It takes some guts to say that you are going to sail from the Philippines to the Solomon Islands in a Polynesian sailing canoe, but actually doing it requires something completely different.. It requires faith! Faith and confirmation often goes hand in hand if you are walking in the right direction, and I have seen […]
The dreaded check in
Out of everything in our whole voyage, the check-in process to Indonesia was the part I dreaded most. I had read early on that Indonesian bureaucracy was something that should be respected (if not feared). Sailors had told many tales of bad clashes with immigration and customs. In that process I learnt two vital things: […]
Sailing to Indonesia
It all happened so fast! Suddenly we are ready to set sail towards Indonesia. The engine is working and we have done our provisions. We have prepared for this moment, but at the same time, it is a bit unreal to be setting off. Are we ready? Will we make it? As a crew, we […]
Klare for avreise!
Det har vært travelt siden vi ankom Filippinene og nå er vi endelig klare til avreise mot Indonesia og Salomonøyene. Vi seiler snart heim! Å komme til dette punktet har ikkje vore lett. Vi har hatt plenty av utfordringer underveis og det har vore tider der eg har tvilt på om vi kommer oss avgårde […]
Moving in faith
We are stuck without a working engine for the Vaka Hop’e. We just launched our boat, and found that the engine we believed was fixed is now completely dead. I believed I had discovered the culprit to our problems in a broken CDI unit, but our mechanic doubted that. Either we wait for the mechanic […]
Will we ever leave?
After a month of battling termite-damaged bulkheads and a cranky engine, we have finally launched the boat and are floating. But on the very first test sail, the engine dies completely and we are drifting helplessly out to sea. There have been so many setbacks and disappointments, that we had plenty of reason to give […]
Launching our boat
We are finally ready to do the last push to launch the boat! Exactly one month after arriving in the Philippines, the Vaka Hop’e is ready to be pushed into the water. We met a few setbacks and challenges in coming here, but in the end, we are ready just in time for all the […]
The missing pieces
Getting the Vaka Hop’e to the Solomon Islands required a lot of preparations. Granted, I had already sailed her 500 miles in the Philippines last year, and we have most of the things we need to live onboard. But this time we would be crossing borders and crossing oceans, and that required a different kind […]
Snart klare for sjøsetting!
Vi har vært på Filippinene i litt over 3 uker og vi er veldig nære ved å sjøsette Vaka Hop’e! Vi har overkomt mange utfordringer og problemer, blandt annet bygd et nytt skott for eine skroget, men ett problem gjenstår og vi kan ikkje sjøsette før dette er løyst: Motoren virker ikkje. Men først, et […]
Two weeks of boat work
The unveiling of the Vaka Hop’e went better than feared. Other than it being a little dirty and having small ecosystems growing in some places, it looked great! I was optimistic that we would have few problems in preparation for launching. Before leaving the boat I had written a little list of things to fix […]