Posts Tagged “International”
Planning a trip around the world in a small boat is a major undertaking. One of the many issues to contend with is timing, including insurance restrictions for certain locations, optimal weather to travel, availability of fuel, visa limitations, travel distances and speed, and fixed arrival or departure dates. To help us plan our journey,…
As we prepared Dirona for our trip around the world, we knew that a few of our US-based systems wouldn’t be compatible with those used in other countries. Connecting to shore power was an obvious one. As with household plugs, marine shore power connections around the world differ from those used in North America. Another…
In the decade we spent travelling the world in Dirona, we typically returned to Seattle two-three times a year. And on every one of those trips (when international), we brought back a lot of boat parts and spares in checked luggage. The gear usually weighed at least 200 lbs (90kg) in aggregate, and sometimes as…
One of the things we really like about our more flexible power system is it allows us to run on shore power connections that deliver less than our peak power requirements. The shore power charges the house bank and 6 kW, 240V 60 Hz inverter supplies the peak capacity needed to run larger appliances such as the…
When we ordered Dirona back in 2009, we specified a propane barbecue and stove top, along with four 20-gallon (9 kg) aluminum propane tanks. Three of those tanks are stored in the cockpit locker underneath the barbecue, with a fourth in the aft port cockpit locker. We specified so many because filling propane tanks outside…
When we first started planning our boat trip around the world, we expected that cruising internationally with our cat Spitfire would limit the countries we could visit, because we did not want to subject him to lengthy quarantines. In reality, the French territory of New Caledonia was the only destination that we opted not to…
In May of this year, while cruising Arctic Norway, we ordered two new Accu-Steer HPU 200-24 steering pumps from Emerald Harbour Marine in Seattle after our Accu-Steer HPU212 steering pump developed serious bearing noise. This actually was our secondary pump that we’d switched to when the primary started leaking. Both pumps were still fully-operational, but…
Frequent readers of this blog know we have become very dependent upon satellite communications. In fact, we have three different satellite technologies on board Dirona, as described in Communications at Sea. Here, we complete a quick survey of the satellite systems on Dirona, our experience with them, and why we upgraded to the KVH V7-HTS system four months ago. Our…
When we bought our first boat back in 1999, a coastal cruiser that we named Dirona, the salesperson asked how many hours a year we expected to put on. “Fifty, maybe a hundred” we replied. We both worked in busy software jobs in Seattle and weren’t expecting to be able to boat that frequently. We…
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Before we left Seattle, a friend with a strong South African accent asked if we were worried about the parrots. “But they’re just little birds”, James replied. The “parrot threat”, as we’ve come to call it, is something we’re often asked about and definitely is a concern for us. It’s not had any impact on…
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We live in a connected world and yet, on a boat, connectivity remains a real challenge. Since I work full time while cruising often unpopulated parts of the world, connectivity is particularly challenging. Our approach is a hierarchy of options. Depending upon what is available, the top of the hierarchy is the highest bandwidth and,…
We’ve had a few questions about which countries we needed visas for, and how we were able to stay so long in New Zealand and particularly Australia. Here are the details on the visas we did apply for and how the overall process worked out for us. Of all the countries we’ve visited so far…
A little over a year ago, we worked our way south from Fanning Island, Kiribati towards Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas Islands. We were on a long, fuel-constrained run where we would cover 2,600 nm without fueling. For most of the trip, we were heading up-current and into 30 kts of wind on the bow….
Dirona has a KVH M7 satellite TV system installed. When we left Hawaii, we cancelled our satellite TV subscription with Dish Network and haven’t used the system since. We knew we had some work to do to get the system running outside the US, and it hadn’t been a priority. It also wasn’t even a…
We love Whangarei. It’s a beautiful town, we enjoy the restaurants, and we have the primo spot in the Town Basin Marina in front of Reva’s restaurant. Another advantage of Whangarei is you can get great service work done at reasonable prices. A broad selection of trades is available in Whangarei and that is a…
Last Friday we hauled out at Norsand Boatyard in Whangarei, New Zealand for bottom paint, zinc replacement and other minor work. This was the first time Dirona has been lifted on a rail-trailer, where the boat is pulled ashore while it rests on a track-mounted trailer. All other times we’ve used a TravelLift, that lifts…
We arrived in Baie de Taihoae on Nuku Hiva, in the Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia, 31 days and 2,550 nm after leaving Honolulu (trip log map). We had stopped at Palmyra Atoll and Fanning Islands for 11 days, for a total of 20 days at sea. We left Honolulu with 2,350 gallons of diesel…
Last weekend we arrived at the Waikiki Yacht Club in Honolulu after a week-long cruise along the Kona Coast and the leeward shores of Maui and Molokai. We had a great trip–lots of exploring, diving and relaxing. But as good as that cruise was, the last week at the Waikiki Yacht Club was even better….