Tag: cruising
-
76 years young
Ma Chin arrived to Phuket on January 22nd, 2026. So far she has come to visit us once a year on sv evi. This time I drove a rental car in Phuket traffic to pick her up at the airport. It took 5 hours round trip — whew! We had planned to go out to…
-
Komodo Dragons, Manta Rays and more
In May we continued adventuring south. We visited the Blue Lagoon at Labengke and had a lovely refreshing (even got cold!) swim. After an overnight sail, we arrived at Wangi Wangi, in Wakatobi National Park. We docked at a free marina, and ended up staying for a week! Yes, free marina. No power or water,…
-
April happenings
Our first stop back in Indonesia was Pulau Kawio. We rested for a few days and snorkeled to the beach to play Kubb with rocks. We saw dolphins pass by while at anchor. We checked in to Indonesia at Bitung, Sulawesi. It was an all day affair, from 9 am to 7:30 pm. While in…
-
Holiday Oceanview Marina
HOV has been our home for the past 5 weeks. It is a lovely and unique place. First of all, it has no website, and the only way I found out how to get a hold of Dina, the manager, was word-of-mouth from another cruiser. Dina is super helpful and kind. We chose to come…
-
Kamusta (hello) Philippines!
Well, I wasn’t properly mentally prepared for our passage to the Philippines. Perhaps because we had spent 4 months motoring around Indonesia — there was never any wind and the seas were almost always flat calm. Or because a friend had said getting to Davao, Mindanao from Raja Ampat was relatively straight-forward, involving 3 overnight…
-
Passage to Indonesia
Our autopilot died about an hour after we left Thursday Island. Riki put the spare one in, and it worked, but it was super loud. It sounded like a pinball machine, and we nicknamed it Pinball Wizard (sure plays mean pinball!). We used the wind pilot when we were sailing, but often there was no…
-
Reflections after (almost) one year living aboard
Luz (6) During the past year we flew to New Zealand, and then we sailed to Fiji, and then we sailed to Vanuatu, and we came to Australia on our longest passage, which was 9 days. We saw lots of cool animals. We saw a mama orca and a baby orca in NZ. We also…
-
Cairns to Thursday Island
Riki met David & Millie on SV Penny Oyster, a British couple in their early 30’s, on the dock in Cairns. They left the same day we did, and we both overnighted to Lizard Island. We ended up buddy boating with them all the way to Cape York, the northernmost point of the Australian continent.…
-
Opua, NZ to Savusavu, Fiji
It took us exactly 6 days to sail to North Minerva Reef. The first few days were pretty mellow as far as waves and wind — I was even playing Doppelkopf (a German card game) with the kids down below. I used half a patch of Scopolamine for sea-sickness, and I gave the kids each…
-
The hard parts
I was talking to my sister Libby two or three months ago, and she said that it was hard because it looked like we are always on vacation and it’s always sunny in all our photos, and meanwhile it is rainy and cold in the PNW. I told her, you know boat life isn’t all…
sv evi 