Been head down over the past few months getting ICE sorted with many false starts, but happy to say that if all goes well we will leave Hong Kong for Subic in the Phillipines on the 19th June..Dave Nagle will be part of the crew so pleanty of local knowledge....
Finally left Zhuhai on April Fools Day...not sure where the Joke really was...visibility was down to 100 mtrs or less and the harbor Master would not let us go unless we signed an indemnity form? Got to Maccau in the rain and 30kts which turned the boat black then across to HK next day to a very friendly and helpfull Royal Hong Kong Yacht club, unfortunately in some of the heaviest polluted water and air you can imagine...plenty to sort ,fix and organise onboard but now we are looking good...have the first ketch rig motor sailor 462..the rigs are bullet proof so I am confident about our ability to sail in any wind strength/sea state..The four LEE sails were a VERY pleasant surprise...(I bought my first set from Cheong Lee in 1973 and this is my second set 35 years latter and now I am thinking about all the money I have wasted in between)....but have no idea how ICE will preform...our flopper system has an easy fish retrieval system and is very well engineered...copy of Nordhavn 46 sort of....the layout is really livable, flybridge unreall and well...the boat gets some interesting looks at the yacht club??? Ben Ben is also at the club in his 382 and we may travel together to Subic.
Once I get this short hop to Subic completed I will post pleanty of info here for those that are interested and I will try to master...or get Margie to master the Photo posting ...ICE is Quite different for a Duck....
I can finaly say she is getting some character and will come alive for the first time in a few days...the 16 trips to the yard over the past three years has been worth it...ICE is special and I really enjoyed the China experience.
I was plesantly surprised to have the boat POP UP a good inch and a half in the salt water...I knew it would, but not as much, so we are fully loaded at the moment with all types of cruising gear and toys and still have pleanty of empty lockers and room for 7000litres ( How much?) of fuel.
The final surprise...and there have been many ...was Margie finding a VERY deadly 3ft bright green snake on deck a couple of days ago...it had been hiding in the deck lockers we believe for the past two or three months?? and could have bitten us at any time, but fortunately not...I caught it and put it in a bag to give to the Hong Kong police together with a bit of paper work!...so know Margie is very observant when dipping into deck lockers??
Happy sailing.....
Lifetime sailing including 1990 BOC Singlehanded Around World Race...many Antarctic sailing expeditions....lived together alone in a box in Antarctica for a year.
