After 22,000 miles, Mystic Moon cruises to Japan and needs help from Google Translator

Mystic Moon © Peter Janssen

As even the most experienced long-range cruisers can attest, when you're in foreign ports it helps to have a sense of humor, a lot of patience, and a handy Google Translator. At least that's been the case for John and Kathy Youngblood on their 2004 Selene 53 Mystic Moon during their stay at Marinoa Marina in Fukuoka, Japan. But to start at the beginning...

In 2003, the Youngbloods went to the Seattle boat show with the idea that they wanted to cruise around the world. They ran into Capt. Brian Calvert on his Selene 48 Further. As he wrote, "The Youngbloods had not owned a boat nor had much experience, but they had dreams, big dreams, of taking a trawler to the far reaches of the globe." They signed an order for a new Selene 53. When it arrived in Seattle, Calvert gave the Youngbloods docking lessons, took them on short trips, then longer trips, and eventually sent them on their way. And it's been a long way indeed.

So far, the Youngbloods have cruised 22,000 nm – Alaska, Mexico, Colombia, the Caribbean, the South Pacific, Malaysia. At one point they ran into Calvert on Further in the Philippines, before heading up to Japan.

And, according to the Youngblood's blog, mysticmoonvoyages.com, that's when the fun began. First off, Japanese marinas, and Japanese boaters, don't use VHFs, so communications in any language were difficult. They tied up – and realized the dock had only 100 volts of power, although they had emailed the marina saying they needed 220. They had to move to a very small, crowded dock, in a 20-knot crosswind, where they tied up after running over buoy. It two hours, often with the help Google Translator, to get the shore power to work.

At that point, Youngblood said all he wanted was to crack open a beer, but they'd prearranged for a mechanic to change the toilet discharge hose and check the load their batteries. He showed up but said he couldn't order a new hose for two days because it was the Japanese weekend, but he did inspect the batteries and declared that all four were bad (although Youngblood thought something had been lost in translation). He never did get the beer.

His subsequent explanations of repairing the discharge hose and the anti-siphon U joint, which took only three days once the mechanic showed up again, will ring true – and all too familiar – to any boat owner.

The Youngbloods now will cruise north, making a few more stops in Japan before starting to head home via Sitka, Alaska. But they won't stop there. "We love our boat, and plan to keep her and continue cruising indefinitely," they said. Read more: www.mysticmoonvoyages.com

This article has been provided by the courtesy of the Cruising Odyssey.