan, there was a small but fine Byebye team. Thanks Nobuko, Miyoko, Chigeko, Yoshino and Tomoyo. (the men where out fishing).

 

 

 

 (Oops, that’s a Half Marathon worth of calories)

 

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