Kurahasi to Hokkaido
Well its been a while. So a quick recap. The Boat has been in Kurahashi for 10 months getting a good going over including:
Rig out repaired and repainted, new standing and running rigging.
Hard bimini constructed with new solar panels
Anchor launcher modified
New gear box and prop
New hydraulic back stay tensioner
New primary electric winches
New radar
New dorados
New storm sails and gennaker
and most importantly a diesel heater installed. You’re not getting me above 40 degrees lat without heating. Warren has been on the boat over Feb/March 2026 working his butt off accompanied by brother Doug to lend a hand. Bear in mind that Feb March here is bollocking cold. They had no heating and it didn’t sound fun. Check out the boat yard and how we get lifted below. Floated up to an underwater platform which is then winched up onto the yard.
Pretty easy haulout until the winch cable snaps and the boat rushes back into the water at a rate of knots which did happen to a yacht while we were there. Luckily no damage albeit a rapid re entry into the water and a lot of confused, gesticulating Japanese workers.
The length of time spent here has meant we have become good friends with the yard owners Hideto and his wife Motoko. Being the only live aboards on the pier you get to establish quite a relationship with the yard and Morg and I loved the wee electric boat we commandeered to get us back and forth to the town.
Morg and I arrived in May and a month later, after saying our sad goodbyes to our Kurahashi friends we were ready to finally head north. Unfortunately a few hours after we left, Warren detected a strange noise coming from the shaft so we had no choice but to turn back for Kurahashi. We arrived early evening with Hideto and his trusty sidekick waiting on the dock to inspect the noise. It was decided the thrust bearing needed to be removed from the shaft but would not come off. They worked till midnight trying to remove it and finally succeeding, found that the bearing had been over torqued and a new bearing needed to be ordered.
A week later with the new bearing installed and fingers crossed we tried for a second departure.
With everything sounding fine in the engine department we headed for Fukuoka where we were to gift Morgans Skiff dinghy to the yacht club there and pick up parcels. We spent a week doing more boat chores and provisioning. As we had been here before we knew all the good places to go. Giovanni also came back to join us for our run to Hokkaido.
While in Fukuoka we reunited with Kai and his mother Haruna who suggested they take us to a tofu restaurant. We all nodded enthusiastically while thinking how unpleasant could a tofu dinner possibly be? We had tofu in a dozen ways and it was superb. Ill never look at tofu the same way. Even the Italian loved it. Only the Japanese could transform tofu into a taste sensation.
We had kept in contact with Takaroa, an Outremer catamaran we had met last year in the inland sea who were also looking at heading to Alaska, with Paulo ( Brazilian) his wife Nadia ( American) and children Olivia and Rafael who all reside in Italy. We had both left our run to Alaska late as the ‘ideal’ time is said to be the end of May, beginning of June when weather is more settled. We’d all been watching the weather patterns in the North Pacific and didn’t see anything more adverse happening in late June/July. A few people didn’t hesitate to tell us that crossing in July wasn’t an ideal time.
However some boats who left Hokkaido for Alaska in May ended up taking shelter in the Kuril Islands in Russian waters to avoid a low pressure system to the east.
The general consensus is that these islands are out of bounds as they require strict Russian border permits and I’d say you’d need balls to mess with the Russians.
These boats ended up sheltering to the east of Paramushir (an island in the north of the Kurils) and had emailed the Russian authorities of their intentions to take shelter. One boat had no heating and had to endure temperatures of 2 degrees in their cabin. Madness. Unbelievably the group were approached by Russian coastguard who although they let the boats know they were being ‘observed’ were more than accommodating- refueling all the boats for free and presenting them with care packages. Who would have thought.
In all the countries we have been to by sea we have never been treated like that. And what a fantastic experience those few boats had, as well as getting to see the Kurils which is indeed a rare opportunity.
A couple of boats carried on and were fine, but one boat who we had met a few times in the Inland Sea last year (a 2.5 tonne built for speed trimaran) lost its rudder and skipper Luke and crew abandoned ship.
A few weeks later the Luke chartered a boat from Dutch Harbour to reunite him with his boat and he managed to jury rig a rudder and reach Dutch Harbour. An expensive exercise -but then it was a very expensive boat.
We left Fukuoka on 28 June 2026 and did an overnight sail to Ama Island which lies about 50km off the west coast of southern Honshu. A beautiful island where we tied up to the town wall and rendezvoused with Takaroa. We met Ryan, an American who had sailed to Ama a few years ago and now lived here with his Spanish wife and baby.
The water was beautiful and clear and round the bay were some nice kelp beds where we snorkeled, thinking this may be the last swim we have for a long time. Rafael speared a decent size snapper (red sea bream), much to Giovanni’s chagrin, which we ate for dinner.
The next night the adults had our meat fix at the local Wagu restaurant followed by a visit to a newly opened whiskey bar where we had a great time with some locals. Mainly talking about the foot ball world cup as Brazil was to play Japan. It was good to see that quite a few young Japanese were relocating to the island to escape the big mainland cities. Can’t blame them, it was a little patch of paradise. We could have stayed here for a week easily but needed to press on as time was against us.
We left on July 1 for a 5 day sail to Kushiro, a city on the east coast of Hokkaido where we planned to depart to Alaska. We had a good trip up and noticed a great dip in sea temps sailing through the strait between Hokkaido and Honshu, dropping from 24 to 12 degrees. Burr!! This is the point where I’m thinking how am I going to get into the water to check the prop now? As I don’t have a wetsuit let alone a dry suit. The water was jumping with dolphins, huge tuna, sea birds and even a lone seal. Great to see the sea come alive. Below was a little hitchhiker (a turtle dove) who caught a ride with us for a day and night, Every time the sail would flap he would be scared off and would keep circling the boat till he landed. At night he perched on the foredeck huddled into into feathers and after a good nights rest flew off.
We arrived in Kushiro in the late afternoon and tied up to the river wall at Moo Wharf alongside a BBQ restaurant and camping store. Perfect. Kushiro had a very different feel about it. A pop of about 40,000 and it kind of looked bleak and uninspiring, what I would imagine Russia to look like. No sooner had we tied up then Seki-san, an 80 yr old sailor with lots of off shore miles came to welcome us and guide us through our Japanese departure process. His daughter Ayako spoke fluent English and was also a big help. Her partner had a Italian restaurant which we visited one night. I imagine the poor guy would have been a tad nervous cooking Italian food for an Italian family and Giovanni. Even I was nervous for him. Thankfully the food was great, and swallowed down with beer, wine and sake it was a fun night.
We ventured out to a few more restaurants there, realizing that this was our last chance to enjoy Japanese dining. Id often heard about how there is a drinking tradition among Japanese business man called nomikai, a male bonding ritual. One night we stayed out late (a school night too) and on the walk back home to the boat we saw the effects of nomikai. Well dressed Japanese business men unable to walk or talk carried back to their hotels by their companions. One was even passed out in a doorway. Who knows how they go to work next day as there’s basically no such thing as sick leave in Japan and annual leave is it at best 10 days.
Nadia and I provisioning before heading north. Never ceases to amaze me that I can actually stow all this stuff away on the boat!!