About Me

My photo
Alaska, United States
I am owned by Pauline and Mark Blasky. My hull was built at the Duncan Marine Yard in Taiwan and launched in Dec of 1980. It is a William Garden design based on the Pixie Design and called by Duncan Marine a Freedom 45. They are the fourth owners and have owned me the longest. They have done extensive refitting to me including replacing my entire deck structure and rig. My masts are roughly 10% taller than original and now are made of aluminium as opposed to the original wood ones, which, though pretty, were always problematic. You can read more about me under "MORE ABOUT SARI TIMUR"

September 12, 2011

The Ride to Guam

Some people have been asking us to post details on our trip from Palau to Guam.  So here goes.  As you know we decided to delay our departure as a weather system was pushing through just as we were getting ready to check out.  That was a Wednesday.  Ideally we would have liked to leave on Saturday or Sunday to ride the coat tails of the system north east.  In Palau however there is a $175 surcharge for weekend departures so we opted for a Monday afternoon departure.


As we were leaving we heard some funny sounds from the transmission and had a bit of a mess coming up on the anchor chain.  Both caused by being on the hook too long.  The deck wash pump also swallowed a fish and ruined the diaphragm.  That part isn’t too bad as the pump has been struggling for a while, but it would have been nice to wash the chain a bit better before putting it away.  So we did have a couple of days of a rotten seaweed smell in the forward cabin to live with, oh well no one was staying up there this trip. 


We left just after three PM and went out the eastern entrance.  Pretty amazing currents swirling through this pass but once out we had a bit of breeze from the right direction and we were able to set sail.  We were trying to keep our course a bit more east at first.  There are two reasons for this.  The main was that the winds tend to prevail from the east and this besides causing the wind to be from the wrong direction, creates a current which would be against us.  By using the storm we could use the reinforced SW winds to push us east quickly and if the winds were to swing from the east again we could fall off a bit and still make way north.  By going this route we also put the islands that are between Palau and Guam out of our path.  If the winds were a bit more benign we would have stopped in Yap for sure, as we have wanted to go there for some time.  The other islands are supposed to be pretty nice as well and it would have been a way to break up the trip.  But with the series of lows that had been sweeping over us, we felt it best to run as quickly as possible with our weather window.  Even choosing to motor if the winds dipped at all.  In the end we had a system coming through just as we were arriving but it didn’t amount to much so our precautions proved for not.  But it is always better to be safe than sorry. 


The trip itself was pretty uneventful.  We were able to give position updates and get emails out via the ham radio which we hadn’t been able to do since we were in the southern part of the Philippines.  We did have a hose clamp burst during the last part of the trip on the main engine while we were running it to charge batteries.  This was easily fixed but it did spray the engine room down with saltwater before we caught it.  Later it wiped out our main engine charging system so we ended up having to rely on the genset to charge our batteries.  We cannot run the genset in heavy seas or when we are healed over very far so we were happy that Guam was only a short distance away.  We carry a spare alternator but the problem was with the external regulator and that we did not have a spare for.  The seas started to build a few hours out of Guam so we opted to turn the engine on and leave it on while turning the genset off until we reached harbour. 


We arrived on Sunday at about 2:30pm, so we made the trip in just a little under 6 days and with just a little over 800 miles traveled, we made very good time.  The contrary current was pretty light until the last day but by then we had made the decision to motor sail and push hard to get in before the club closed.
approaching Guam
land ho, Guam

Since being here we have joined the Marianas Yacht Club and settled in nicely.  We will probably eventually move the boat over to Agat Marina if a berth becomes available.  It will be easier for working with a walk on walk off facility.  But other than that the MYC offers all we could ask for.

September 3, 2011

We got a new/old truck

Hey we just bought a "new to us" truck.  It is a Nissan Frontier XE four door 2003.  Pretty good shape, but we cannot get insurance until our licenses are converted.  I sit for the written test on Friday and hope the driving test is not too far away.  Our 30 day grace period for our Singapore licenses expire soon!

Here are some pictures of the truck.