| D & D Nagle aboard MV DavidEllis

D & D Nagle aboard MV DavidEllis

02/23/2008, Subic

L>R Jarmo the giant Finn, David Fritsch and Rick ready to depart Subic aboard Kwakatu

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Jim K.

02/20/2008

20 Feb, Jim arrives at Clark (formerly AFB), greeted by Rick (Dick Towel, Hero-at-Large) and Mike

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Almost Underway

30kts ENE
02/19/2008, Subic Bay

Lots of activity this past week. Rick Towle, an old friend from Sheriff's Dispatch and an original Banzai Bozo kayaker, flew into Manila to join the crew on Kwakatu. Then, a couple days later, Jim Kreofsky, the Big Bozo himself, flew into Angeles (the former Clark AFB). Jim found out that Rick was coming down, and just couldn't stand it I guess. If we had brother John here, the Bozo reunion would be pretty much complete.

Current plans are for DavidEllis and Kwakatu to leave Subic in company, travel south and east, some 400 miles, down through the Philippine Islands to Surigao Strait (approximately 10N by 126E), just south of Leyte Gulf, where with a favorable forecast, we will venture out into the Pacific for the run down to Palau. That area (Leyte & Surigao is full of WWII Naval history, as is our immediate area: the road from Subic up to Clark includes several miles of the route of the Bataan Death March and as we leave Subic going south we will cruise past Corrigedor and Cavite (a former US sub base in Manila Bay which was attacked simultaneously with Pearl Harbor).

In the meantime we've been working on many projects to get the boat ready:

we opened, inspected and re-sealed the aft fuel tank, so that we could move fuel to it (to balance the boat fore/aft, and because both K and DoraMac had leakage issues with this tank

in doing so we found there's been a small ongoing leak from the packing gland at the rudder post because the dripless seal was not properly installed (identical problem we found on the drive shaft last year, but I did not know or remember that the rudder post had the same setup). we did some work on that, but it wasn't until late yesterday that I found some parts I hope will finish the job.

The aft tank and the rudder assembly all live under the berth in the aft cabin -- where Dorothy and I sleep, so each step of this process required hauling off bedding and mattress, and removing all the stuff stored under there.

we've had issues with our fuel transfer pump since we left the builder, so I took it apart and found a pea-sized piece of caulking blocking the pump outlet and that made all the difference.

Comments [3]

02/25/2008 | John Nagle

Hello everyone, DavidEllis is again underway. We left Subic Bay yesterday Saturday 23Feb about 1130am, arriving at Hamilo Cove (just south of the entrance to Manila Bay) to anchor for the night shortly after sunset. Kwakatu was waiting for us at Hamilo, having gotten underway from Subic the day before.

Sunday 24Feb 0200 hours both boats upped anchor and picked our way out, guided by moonlight (and radar, electronic chart, and depth sounder), turning southbound, passing Fortune Island at the SW corner of Luzon Island, to go eastbound along the north edge of the Verde Island Passage.

Writing this at 0800 hours Sunday; we plan to anchor for the night at the NW corner of Marinduque Island. If we've planned this right we should make it to the anchorage before dark.

DE running well; a couple of issues, but at this point we're all go for the run SE thru the Philippine Islands, then SE through the Pacific to Palau.

02/26/2008 | John Nagle

under way 4
Hello All,

Wednesday morning 28Feb... some exciting moments yesterday as we traveled down the Masbate Pass and on out into the Samar Sea: first I should mention the ubiquitous fishing bancas ever since we left Hong Kong -- inshore, offshore, daylight, midnight, calm or sloppy seas -- we're always concerned about running one down, even at our slow speed. Frequently they will seem to go out of the way to race across the bow of the boat. A couple of weeks ago, we had a mid-sized banca laying a net, deliberately run across our bow which we were fortunately able to avoid. Yesterday we came upon a couple of single bancas and on passing them realized we were into a ring of small floats covering maybe 100 yards -- most likely a net. There had been no signal from the bancas as we cruised into it. I did manage to bring the DE to an emergency stop and apparantly avoided catching the net in our running gear, but did slam the rudder against the stop on one side when we suddenl

02/26/2008 | john Nagle

underway #3
Hello all, it is now Tues morning, 26Feb 0900.

Yesterday was a beautiful cruise from Mariduque to an anchorage at Alimango Bay on Burias Island; all this in the Sibuyan Sea, central Philippine Islands. Just before making the anchorage, we had a rain cell for about half an hour -- just enough to wash off the salt, and most of the mud brought up by previous anchorages. We got into Alimango about 1500hrs; tried dealing with some of the accumulated boat chores with limited success; both boat crews ate together, conferenced on route, then headed for bed with the agreement we were underway at 0400 today.

Well I wa awakened from a deep sleep by the sound of a repeated whistle, and the awareness of engine noises that sounded like DavidEllis'. It was Kwakatu, anchor up, nav lights on, circling us and trying to awaken us. Had we overslept? No, it was 0200 and Kwakatu's captain had forgotten our 0400 agreement. Somehow, the barely awake crew of DE managed to get our e

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