Xiamen is a popular destination with Chinese nationals, but less so with foreigners. Although we were there for three days, we didn't get a chance to see much of the city. We spent most of our time at the South Coast Marine boat yard as the final details were being completed of what would become our new boat. We had a great time, learned a lot, and really enjoyed ourselves.

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We knew the country was huge and populous, but were amazed at how big the cities were and how fast the pace was. We were told that growth had slowed, but the pace was still impressive. Major apartment complexes were under construction throughout every city, ships were being built and launched, traffic was crazy, and everyone was in a hurry. The scale is astonishing. We expected the smaller towns such as Yangshuo to have only a few hundred residents, but they had several hundred thousand. And the population of the bigger cities is in the millions. The largest, Chongquin, has 32 million residents, more than all of Canada combined (admittedly not a high bar J). Even Guilin, one of the smaller centers on our itinerary, has over a million residents.

We started the trip at the South Coast Marine yard in Xiamen, where we have a boat nearing completion. From there we travelled to Hong Kong, Guilin, Yangshuo, Chengdu, Chongquin, Yichang, Xian and Beijing (trip route). We travelled by plane, automobile, river boat, cruise ship, day train and overnight train. We love mountain-top views and travelling by water, and got in a fair bit of both throughout the trip. We sometimes were the only “Westerners” about—James in particular drew a fair bit of attention—but we always received a warm reception.

We organized our trip with Interlake China Tours. Instead of a pre-canned group tour, we selected our destinations and itinerary, and they booked the travel, accommodations, and local guides where needed. The prices were competitive with major group tours, but with a flexible itinerary and without the herded cattle feel. The pre-trip support was excellent, the hotels were wonderful, the guides were prompt, friendly and knowledgeable, and the whole transaction was professionally run. We’d definitely book with them again, and recommend the company without reservation.

We’ll be posting a more detailed trip summary over the next few weeks, but below are a few highlights.

  

 

Moving aboard raised a number of issues to resolve, including internet connectivity, laundry, mail and pump-out. For pump-out, we initially planned to use Bell Harbor Marina’s portable pump-out cart. You wheel the cart to the boat, pump out the boat into the cart, then wheel it back and pump the cart into the plumbed sewage pipe. The only problem was that the cart wasn’t working when we arrived, and it sounded like it might take a while before it was.

Bell Harbor does have a pump-out dock also. Our two 30-gallon holding tanks wouldn't last 2 weeks, however, and moving the boat to the pump-out dock eash week wasn’t very appealing. One solution would have been to just use the marina’s well-maintained bathrooms to reduce our holding tank requirements. But we would have found that almost more hassle than moving the boat to the pump-out dock.

We searched online for a solution and came across PumpMeOut.com—a mobile pump-out service. We loved their website—in describing the various options for dealing with a full holding tank, one was “Stop at the pumpout station. (Everyone could use more practice docking.)” They work between Tacoma and Point Roberts, including the San Juan Islands, and will service boats in their slip or on the water. The prices looked great, and they had a live-aboard plan of unlimited pumpouts for $65/mo. They came out that day and have been servicing our boat ever since. The service has been professional, reliable and hassle-free. And we like their creativity and approach. After their first regular visit, we found a small gift of environmental toilet paper thanking us for their business.

The portable pump-out at Bell Harbor has long since been operational, but we’re much happier coming home to find the little removable tag on our railing announcing “I got pumped!”.

The pilot house and the settee are taking shape as well. We've not made many change there.

Normally the guest stateroom has open shelves above the desk. We've instead specified cabinets with locker doors to give us more enclosed storage space. We widened the desk slightly to make up for some of the space lost to the cabinets. And we widened the guest stateroom bed to give more room at the foot of the bed.

The engine is in place under a tarp, with the fuel tanks on either side, but not much else has been installed in either the engine room or the lazarette. The lazaratte has a ton of space, but we'll soon have it and the engine room stuffed with equipment. Jeremy Henderson, our project manager at Nordhavn, jokes that we're trying to sink the boat.