Sailing Ishigaki to Okinawa.

Nobody we know have been to or even heard about Ishigaki. Its one of those out of the way places that nobody really talk about… unless its in your backyard I suppose… but its not in ours.. We are there because we found it was the nearest port for checking into Japan from Taiwan.

Superstar Aquarius and us at Ishigaki. That may be the better way to travel….

…..So we made it here and what do we have …. A Star Cruises Ship! Superstar Aquarius, in port at the same time as we are.. and I wanted for a long time to cruise this trip too… but it was too expensive for me. Nothing makes sense ok, it was really more expensive to sail our little yacht than the cruise ticket, but we didnt have to share the amenities with fake smiling crew and loud tourists. See small little Calliste in the picture? Out at sea, we are our own government.

We stayed 3 nights tied alongside a black steel hull sailing boat that was rotting away. A friendly sailor near us called the owner to ask if we could tie up, so we had permission to do so. Its not nice if we just tie up ok. As yachties we do not like to side tie to another boat without asking, altho rafting up without permission is very common around Taiwan and Japan.

Did we like Ishigaki? Well… really… no… but it was convenient for us to check in there and the officials were very helpful. I guess the biggest put off was language. We had a lot of difficulty communicating our need to get personal mobile internet, or internet cafe, or free wifi. It didnt make sense that such a advance country like Japan, does not have prepaid internet for tourist who needs internet. We just couldnt believe what we were hearing … and so we thought they were not friendly to us tourist. Well, the best thing that happened to us was meeting Mark and Brandy on SV Restless.

Inside the foreboding pass.

There is a well stocked supermarket about 15 mins walk, restaurants in about 10 mins walk, unsecured wifi in 10 mins walk, coin laundry in 5 mins walk, city in 20 mins walk, free water from faucet at the park. .. All these walking in different directions, asking questions and not getting good answers wore me down to a point that I felt it was difficult to do anything here. It was frustrating… and Doug was going into a funk… so we left as soon as we reloaded our water and reprovisioned with fresh foods.

Its about 250nm to Okinawa… and I thought we make it in 3 days for sure… but wrong! We had a unexpected bad weather on the 2nd day out… and dah decided to heave to, altho we were making 6 knots. It was uncomfortable either way, but we lose ground heaving to and that hurts. We continue to have heavy weather on the 3rd day, but I decided to plow ahead. It took us 3 hours to regain the 6nm that we lost heaving to.

As we approach the island group that is 40nm West of Okinawa, we find that we could not maintain the heading that we wanted to. A strong current and headon winds were pushing us 45deg to starboard. Ok, so it seems that we can try the passage thru the group instead of going north of it… Navionics on my iPad seems to think that we can, so did the non-detailed CMap charts on our Standard Horizon chartplotter… but opps… right at the pass, we saw the depth sounder saying crazy numbers. 1 minute we were in 60m, and the next we only had 4.5m ! It was choppy, we could not see thru the water and there was nothing that suggest it was shallow where we were… we panicked… of course.. slow down.. and then we were back in 50m again. Just like that. And this happen for a few more times, then we figure out that we were going over som serious underwater peaks! OMG! Fingers crossed!

We decided to name this the foreboding pass. It look so unwelcoming as we approached it, and then it gave us the scare of this whole trip! Fortunately, after passing between the 2 larger mountains, we got back into consistently deeper waters. Phew! Altho the going was still tough, we did manage to get 3 kns. We observed a blue hulled sailboat ahead of us… it seemed like heading the same way as us, but then it turned back, and then turned up again… why? strange… maybe those on board are looking for somewhere to anchor and wait out the headon N wind, but I think they didnt manage to find a good spot for this, so they move northwards again. Later on, as we were exiting the north passage, I saw the blue hull boat anchored at the village on the north island of this group.. oh okie.. so we dont have company going to Ginowan. Alrighty, we are on our own. There a chance we might make it just before midnight…

10 miles out from Okinawa, we are finally getting better weather conditions now. And what a view! Lights everywhere and constant stream of planes flying into and out of Naha. Certainly was a interesting last 10 miles… and even a fancy wheels light show.. No mistaking, we are headed to a big city.

Calliste at Ginowan Marina.

It was midnight and we are again approaching a island at dark. We navigated with Navionics on iPad, followed the lights and made it in, found a open end dock and just tied up. There is no working staff that would welcome us and assign our berths anyway.

