Subic Bay Yacht Club , Philippines ... Here i am , sitting down in the pilot house , thinking about those months spent in China . All the people i met , all the things i've been through ... and suddenly I'm in another country , It's like starting all over again . I'm going to have to understand how it works out here , make new friends ... It's a bit overwhelming . I feel quite lost ! On top of that , my friends "from China" left this morning , going back to their own adventures . I've been feeling very melancholic the whole day , i will miss those guys . I've been so lucky to meet such great people . I feel blessed that our paths crossed . I was looking to meet new faces and up to now this lifestyle has been great for that . So this is for the guys i've met during this part of the trip , priceless encounters with amazingly nice and helpful people . I have had Family members or long time friends in Paris who never did even one percent of what those guys did for me . But these people have all been so helpful and so supportive of my trip that I'm still wondering if all this was not a dream !!! I'll remember this for the rest of my life . It finally seems to me that true relationships are possible !!!
Thanks to you guys , i'll always remember you .



"Dave"

Dave is a retired Police officer from California . He's been working on many different jobs during his career : undercover agent , coast guard diver and more . After spending all his life witnessing all kind of crazy things , he finally decided he had enough and now lives on his boat with his wife Dorothy . I met him a month ago when he returned to Hong Kong after spending a year here in the Philippines . Great guy , great stories and now a great friend ! I had tears in my eyes when he finally left this morning , but i know i'll see him again one day , it cannot end like this .




"Andrew"

Andrew Chan was building his boat , Lady Dragon , at the same time as mine . He's from Singapore and is a lawyer in Hong Kong . I'm still not sure if this guy really exists . I got so much help and support from him that it's hard to believe he's real . He's got it all : Great Job , Good Looks , Great family and he managed to stay a really accessible person , always ready to help . And a great sense of humor on top of that . We'll surely meet again sometime , maybe i'll go with him to Malaysia next fall .



"Don and ICE"

Don and Margie McIntyre (sorry Margie , i couldn't take a picture of you , weather was really bad during the time our paths crossed) are professional "adventurers" . They've been leaving a dream life , always doing crazy stuff ranging from treasure hunting to racing rally cars to spending a year in Antarctica on their own in a 3m by 3m shack , Polar Bears and Penguins being their only neighbors . They've become an inspiration for me as it seems they've managed to never stop dreaming . And on top of that they're the nicest people out there , always ready to help . The cutest thing about those guys is that they call each other "Ted" , as in Teddy Bear . I hope i'll be able to live my life the way they live theirs . Thanks to both of you for all the stuff you gave me and for helping me survive the typhoon by planning the weather for me . I will always be here for you if you need me .

Love to all of you guys , i miss all of you so much right now ...
Big Kisses
Ben Ben

"Cruising in Causeway Bay"

This is Karta and his Mom . This guy leaves on an old wooden junk at the Marina . He designs clothes and accessories for upscale bicycle fanatics . Two nights ago they took me out to dinner at their local Sikh Temple . How did i end up eating Sikh food in Hong Kong ? Well it's all about meeting the right people i suppose , which is what happened to me all week long .
The past few days have been quite hectic , running around Hong Kong to buy stuff for the boat . I've been looking for so much things , ranging from Bed Sheets to Pipe wrenches that i sometimes get dizzy just looking at the list i've made! So i was on my way back to the boat the other day when i bumped into two Funky looking englishmen on the Yacht Club's San-Pan: Dan and Omar are multimedia geniuses and they were flying back to England that night . Feeling a great urge to be talking about something else than boats and oil filters , I invited them to share with me their last Hong Kong sunset . Many laughs and a few beers later i heard about this Karta dude for the first time . Apparently they'd been friends for a long time and had just spent three weeks at his factory in Shenzen to set up his new internet site . Since they'd been back , they were leaving aboard his boat . The two of them strongly suggested i should hook up with him while i was here . I gave my email to my newfound friends and then they finally left for the airport .
The next day i was entertaining a couple of French friends onboard . I'd met Mathieu and Sam two months ago when i first arrived . At that time they'd taken me to the Hong Kong Sevens (seven people/seven minutes games of rugby played every year in H.K) . Sam brought some friends visiting from France and a bottle of Pastis !!! It was a real French "Apero" and once again i made new friends , French this time !!! And just before going out for dinner I finally had my first glimpse of the elusive Karta : As he was passing by in his tender , he stopped by my boat and "rendez-vous" was taken for lunch the next day . I was finally going to meet the only guy around this Club who's about the same age as me !!! The evening ended having to steal a boat to get back to my bed : The San-Pan service stops around midnight and being out with French people it was much later than that when i got back to the marina ... Chance was with me again as i found an old dinghy on the dock and i finally managed to paddle back safely (and dry) to my Home .
Lunch the next day was great . Overlooking the bay on a sunny afternoon , Karta and I were enjoying our outdoor table at the club , unshaved amongst the Cigar smoking elite of the Royal Yacht Club of Hong Kong . He was born in Oregon and was still a child when his Mom and dad converted to the Sikh religion . They sent their kids to a Sikh boarding school in India for ten years and the stories he tells about his time out there are hilarious . He could be a character from a Wes Anderson movie . I've got to instantly like the man and hanged out quite a bit with him the last few days . He went through a really bad motorcycle accident doing the Gumball a few years ago and he'll be going in for his nineteenth surgery tomorrow . his mom was in town for the surgery so we met the next day . She's a great person , always laughing and happy to be living : The real Hippie Mom !!! The two make a great team . Once again i feel really lucky to have met them , just listening to their stories makes me want to travel more !!! So when they invited me to follow them to the temple , i just couldn't refuse this unexpected trip .
So that's how i ended up wearing a turban and eating free food sitting on the bare floor of a Sikh Temple in Hong Kong . This city has been all i was expecting , and even more . I met many new friends from all around the world , had my share of new experiences and even got some work done for the boat's preparation .
This is just the beginning , I think i'm on the right path .

