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West Wight Potter Mailing List maintainer
dfarrell@ridgecrest.ca.us
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>Yet another, and final trip plan, last one, I promise...>>
>
I'm here another 28 hours. The plane leaves at 10 tomorow (Thursday) and
arrives at 1. In Hong Kong I must catch, in order, a train, 2 subways and
a bus to get to the Hebe Yacht club in the 'New Territories' where the Nalu
4 is anchored. Roy, 'the Spaniard', arrives today; he will be the 4th crew
member. Friday I will have to go into H.K. proper to the Russian Consulate
to get my visa and enjoy a little of the town - if the boat is ready. Jim
and Diana want to leave Saturday of Sunday depending on the weather.
>>I think our route on this first leg will be north through the Formosa
>>Straits then a little east to Okinawa. From there it will be north again
>>to Sasebo on the west coast of the southern Japanese island of Kyushu. I
>>think that will take about 2 weeks. I'll leave the boat there and fly
>>back to Osaka while they take the boat on up to Niigata on the west coast
>>of the main island, Honshu. I expect we will leave for Nakhoda, Russia a
>>week before June 1; our visas are good from June 1 to June 15. June 15
>>we will sail again to Hokkaido, the northern island of Japan where the
>>volacno is erupting. We will stay there until July1 when we pick up 2
>>more crew members for the big part of the trip. I expect Kiyomi will
>>come up to Hokkaido. July 1, then we will start for Alaska. The first 5
>>days will be out of sight of land, after that we will be near the
>>Aleutian islands or Alaska. We will stop on Adak in the island chain and
>>then Kodiak. The next stop, I think will be Sitka. After that it will
>>be down the inland passage.
>>Roy and the other 2 crew, a couple, are more senior members of the Nalu
>>family, I'm the rookie. They will have extensive experience cruising.
>>We will divide into pairs and keep watches on probably a 4 hour schedule.
>>With 6 on board that will be 4 hours on and 8 off. I'm excited... We
>>are all required by Jim to have infllatable personal floatation devices
>>(lifejackets) with harnesses and to wear them when appropriate. We use
>>the harness to teather ourselves to the boat in certain cases (dark or
>>rough seas).
>>Diana carries a laptop on board and has e-mail. It also has complete
>>charts and tide lists. And, of course, Jim's solitaire games... I will
>>not impose on her to receive mail on the trip. I'll be back here in 2-3
>>weeks to make my first report. Maybe Kiyomi will bring my laptop to
>>Hokkaido for another and maybe I can write an interim report and sent it
>>is Sitka or someplace. The most outside possibility is that I'll pick up
>>a Palm IIIx in Hong Kong to replace my laptop in the States. I've been
>>learning about them on the net here.
>>The Russian visa has become a real saga along with my Osaka - H.K.
>>airplane ticket. I applied for the visa March 22 in San Francisco only
>>to be rejected because I had no letter of invitation. I jumped on the
>>problem here in Japan and called the Russian Yacht club to request a
>>letter. It never came. Yesterday, in panic, I went to the Russian
>>Consulate to explain my problem. They were great. I left my application
>>and returned home to call the yacht club again. Finally, after 6 hours,
>>the club answered the phone and Luba, the receptionist, told me she had
>>been trying to e-mail me that my letter was in Hong Kong. Luba sounded
>>sweet. I asked her if she wanted any thing from Japan and she answered
>>something small with a flag on it. Dave, if you find time, could you
>>send mesomething small with a flag on it from the States? Send it here:
>>1-10-1- 804 Shiroyama, Osaka, Japan, 561-0803. It should arrive in 2 the
>>next 6 weeks easy (but don't send it surface mail...)
>>I had to trash my first airline ticket to H.K for March 30. Cheapo
>>ticket was non refundable and not changeable. One of the risks of frugal
>>travel. So I bought another ticket to extend my time with my wife in
>>rainy Japan. Our agent made the reservation but I held off on the
>>purchase until I was certain it was all in line. Well, we do not write
>>checks in Japan - no checking accounts. We take money to the post office
>>and have it transferred or we go to our bank and have it transferred
>>there. We went to a bank, but not my bank. In the process of putting
>>the name of the travel agent in, a spelling error was made (we must
>>contend with 3 alphabets here; Romanji, Hiragana, and Katakana). The
>>bank was unable to send the money and called us yesterday just after the
>>travel agent called to inform us the money hasd not arrived. So, a 2nd
>>trip to my bank this time to send the money again. Now we must return to
>>the first bank to reclaim our 'lost' money...
>>So today everything is pretty much in line. I hope to have time to learn
>>to use the digital camera again (Japanese directions, of course - Kiyomi
>>will translate) so I can get some pictures on the first leg. I'll test my
>>skill in the local park where the cherry blossoms are now starting to
>>fall. I have to repack the duffle bag to get the foul weather boots in.
>>Kiyomi works today - an afternoon/evening faculty meeting at the old
>>campus. Kiyomi's e-mail address is this one. I'll send this to you and
>>a copy to my sister so she can report to mother. I might send it to the
>>Potter list, but they may be tired of hearing all this. Then I'll sign
>>off the list tomorrow morning.
>>So, Dave, you have a safe time on all your adventures. I envy your trip
>>to England. I hope you will see some good theatre. I think I might make
>>it back to England next Summer. I want to spend a week on the canal
>>boats. More immediate, if mother allows, I'm thinking of taking the
>>train trip I planned several years ago to the reunion in Evansville. I
>>would have to leave CA early September for that, right? I'll think more
>>about that.
>>Bye for now,
>>Bill
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>Hope I did'nt miss your cut off date of the 12th. Wanted to wish you
>>>well on
>>>your lengthy sea plans. Did you get clearance for Russia?
>>>Will you be on e-mail during your travels? If so ,what address will you be
>>>using?What address will Kiyomi be using?
>>>
>>>Enjoy and drop us a line now and then.
>>>
>>>Dave
>>
>>
>>
>
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Apr 30 2000 - 03:27:10 PDT