We turned on the VHF, thinking that we might call the coastguard or something… then we heard Restless calling for us! Wow, they were checking if we made it yet.. they overtook us on our 1st day out and also got that same bad weather as we did, but they do better with the bigger boat and arrived 1 day before us. ..

After 35 days of travelling, limping along with the motor knocking problem, we decided that we will stay at Ginowan for a month at least. We feel pretty secure in here and this seems to be a great place to be staying while exploring Okinawa. We love walkon berths with water and electric! Yeehaa!

 

Sailing Luzon – Taiwan – Ishigaki.

We are NOT going to Subic Bay. That for sure! After all the horrible reports by other cruisers on how corrupted most officials are, we just don’t have to go there to get a bad experience. So we are just sailing by, if weather is bad we may stop at San Fernando or anchor off some villages.

On our 3rd day out from El Nido, we had some rolly seas. Not quite made it to Luzon yet, so hove to for 6hrs or so. After that, we had better weather near the West coast of Luzon, maybe even the current was with us. We were motoring slowly at 1500rpm as the motor develop a knocking sound which Doug suspect is caused by the cutlass bearing damage. Still we are making 4kns or so. We are definitely very thankful that we had great weather most of the time and the rolly conditions didn’t last very long and wasn’t horribly bad… it could be worse..

Early morning activity at Pinget Island.

We decided that we would like to anchor and rest for a night before crossing the Luzon straight to Taiwan. We anchored just inside at the North cove of Pinget Island, where it seem to be protected from the East and South… but we rolled some with the waves coming from West… it comes and goes, and although irritating, we just needed to rest… its better than being on watch… and I got Internet! Yippee… weather checked, email checked, FB checked…

It was dark by the time we were anchored, so we could barely make out the village…. we were much surprised the next morning… the village was buzzling with activity. Squid fishing boats fish at night and were coming back. Sure, they all did a detour to check us out… one of them approach to trade with us. A gallon bagful of fresh squids for a leaky old dive mask that Doug didn’t want. Win-win for all.

Dolphins ahoy!

Not wanting to be harassed by more traders, we upped anchor and left in record time. It was a beautiful morning, calm and definitely a good day for the crossing. I was on the helm as Doug was processing squids into rings 🙂 … , when a big family of dolphins came up to ride with us. I ran down and grabbed my camera. Finally I have my own dolphins sighting evidence!

Dolphins riding our bow wake

We had really good weather and tail wind helping us cross the Luzon straight quickly. We made it to Lui Dao on the 3rd day out from Pinget Island, just as we expected. It was quite rolly just outside the harbour and we need to refuel… Lang thought maybe go in for some protection and maybe rest for the night tied up to seawall, Doug think not and we should get going asap. .. okie, fine, so it was a little sloppy but we still manage to not spill while refuelling.

Lu Dao … That’s all we saw of Taiwan.

Every mile that we move NE, away from Lui Dao, the seas get bigger and bigger. Our SOG is down to 2kns as we roll up and down on 2m waves. On hindsight, we should have stayed at Lui Dao for the night, but after 30miles out we are not heading back.

I wonder what he wants?

We had a strange encounter with a steel Taiwan fishing boat… it came from behind us, to turn around in circles in front of us, then moving away and coming back to turn more circles. Finally it come really close, and we were really worried that in these big seas they are coming to ram us… but they stayed 30meters off and tried to say something to us… we could not hear them really.. but maybe they are suggesting for us to turn back..?? Then they left. That strange encounter kept us on more diligent watch thru the night in case they come back.

It was only 180nm from Lui Dao to Ishigaki, and we made it there in 2.5 day … 60hrs. I guess we had a strange current going against us, so we didn’t make it into port before dark. 2000hrs, Lang called Japan coast guard on VHF channel 16… no reply. Okay, so I call on my SG mobile .. maybe cost an arm and leg… but I had to make contact about our approach into their harbour. Seems like nobody in Ishigaki coast guard office speaks enuf English and they were panicking, finally they have me call Okinawa office and they conveyed the message to us that our route IS DANGEROUS!? What do you mean dangerous? … They assumed we didn’t have detailed chart showing the many reefs surrounding the port, ah… ok, so we have charts, but it was 10pm when we got into harbour and they instructed us to anchor outside the harbour for the night. okie…

Morning surprise at Ishigaki.

