Cruising Korea 4

Ater all that had happened to us in Busan we were thinking it was time to move on. We had learnt that we had to let Coastguard and Customs know that we were leaving. We thought this would take us only a few minutes but that was not to be ..so our exit from Busan took place nearer to lunch than breakfast.
Trouble was continuing to follow us.....the motor for the mainsail drive would not work, the main engine generator would not generate and the GPS had stopped talking to the laptop with our navigation programme on.
So we were doing it the old fashioned way, eye ball and we were able to use the electronic charts as if they were paper ones, marking our course as we went.
Coastguard kept in touch all day....driving us mad witheir continual requests for location or wanting to know how many people were on board. We found a nice bay and pulled inpreparing to anchor for the night.
Suddenly the air was full of the noise of gunfire..and we do not mean little peashooter things.....did we stay there? No we high tailed it out and moved to the next bay where it was calm and quiet.
Next morning we decided that Tong Yeong Marina would be a good place to head for and try to get our broken things fixed..so thats what we did.
This is a simply stunning area, many islands and sheltered waters. The marina has only one finger with poles in place for another finger. Within in an hour of our arrival Brian was out getting introduced to a man who fixed out sail drive motor and repaired/replaced our main engine generator. We have had no luck finding someone to help us with our gps/laptop problem though.So until we do it will navigating the old fashioned way for us.
The marina is part of the Choung Mu Resort and because of that we have very good, very fast wireless internet connection onboard which is why I have been able to enter so many blog chapters. Enjoy them please and I hope to be able to add more at our next port/ anchorage...but there maybe a bit of a gap.

Cruising Korea 3

Early next morning we were up and Charioteer was jerkily sliding back into the water...oh the relief to be there right way up and with a clean bottom. We motored back to the marina. In their wisdom they put us on a different finger, right at the end. There was a typhoon battering Taiwan and we were getting the outside ring of weather in Busan. We carry with us polystyrene fenders of several sizes...and the wave surge in the marina was terrible and we banged and crunched against the finger all night,decimating our fenders.
Morning arrived and we had another problem.....Brian had another kidney stone moving on down. Doctor Jenny arranged for Brian to attend an out patients clinic so I put out another fender or two and off we went. Poor Brian in agony in the back of the taxi, the taxi driver with no English and us with no Korean. But Jenny had drawn us a map so after fighting our way through rush hour traffic we arrived and within half an hour Brian was again hooked up to an IV and being used as a pin cushion. the day passed and we returned to Charioteer to find Mr.Kim had given us heavier ropes. After a visit to the marina office and a request for another berth, one with a bit more protection, we moved. Brian was only capable of standing and hanging onto the steering wheel and geeting us into our new berth. Mr Kim and his staff were there to help do the tieing up. Without them I do not know how I would of managed.
Once we were secure it was time to relax...Brian was a lot better but not one hundred percent. For the next week he suffered on and off with kidney stone attacks. But we managed to keep the pain at a controlable level with pain killers from the hospital. Doctor Jenny gave me lessons on how to and where to administer injections, but thank goodness that skill was not required.
We now had two other European yachts for company....LEV with Mike and Barbara and YELO with Daniella and Rolf. Oh the joy of being able to talk in English without thinking.
Brian spent several days in recovery mode and slowly regaining his strength and energy.
Busan Marina was built for the Seoul Olympics in 1988 and is still used today for the Asian Games. So the maintainance is pretty good. The marina is nestled beside a 7.2 kilometer (seven . two) double tier suspension bridge....a most amazing sight.The marina was not built with todays size of boat (up to 80feet) in mind so many motor launches and yachts hang well out from the end of their fingers. The river surge in here can be so bad that there are usually one boat per pen.
The types of boats range from huge motor yachts to wee dinghy sized yachts, jet skis are a frequent high speed passerby and on the weekend every man and his dog get onto a yacht or launch and go out for an hour or two of enjoyment. Numbers can vary but we have counted up to 25 on a 40ft yacht......

Cruising korea 2

So here we are, high and dry. We had arranged for black antifouling paint to be delivered. But oh no it is very dark blue. "But we wanted black" we said. In all seriousness we were told.... "this is so dark that when it is wet it looks black"....
what could we say but..."ok".
Brian and I were doing the job ourselves so it was on with old clothes,..(and after all this time cruising we have plenty of old clothes to chose from) and armed with scapers on poles we set to work. It had been two years since we had antifouled and we were plesently surprised with the state of Charioteers bottom.
At the the end of a hard day, we had a shower and wandered off to buy pizza for dinner. As we walked Brian complained of a pain in his side...like the stitch...we just thought that he had strained something moving the heavy ladders. But no....by
10pm he was writhing on nthe bed in pain and by midnight he was in hospital, on a drip and pumped full of pain killers....kidney stones..
We had been very fortunate in that one of our new aquaintances was a Doctor and she was able to assist us in getting Brian to hospital. So there we were...Charioteer high and dry, Brian flat on his back and me beginning to melt down. For Brian it was a rugged night even with pain killers, but by 8am the stone had moved on down and he was pain free. So he discharged himself and Mr Kim from Power Marine Busan was on hand and drove us back to Charioteer, via a restaurant for lunch. Mr.Kim had been instumental in negotiating the good slipway price for us and was proving a real asset with his assistance and support. He had contacted the slipway for us and by the time we returned to Charioteer they were underway with doing the antifouling. Brian of course was rearing to go and so we both continued the painting with able assistance from the slip yard crew. Two coats were put on and we retired exhausted but happy that the job was done and that Brian was feeling well.

Cruising Korea

Korea..
We arrived at the Busan Marina and after locating the office, we waited for Customs and Quarantine to arrive.Then off we went to Immigration. The young man whose desk we sat at was most surprised to find we wanted three months...."why ? " he asked. "So we can cruise around and visit the islands" we replied. "Okay" he said and stamped us in for three months. We felt a bit braver on our return and we took the underground train. Several people on the train 'adopted' us and made sure we knew where we were at each station. At one stage we had to change trains and lines and once again we were 'adopted' and helped each step of the way.
Once back on Charioteer we thought ..hooray a wee rest and a relax....but no way. We arrived at the tail end of the main holiday break so there were plenty of locals and out of towners to view us. The questions are always the same....'why are you here? when are you leaving?..... Without thinking we said 'oh we wanted to do the antifouling (bottom paint) on Charioteer. Before we knew it there were about four people arranging with the slipyard to haul us out. This was great..except for one thing. At the slip yard there are two operators, side by side. The first one was going to charge us 1.2 million won, the second one's price was six hundred thousand won....and he was the one we went with. The haul out was arranged for Wednesday and so we had a few days in which to explore.

Wednesday morning arrived and with trepidation we motored over to the slipway. We had as our aiming mark a piece of bamboo sticking up out of the water which we had to keep to our port side. After a bit of manoeuvring we were in the right place and slowly and jerkily we hauled out and up the slipway.

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.