Phillipines 2009 Seatrial

Next day, I put back display and computer box and reconnected the satellites. Because they provided me a new SeaTalk cable, I opened the floors and changed it. Double checked he runs free. I also installed the ferrites. Then I made the dock setting. So far so good. As we were ready to go for the seatrial, a strong NE built up in the bay and we delayed it for the next day.

Seatrial went well, flat sea, no wind like it is recommended in the RTFM (Read the Fucking Manual). We know that it works for at least one hour. See when we are at sea.

Wednesday we cleared out and there was no mention about compliments, neither on the custom nor the immigration side, maybe they shared the quarantine fee.
We toped up water and fuel, did the last provisioning. At the fresh market, Pui was taking time choosing the vegetables. It’s important; it helps to keep them as long as possible on board.
Coming back to the yacht she puts everything at his place and starts to shout. It is really not in her habits. I was asking myself what the hell is wrong.
Half of the eggplants were rotten. That means as we were busy choosing our stuff, the lady at the shelf was replacing the good ones by rotten ones in the plastic bag, we have no doubt about that.

We tell you something; never stay too long at one place, because all the crap comes up. Definitely Davao is huge rip off & Co place. There is no one day that you don’t get cheated. It’s disgusting.

Tomorrow we leave, and let’s sail to Kavien, New Ireland Papua New Guinea.

Philipines 2009 Results, 3 weeks later!

On the Pilipino side we had to go to immigration to apply for extension that cost us PHP 6060.00 again. This is official fees for extension from day 19 to 59. The first 19 days are supposed to be free of charges.

On the Australian side, Raymarine after a 10 hour test on the bench in auto mode came to the conclusion that nothing is wrong with the system. By the time I was asking for more details, they already sent the stuff back. They supplied SeaTalk cables, spares fuses (the 2A one are not available in Davao). Ferrites were added on my request.

I could pick up the shipment Friday 15 of May at DHL representative in Davao.

Because the shipment was sent by Fedex with the right papers and came back by DHL, some were on the line the CI got lost and I had to pay duty. I sent the display with his cover and got it back without.

Now I’m dealing with something that is not reliable. Heading to destinations that does not have plethora of Raymarine service dealers I don’t understand that they didn’t send me a new one.
Maybe because 95% of their market deals with moored yachts in marinas having an average outgoing of 3 days per year, and plenty of service dealers a stone throw away from the pontoon.They don’t take a shit about blue cruisers. My entire fault, I chose the wrong product.

Philippines 2009 Organising repairs

On the way back I contacted Westmarine to mention the problem. They answered me that talking to their technician I have to contact Raymarine. I asked for an email address they gave me.

As soon we were in Cell phone range I sent an email and as it was weekend I only got an answer from Raymarine UK Monday morning inviting me to contact Raymarine Asia. They gave me two contact numbers, one in Singapore, the other in Australia.

Singapore email address is: TG.Khoo@raymarine.com
Australia email address is: Tom.Green@raymarine.com

I decided to go for Singapore remembering that it went very fast when I sent my wind unit.
The technician from Singapore was useless, he wanted me to make custom connections with cables I didn’t have on board to measure voltages drops and see what happens.

My answer was strait, and I told them there is no way that I touch a product under warranty. He can do it in his lab if he wants, but not me on the yacht.
If the product would have been out of warranty yes no problems, and his suggestion was smart.
I asked them to give me an address where to send the unit.
I got answered to send the autopilot to Australia.
It was Thursday morning and quickly we posted the display and computer box via Fedex this time.

We also had to fill a paper called Certificate of Identification to have the product re entering the Philippines duty free (DHL was sending us to a lawyer for this point).
Every thing went smooth apart the fact that next day was Labour Day and then weekend. We got told that it will take 4 working days. Following the tracking number it is expected to arrive May 6th.

Wait and see. . .

Philippines 2009 On the way to PNG

We cleared out April 16 and left Davao Tuesday 21 waiting for good winds. We had a good start, motored in the gulf of Davao to come out of thermal winds blowing the wrong way.
Passing cape St Augustin we encountered a strong counter current of 2 knots for 2 hours. Then we had comfortable winds from NNE 10 knots, and little counter current. Every thing is doing well on board Pui getting her sea legs.










Third day 2 o’clock in the morning, my 7 month old brand new autopilot failed (Raymarine not to mention the brand). The fuse from the seatalk blows. I check the system as requested in the RTFM and find nothing wrong. 2 blown fuses later we had to make the decision to steer the next 1200 NM to PNG to organise repair or come back 160 NM. Guess what we decided?

We motored back and next night went thru thunderstorms with no damage. Every thing was shut off and unplugged. One time is enough.

Friday 24th at 4 o’clock in the afternoon I call Davao Pilot station on CH16 to give an ETA at Sta Ana Warf for 0700 PM, They organise the officials. I asked them to do it for Saturday morning.


Landfall

Saturday morning nothing happens. I send a text message to the custom and immigration officers who cleared us in the first time explaining that we are back because of technical problems. I got an answer from both, the first one telling me he will meet me the same day in the afternoon, and the second one to ask me how long will be my stay, I answered one week I guess.
Saturday evening a party was going on the Warf and we are still not cleared in.
Sunday morning 26th at 9 o’clock I call Pilot station again to inform them that we are anchored at Sta Ana Warf waiting for clearance. Nothing happened.

Monday morning I contact custom by phone. In the Philippines text message are number one.
Finally after many TM exchanges with our favourite custom officer Mr Ebert Montero, he send us the quarantine officer because we left Philippines territory (of course you can catch a lot of diseases out at sea). He boarded us Monday 27th at 16h00. It was not the same than the first one.
For the fees he asked me how much I was charged first time. ??? I answered I must look in my papers and I have no cash on board. He answered me, you will be here for a wile and we will meet at Sta Ana Warf. You pay me then. I came to the conclusion that even with a recipe it’s not sure that this fee is official.

Then I TM custom again and finally got permission to make landfall. Later I gave him the clearance paper and it was no mention about compliment.Being a polite boy, one week later, I contact immigration again to clear out our arrival. Finally a lady officer (the boss of the one who cleared us in the first time) came at the Warf and stamped us in and told us that we may have to pay something at the office (what? Compliment I said for myself, of course).