So we followed the leading lights and weave thru the maze of seawalls, and anchored off a seawall where we thought was outside the harbour… it was really dark and we thought we had a really good anchoring spot to hop right in at 1st daylight… 🙂 Another morning surprise, Japan coast guard ships were our neighbours.. that is where they operate from… ooopps…

7am, we upped anchor and moved into fisherman coop wharf for check in and immigration to Japan! Now to face the notoriously difficult PAPERWORK for checking into Japan….

Calliste at immigration seawall in Ishigaki.

But it turn out to be not difficult at all. All it took was a phone call to the coastguard in the morning before we up anchor. In the 30 mins that we took to up anchor and move inside the harbour, the quarantine officer was already there to help us tie up. Seems like the coastguard office coordinates all activity that is necessary for us to check in. The customs officer came on board and went thru the boat, followed by the coastguard. So, they do look carefully at our medical kit, tools and cleaning fluids. Fortunately they found nothing offensive and took nothing away from us.

Yep, language was difficult, but the officials were patient, friendly and spoke enough English between them to help us complete our check in. They even had a appointed staff to drive us to customs and immigration office and back. In 2hrs, we are back on board and all cleared for a good time in Japan. Hah! We made it!

BTW, I hear that it is much more stressful to check into Phillipines and although language is not a problem, corruption is. And I haven’t found it to be easier in Thailand or Malaysia, except that they don’t come on board to search thru our stuff. I choose to handle the Japanese officials and paperwork anytime.

We couldn’t resist going to El Nido.

It seemed to take forever to pass from North tip of East Malaysia to west coast Palawan. The nasty Balabac straits was as rolly as we remembered heading into Kudat. Right after that we got into unbelievable calm waters and light winds off the beautiful west coast beaches off Palawan. We motor-sailed close to shore to stay out of the South flowing current, and we did pretty good time averaging 4 kns. We kept the engine rpm at 1600… because there are some strange sounds above that… something about that plastic bag, probably damaged cutlass bearing…  trying to make it to port without further damage to the hull. Anyway, it was nice weather and the scenery was great, so we enjoyed the trip up.

Entering Biscuit Bay at sunrise.

We are rock gawkers, and we seen pictures and heard much about the spectacular rock islands at El Nido. We have to see this for ourselves and especially since its on our way, plus a chance to get some fuel and fresh food… and internet… 🙂

Spectacular rocks and sunrise at Biscuit Bay

We were at the pass into El Nido at the best time of the day. It was a beautiful day and sunrise was spectacular. We motored slowly and watched the mountainous island turn from dark shadow to green and grey. We gawked! This is, IMO, more beautiful than Phang Na bay or Pulau Aur. If we were cruisers with plenty of time, we could spend months kayaking and rock gawking… but we need to get to Japan before the typhoon season…

Final approach to El Nido

Lucky us, someone in the Navionics app community shared a note to give direction to a good anchoring spot off the El Nido village at 5m. It was a small sandy patch surrounded by corals that was a easy 5 minute paddle to the village, and holding was good. Paddled over to the large cat that was to be our neighbour. Tim was most helpful, gave me much info on the village, getting internet and where to buy stuff, got me started before I even touch down.

Didn’t have any trouble landing on the beach and parking the kayak in front of a dive shop/lounge. Family that ran the dive shop was most friendly and helpful too.

Sketchy map of El Nido

Following Tim’s recommendation, I changed USD to Pesos at Palawan Pawnshop. Decent business and rates were okay. Sure, maybe rates are much better in Singapore… but hey, its alright. Went around town trying to get SIM card for internet, but go nowhere until I found Art Café. The sold gift and arrange tours… and had Globe SIM cards and prepaid top up cards available… This is the better service to buy than the cheaper alternatives. I got Globe and something else that was impossible to read and understand how it works. Setting up for Globe was difficult too… needed help from gal at Art Café and she had to dial Globe support centre … long story, finally got it working tho.

Going to town with extras.

We decided to refuel the small amount that we used since leaving Kudat. Only 80L, ie 4 jugs. This is me ferrying our empty jugs to shore. Then I hired a motor-sidecar taxi to ferry me and jugs to the Fuel station, turn out it really wasnt far at all. So I decided to also go to the market…. maybe that was not such a good idea… the 125cc “taxi” struggled up the hill with 80L of diesel and me.

Some of the things we do as cruisers in places with no walk on pontoons.