Ben Ben

"Don't Mess With Mr. Wen"

This is Xiao Wen , he's one of the top worker here . I think plumbing is his main trade , but since he's the only one who seems to be taking decisions around here , he's always assigned to all kind of jobs . When i find something wrong on the boat , Xiao Wen is the guy who's usually going to fix it . When i get tired of having all the workers hiding in the boat (they like the A/C in here ...) , he's the one who's going to let them know this is my home now and that they've got to move on to other things . When we're moving boats to another location , he's always onboard too . He's really a cool guy , with a good sense of humor and he can be trusted to take care of things . He's been quite helpful in the past few days , the weather and the lack of progress almost made me loose faith !!! But things are clearing up now , well just enough that i find the strengh to write a few lines here .
Oops , it's lunchtime now , best part of the day !!! See you soon
Ben Ben

Only a few people here speak english , and one of them is Henry . Mr. Henry Zheng is about my age , is single and has a young daughter . Apart from being the project manager of the yard , is a movie expert . I started talking to him about movies and suddenly found out that this guy had seen them all . He knows all the chinese directors , loves hollywood flicks and cannot be beaten when you try bluff him about Italian movies (Yes Henry , "La dolce vita" is a great movie) . He's the nicest person you could meet around here and is always helpful .
He asked me to post a picture of himself so he could find a French girlfriend . So girls , send your pictures and love letters to me and i'll transmit ! If you ask me , i think someone should come invest some money here with him and build a Movie Studio .
Henry , I hope you'll get to live your dreams .
a big thanks all of you for your support
Ben Ben
Lost in China

"Brian onboard his boat , "TRAVELLER" "

Got to get away from the yard for a few hours today . I went on a little boat trip on the river with Brian , a canadian citizen who owns the same boat as mine . Brian's been sailing all his life , has more than 250 000 miles logged as a skipper including a cool "around the world" trip . We took the habit of enjoying the sunset together with a cold "Haizu" (the local beer) or a shot of some great Philippino Rhum he brought back from his last trip . We like to call this time of the day "Happy Hour" :)
Brian's been giving me tons of advice and actually agreed to come help me take my boat down from the Philippines to Bali at the end of June . I'm going to learn a lot with him on this trip and after this leg of the journey i hope i'll be able to handle the boat on my own . I guess that's what the cruising life' s about : unplanned encounters leading to unexpected friendships .
Cheers
Ben

p.s : while we were leaving , i had the chance to snap this picture of my boat from the water . It's all dirty but i still love it !

"Kalakuta at the Yard in Zhuhai"

"The Great Mr. Gong"

Today was a great day . We had an appointment with the Chinese Classification Society , the guys who' re going to check the work done one your boat decide if it is ready to go out in the ocean ... They came around ten this morning , did all kinds of measurements and finally took the boat for a test on the river . Everything went well and it's mostly due to one person : Mr. Gong .
Mr. Gong comes from rural china , he is happily married and has two children . He has an amazing voice and he's always singing beautiful chinese love songs while working . He was installing karaoke systems before coming to work as an electrician for the boatyard , and a few years later he is now , to my opinion , the best worker around . He's not using a computer , draws everything by hand and remembers all that stuff without even taking notes . I owe him everything because if he hadn't been here to help me , i'd still be waiting for who knows what !!!
So now that we have passed this test , the yard has one month to release the boat and get it out of chinese waters . This means i'll be out of here in a month MAX !!! Believe me , after 2 and a half year it feels quite good :) On top of that , Mr. Gong managed to finish installing the stereo system onboard this afternoon so i was able to listen to some music with him in my new floating home , and that's another thing that made this a great day . I'll really miss this guy when i'll be gone .
All hail the great Mr. Gong !


"Ben Ben & Mr. Gong cruising onboard Kalakuta"

Hi all,
first post on Blogatrip . Yesterday was a great day , the first "sea trial" of my boat "Kalakuta" . It took almost three years to get to this point ( in comparison , the Queen Mary was finished in 18 month ) but it was worth it !!!
Everything went well , we didn't sink , the engine didn't catch fire and the only thing that wasn't working , the GPS , is a piece of equipment made in England ... Not the Chinese's fault :)
There's plenty left to do but I'm confident now that i should be on my way soon . Having a boat built in china was probably the best decision i ever took , i could never afford to do that in Europe : in fact , none of the shipyards i visited i France took me seriously !!! IDIOTS !
Well that's it for now , today is a chinese Holiday , The Ching Ming Festival , the day of the dead . Everyone is going to the cemetery to sweep their ancestor's graves so nobody's working at the yard . I'm off to do a bit of shopping , need to find a flat screen t.v for the master bedroom . Hard Life :)
cheers
ben

p.s : had another great experience yesterday after the testing : i cut my finger on a super rusty piece of metal so the co-owner of the yard , Stella (her "american" name) drove me to the local hospital here in Zhuhai to get a shot for Tetanus (in french ...) . Well , i had the pleasure to meet a young doctor by the name of Liang Mei , quite cute and super nice . Everybody was laughing in the emergency room while she gave me her phone number , she wants to come visit the yard and the boat ... The adventure's already started .