Christmas Eve Sailing

Cap'n J and Kenny Yergler sport Santa hats off the coast of Cape Zanpa in Okinawa on Christmas Eve.

EAST CHINA SEA (12/24/2008) I spent Christmas Eve off the coast of Okinawa skippering, Scarlette, my 24-sailboat with a coworker/deckhand/helmsman Kenny Yergler. Man, can my life get any worse?

Our trip went almost as planned. Originally scheduled for Monday (Dec. 22), the Christmas Eve trip was our last window of the year to sail as I'm headed off on family vacation on Sunday Dec. 28 to Tokyo for New Year's celebrations. Monday's weather was rife with wind. So, we agreed to go on Wednesday -- Christmas Eve.

Helmsman Kenny Yergler looks almost as if he's single-handing Scarlette as we headed north up the west coast of Okinawa

We met at the Kadena Marina at 8 a.m. got Scarlette, a J/24 sailboat made in 1985, ready to launch. Although the skies were pretty much overcast we both splashed a little sunscreen on just in case. My nose -- like Rudolph -- was a little red later on so putting sunscreen on was a good idea. We headed out of Kadena Marina at 8:44 a.m.

High tide this morning was at 6:01 a.m. and we discussed a little how the low tide -- scheduled for 11:12 a.m. -- was going to possibly affect our ability to get close to the cliffs at Cape Zanpa and Maeda Point.

As we motored out of Kadena Marina we had very little wind as we hoisted sails and headed north up the west coast of Okinawa on the South China Sea. We kept the Yamaha 5 horsepower purring as we approached a set of stationary fishing nets off the coast of Torii Beach.

This is a stationary hazard located off the beach about 300-400 yards. The fisherman who uses the nets had his boat out tending to the nets and we slowly made way toward him using him as a navigation aid on how to avoid his nets.

Kenny Yergler steers Scarlette toward the southend of some fishing nets off the coast of Torii Beach as Cap'n J stands watch at the bow with camera in hand.

The temperature of the air was 70 degrees Farenheit. I tied a thermometer to a string and dropped it in the water. I didn't put a weight on it so it just skimmed across the water. When I pulled the thermometer out of the water it read 72 degrees Farenheit.

Anyone still wondering why, I've decided to retire and live in Okinawa? Especially if you're reading this and freezing your rear-end off. Sorry couldn't help but put that out there.

Next time I'll need to put a weight on the thermometer as I'm interested in keeping track of the water temperature on our voyages also. No real reason it'll just give the blog more narrative.

Torii Beach -- accessible only to people connected to the U.S. Department of Defense -- is one of my favorite beaches in Okinawa. Not because there's throngs of bikini-clad girls. In fact hardly anyone is ever there. That's probably why I like it. It's somewhat secluded but has nice shower facilities, beer on tap, etc.

After rounding the nets and motor sailing, the wind started kicking up so we propped the motor and headed north on wind power alone.

Helmsman Kenny Yergler leans as Scarlette heels (leans in non-sailor speak) with the wind as we head around Cape Zanpa.

We made decent time to Cape Zanpa although the Garmin GPS I have said we got there at 11:05 a.m. Just about two hours and twenty minutes of boating time. This was right around low tide but the tide didn't seem to affect our ability to get close to the cliffs at all. There was very little wave action. The lack of waves was key as a friend of mine had said be careful of the waves around there.