End of the first season in Japan

After the Goto Islands it was suddenly time to head for Irohajima, so I’d have a few days to get the boat ready to be hauled out. Back in Fukuoka I’d already agreed with Kirk that the date would be 1 October, so on the 28th I sailed the boat over. Lo and behold, there was actually a few hours of decent wind, so I even got some proper sailing in.

The next day I was pottering about with some small jobs when an email came in: could you come out on the 30th instead, because the yard people are in Okinawa at the beginning of October… Oops. That’s doable, but it does mean a lot suddenly has to happen. The jib had to come down; luckily it was dead calm just when I got round to it. The watermaker had to be pickled so it could sit idle for months. And a whole list of other jobs besides. The weather was Japan at its best: sunny and not too hot, perfect for getting things done.

The next morning raising the anchor still took me ages, and at 9 o’clock on the dot the phone rang: where are you? Yes, the Japanese like punctuality. So do I, but sorryyyyyyy…. Fortunately I was only 5 minutes late. At the travel lift I reversed the boat neatly into the “box” that the hoist straddles, without touching the sides once. And that without a bow thruster! Ten minutes later the boat was already “up”. She was parked temporarily, as the spot where I was actually supposed to go was still occupied by a fishing boat for a few more weeks. With Kirk’s help we went through a whole laundry list of work for the yard. Everything had to be discussed carefully, because this is a yard for luxury GRP motor yachts, not aluminium sailing yachts. The biggest job is that I’ve asked them to replace all the fabric headlining; over the past year it suddenly started coming unstuck in all sorts of places and sagging. Too much heat in the tropics!

By the afternoon we were done, and Kirk drove me to Fukuoka and dropped me off at the hotel. I’d built in a few spare days, because for all I knew the haul-out and handover might not have gone so smoothly. So to round off this year in Japan I had what was first going to be 3 and was now 4 nights in a very nice hotel in the centre of Fukuoka, right at the edge of the restaurant district. Right next to the hotel there were 3 restaurants (tried 2 of them), and then about 200 m further on a mall with some 50 (!) restaurants, including one doing sushi-at-the-counter-where-the-chef-decides (Omakase) and one with 10 kinds of oysters… So I didn’t exactly have to walk far! I did anyway, though: first you pass the street food (Yatai), then the véry respectable red-light district (with véry respectable advertising signs) and then the super-luxury shopping streets of Tenjin (with yet another underground mall, about 200 shops), where among other things I spent a pleasant hour in the Bic Camera stores. And everything absolutely spotless.

Then on Sunday 4 October it was time to fly home. In Fukuoka the airport is only a 10-minute taxi ride away. I could have taken the Shinkansen or a plane to Osaka or Tokyo, but neither of those gets you to the “KLM airport”, so you’d just be travelling even longer. So instead: hop in a taxi for a tenner, then wait in the lounge for the Cathay Pacific A330. Then 3 hours to their hub in Hong Kong, more waiting, nearly missing my flight, and then 14 hours in the brand-new A350. The service on the first leg was fine, nothing wrong with it. But on the second leg Cathay really lived up to its reputation: perfect service, with the crew knowing exactly when you want to sleep and when you don’t. I could even order an extra small meal for whenever I woke up. Absolutely top notch. I stepped off at Schiphol nicely rested, always a good feeling. Unfortunately there was a baggage system failure; mine turned up after 45 minutes. Better than some other flights, where the announcement was that you might as well just go home. Outside, of course, Marion was already waiting; she’d been to Madeira for a week and had spent the night at Schiphol. A quick trip home: tea with milk, brown bread from the local bakery, and then aged cheese and filet americain. Oh my, we’d missed that these last few months!

So now I’m home again. In March 2027 we carry on…

If you’re reading this and thinking, hmmmm, Japan, I wouldn’t mind crewing there for a while, give me a call or drop me an email.