Having been awhile at home I was contacted by my ex Ch Mate to do a short delivery of m/y Kalizma from Djibouti to Turkey and as I thought I have time I agreed on it readily and as I had been on her several years ago, last time back in 2012, I knew the yacht and her flaws. She had since 2012 been refitted and undergone survey to become a commercial yacht under Cook Island and successfully chartered in Indian Ocean the past years.
Having visited Falklands I came over the information by accident in a pub that a Finnish sailing vessel, FENNIA, had in early 1900's limped into Port Stanley jury rigged after having been partly demasted in a severe storm.
Never having visited Falklands before it was an exciting prospect having only wondered about it as a kid watching the World chart on top of my bed that was gifted by my uncle. It used to be my pastime to look at funny foreign names on foreign continents before falling asleep. Well, now looking at Falklands map closer it was all English names interspersed with an occasional Spanish name.
As we had left Tristan da Cunha we set course for South Georgia with an aim to go do some PR for the locals there as well as to see the grave of Ernest Shackleton.
This article was originally published by the Finnish seamen's mission in Finnish, below is a translation of it:
Having told my previous employ to keep their show I left for the Philippines for some R&R. Flew from Singapore to Manila and spent a few days there to renew my medical, it was tough, took me 2 days of tests but finally I got 2 years. Really need to lose some weight in order to avoid this in future. After Manila went south to Calatagan and visited places nearby, Balayan town, Taal volcano lake, Batangas balisong shops and so on. Below are pictures of some highlights of the trip until I had to fly to Vietnam for my next job.
Having seen on old westerns and black and white movies men shaving with straight razors I was always fascinated about it. I even faintly recall that my dad used to have one, I think I was told off having a touchy-feely look at it. I don't wonder knowing now how sharp they are. I guess he moved onto disposable ones as soon as they made their advent because I don't recall seeing it in years.
1930's German made Solingen blade and the old broken handle
As I joined my most recent command it was also requested that I do the pilot exemption for Singapore in order to save on pilotage fees going in and out of the marina as we are 499GT, in Singapore pilotage is compulsory for any vessel over 300GT.
Having gotten a few days in Montalto I had to go to La Spezia to seatrial a 37' Axopar crosscabin, wonderful boat. Then I rushed off to do the sojourn to Spain and as I arrived back I was called by Burgess to join a yacht in Singapore. After a bit of thinking I accepted as I needed the income so I only had a few days to enjoy, pack my bag and off to Nice again. No rest for the wicked.
Before arriving Med I had been watching the weather and it looked like we had a small chance of getting weather with us. As we exited the Canal it was obvious it wasn't going to happen, sods law I guess. The wind was blowing between W and NW and if we tried to getting a WSW course it was SW and going the other tack we went NNE. As Egypt was in the way and the weather blowing from NW I thought better take the better way and escape N wards, the wind might change (fat chance!). So we tacked and were effectively heading for Cyprus. The only comfort was that we were heading for EU at least. As we progressed further N we were able to come to a heading of NNW and avoided hitting Cyprus but then we had the mainland of Turkey ahead of us.
Upon our arrival with s/y Fanny to Suakin (Sawakin) I spotted a semi submerged coaster vessel on the side of the fairway. She seemed to have been anchored or stranded on the shore possibly after having been laid up or developing a critical leak when she called port. Whatever the reason there she was sitting seemingly abandoned.
As we left Maldives we soon got some wind we could finally use. Although direction was wrong we just had to in order to save fuel, so we headed on a SW'ly course and during following days sometimes with engines on, or engines off, depending how hard it blew. At best we did 8kts on average on a stretch of 6hrs.
Having arrived Lumut safely Owner and us had some errands to tend to in Kuala Lumpur so we got a car loaned and drove up there. Turned out my errand was not needed so I got a few days off and a visit to KL. Impressive city but impossible to find a taxi unless you were booking via a dedicated app, so we rather ate from eateries close by the airbnb than taking tax to some other venue. We actually found a very nice Mexican restaurant. After 3 nights we headed back to Lumut and left Owner to tend to his own business.
