Cruising Japan...Kyushu

FUKUOKA.....ODO MARINA

This council owned and run marina offers visiting yachtsmen 14 days free.....after 14 days it cost us (in July 2009 for a 16m yacht) Yen 4700 per day. Water is an extra Yen400. There was no power and rubbish disposal facilities were very hard to find. Hot showers are available at a cost, but we did not use them so I am not sure of the cost.
The visitors berth are neglected and deteriorating and we would not like to be there in bad weather. The marina Management suggested that if a typhoon came we would be wise to move to the better private marina next door. The marina manager had very limited English while the office staff had none and were a hinderance rather than help whjen we applied for our continued cruising permit.
We were fortunate in being given the contact details of a local sailing enthusiast - Mena Santo - who was able to help us in so many ways.
Family were coming for two weeks and Mena was able to arrange a friendship house for them...never having heard of this before we now thoroughly reccommend it. for Yen500 per adult per night the accommodation was a two bedroomed house...with large family room, cooking facilities,shower, toilet and this house had the added pleasure of a lovely outdoors area. The friendship House was very close to bus, subway,supermarket,laundry, fantastic park with fly foxes,grass sled rides......
All we needed to add was some cutlery, a few extra towels and food.

WE had a fabulous two weeks reaquainting ourselves with our (now) eldest grand daughter, meeting our new twin grand daughters and enjoying the company of our son and daughter in law. We did all the tourist things we could including a ride on the bullet train.
The Friendship House owners gave freely of their time and one evening took us to dinner at a local restaurant where we all sat with our feet in a pit under the table while dining on local cusine. At other times we at from the "take a way' section of the supermarket...never quite knowing what was under the tempura batter, or we ate from the local Hoto Moto Food chain store.
Our dining highlight was being guests of Kojie and Masa at a very upmarket hotel restaurant. We entered a private room and their was a big "Welcome Boswell Family" banner.
While the children dined on exquistly designed and served soup, tempura prawn, potato and other things , plus icecream we were also spoilt with the feast for our eyes and stomachs that kept on arriving at our table, The highlight being the 'melt in your mouth' Beef. (Although I think Brian enjoyed the dessert the best !!!!)
We had met Kojie in Subic Bay Philippines and enjoyed his company there so it was pleasure to be able to renew our acquaintance. We enjoyed his company several more times either onboard Charioteer or sampling horse meat in a local restaurant.

Our exit port in Japan was Izuhara on the island of Tsushima. This is a town where tastefully modern rubs shoulders gracefully with ancient temples and castle remains.
We changed some Yen into Won at the 18th Bank, did our clearance formalities and once the weather was in our favour we left Izuhara. The plan was to go through the strait, under the bridge, an over night stop and then off to South Korea.
And thats what we did...under the bridge sideways as the current grabbed us and spat us out on the other side into calm waters. Through the bay and into the open sea for our passage to Korea.
We had checked the weather, watched the barometer and talked to the weather gods.....but as usual the wind was all but on the nose, the sea was a bit rough...in fact we had our usual sailing conditions.
But we made it and now we are in Busan south Korea.