I was happy to get quite a few veg from the market. Avocados, relatively ok tomatoes, watermelon, bananas, apples. The greenies didnt look good… sigh…

For all that moving around, Nandos ask only 100 pesos (US$2.75), and he looked a little sheepish to ask for that much (going rate was 30 pesos), but I was happy to give. .. would happily give 100 pesos if someone would bring the jugs from shore to Calliste, but no takers… well, so I load kayak with 2 jugs, leaving 2 on shore (hopefully nobody needs diesel or jugs), paddle out to Calliste, unloaded them, and Doug paddle out to get the other 2. …

They will never understand how irritated we are with them coming close to check us out.

We rested for 2 nights at anchor, it was hot in the day but cools down nicely at night. Had alot of touristy boats passing close to us… like we were some “by the way”, “happen to be there” attraction. We have had many pictures taken, and we take pictures of them in return… 🙂

Our main complain about being at such a touristy place is…. it is horribly noisy at night. Phillipinos are great live band performers and it seems every beach bar had a band going till 2am. Was loud! and just our luck, had a election rally speaker shouting above that din. I guess most tourist like that nightlife thingy, but we are just too old for that.

Short boating guide to Kudat

We were not intending to stop there, but we were low on fuel and were going head on into strange currents so much that we may will not have enough to head up to El Nido where we hoped to fuel up. Before leaving SG, we read and printed MV Solito’s account of their Palawan cruise, and read that they checked into Malaysia at Kudat. Seems easy and it was just 120nm SE from where we were… much easier than 250nm NE to El Nido.

Sketchy map of Kudat. Did this on my iP4d.

Well, we didn’t know that Balabac strait was always choppy and it was rough. Not much wind, just waves from 3 directions. It was same going in as was going out. A few hours of inconvenience, but we were happy that Kudat turned out ok… not really, we picked up a reinforced plastic bag on our prop and had so much difficulty with it for the rest of our trip. Now a rather expensive repair too.

We got what we needed though, 300l of diesel and some water. Some dinner, some fresh food, some internet. Put up a sketchy map of Kudat town here.

We arrive just before sunset and anchored off the seawall near to the PETRONAS station. After 10 days at sea, I was eager to go ashore and get immigration checkin and dinner! For going ashore, we took out the 3 piece kayak from the quarter berth and assembled it on our foredeck.

Calliste is at the fuel station, note not fuel dock.

1830hrs, still a bit of daylight left. Lang paddled over to say hi to MV Tonka, a cruising neighbour sharing the same anchorage. They warned me about the difficulty getting ashore at low tide, which happens to be right then when I was really looking forward to a nice shore side take out dinner. I absolutely have to try climbing up the pier… so I paddled to the fish farms rafting area and watched the locals. They developed a system of floating rafts with overhead ropes to pull themselves to/fro the pier to their farms, and they climb from the rafts onto the pier… maybe I can try that…

1900hrs, Lang has a plan. Asked the guy on the raft if I could tie up kayak to the pier and use the raft… sure its ok, but its nicer to ask. Getting on the raft makes all the difference for being able to climb the pier or not. Raft is riding higher and alot more stable than the kayak…. so I was able to get up on the pier afterall! YES! Next stop, walk over to the Petronas to ask about getting fuel, they are ready to sell me 320l diesel as soon as I bring my jugs over…. 16 jugs of 20l each, how are we going to manage that transfer tho? On our kayak, climbing up and down that pier? That would be such a nightmare… have to sleep on that… Got a take out Satay dinner from the hawker right there on the waterfront, would like to have a Chinese stir fry dinner too, but they were too busy and I was not willing to wait… Climbing back down to raft, then kayak and back to Calliste. Satay and rice was great! We both enjoyed!

Calliste at Kudat, pointing to the floating fish farm and restaurant.

Next morning, Doug observed some local skiffs motoring right up to the rock wall by Petronas, tied up to the rocks, got fuel in jugs and supplies. 0700hrs, I paddled up to one of the boats and worked out something with a nice family. 1 of the girls understood some English enuf to get by. So we had 3 men from the family to haul our fuel and water jugs to us in their skiff. I dunno whats the going rate for such services, but I was happy to have fuel and gladly gave each one RM50… I believe they were very happy with the 1 hrs work.

Later in the day, I walk further into town. I did get to top up my Hotlink SIM card at the shop outside Millenia supermarket. And got fresh fruits and eggs, rest of stuff were horrible looking. And then a take out KFC dinner for us underway.

Only spend 24hrs at Kudat and left. We didn’t need anything else more than to get going again.