In my posts I am trying to be as accurate as I can in describing the highs and lows we experience to provide you with a real picture of what our days are like. It is nice to focus on the things we love but the reality is there are always frustrations, and you can choose to get over them or get bogged down with them. And if someone is thinking of doing a trip like ours, I would hate to think I have given them a bum steer if they read our blog.
At the end of the day, culturally, Japan is very different to Australia. It is one of the reasons we have come to visit, to immerse ourselves in a life different from our own. We have already travelled the world extensively and we have always accepted the differences and followed the rules to the best of our ability. There are countries that we will never visit because we know we simply can’t abide by their way of life and what they stand for. But we love Japan and all its differences.
I have started my post this way to provide you with some insight into our mindset as we experienced a series of events we encountered as we tried to find somewhere to put our boat when we arrived in Hagi. Having roughly a 50:50 success rate so far in Japan, we didn’t expect we would be allowed to tie up at our first choice…….and we were right.
Our first harbour of choice, Hagi Commercial Port, is also a ferry terminal, and we knew from other peoples blogs that the allocated places we are allowed to tie up are often already taken with barges and work boats. So our hopes weren’t high but we were hopeful because we would be close to town. When we entered we could see some work cranes set up. Hmmm not a good indicator. But Dean could see a space just down from the ferries where we were allowed to tie up.
Just as we were ready to tie up a ferry came back so we stayed back until it was docked and then followed it in. As we came along side the jetty, a man in a suit came up with his arms crossed in an X. The sign for shut!
This is a view of the commercial harbour from a distance. You can see the cranes.
In hindsight being this close to town wouldn’t have made up for the disruption we would have got from the ferries coming and going and also whatever the cranes were working on, so I wasn’t too upset that this didn’t work out. We next made our way to the Hagi Fishing Port, which is very close. In fact they are actually joined by a canal, and as you can see in the image below many of the fishing boats dock here, but we can’t get through that way and had to go back out into the sea.
The Fishing Harbour is really large. There are huge warehouses for moving fish off the boats, and lots of other marine related businesses operating here. After scoping out the place Dean selected a spot for us and in we went.
We hadn’t even finished tying up when the officials started arriving to clear us into Hagi. First in was the Coast Guard. Dean asked how they knew we were here. They said they had been watching us on AIS. Dean said we tried to tie up in the commercial harbour but they kicked us out. They laughed and said yes we saw you going round and round (while we were waiting on the ferry).
Hot on their heels was Customs. They were very impressed that we had all of the necessary forms already filled out, and with Deans “official stamp”. They only had to come downstairs to make sure our medicines were still safely locked away and take the usual photo. They gave us each a “gift”. A tourist map of Hagi, which was thoughtful, and we appreciated.
Then straight after we had an added extra the Police! We have never had them before. They wanted to check our passports and were the only ones to pick up and query that I had a different entry date to Dean, due to my recent trip home. I was nearly at the point of showing them my grandchildren video to show what I had been up to, when they finally understood I had gone home for a holiday without Dean and there was nothing sinister. They were really nice, and through google translate said they are being extra vigilant due to G7!! Yes we understand.
With that over and done with nice and quick, we had time for an evening walk before dinner and check out our surroundings. The days are getting much longer this far North as we head towards summer.
Dean was up fairly early the next morning and eating breakfast upstairs, when a forklift started depositing pallets on the wharf in front of our boat. Whhhhyyy? This is the loading aread for the islands, can you move? Can you suggest where we can go? Oh anywhere else really.
The supply boat had parked a little further up, so in the end we swapped places. While it was a bit of a pain, we are actually in a slightly better place because we still had some fishing boats around us before, that leave before dawn and their waves rock the boat. Here we are all by our lonesome, but have peace and quiet.
We are only staying 3 days, so hopefully we can see this spot out without being booted out. And now, to start exploring Hagi.
Run to Paradise 