Navigating Tokyo’s crowded subway has posed no problem for three northern Alberta sailors travelling around the world.
“It’s notoriously exaggerated,” Ben Gray said after taking the subway through Tokyo to see the sites.
Gray said the subway isn’t as busy or as crowded as it is made out to be, even during rush hour. Traffic in Tokyo was more difficult to navigate 45 years ago when he first visited Japan.
Sailing into the harbour on their 57-foot trawler called the Idlewild was another story.
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“It’s exceedingly busy,” Gray said.
With less than a kilo-metre of visibility because of haze, Gray and his sons, Kevin and Brad, had to be on watch for freighters, fishing boats and pleasure boats sailing in and out of harbour.
“There are boats going in every direction.”
Tokyo’s harbour is so busy that when the Grays left the quiet Japanese island of Chichi Jima, a coast guard officer suggested they bypass Tokyo for an easier route, suggesting it would take a month to figure out the harbour rules and water lanes.
“We aren’t trying to take the easy route around the world,” Gray wrote in an e-mail.
The busyness and uniqueness of Japan is the attraction, he added during a telephone interview from Tokyo.
“It’s a fantastically interesting place.”
The crew plans to leave Tokyo May 27, but before they leave they plan to watch sumo wrestling, visit the emperor’s gardens, shop, look around and see a few more museums. They expect to arrive in Kushiro on Japan’s north coast by June 5 and then head northeast to Alaska.
The Grays left Dunvegan, Alta., on May 24 of last year, sailing north to the Arctic Ocean on the Peace River and other northern rivers and lakes. They then travelled west to the Bering Strait before turning around and heading east across the Arctic to the Atlantic Ocean.
They expect to cross their starting point in the Bering Strait in June, 11 months after getting there last year.
This will complete their circumnavigation of the globe and they will then spend the summer sailing to Vancouver.
Throughout the journey the crew has managed to avoid disaster. They were almost frozen into Arctic ice, avoided cyclones by hours, slipped past suspected pirates near Indonesia and sailed long stretches of open ocean with no major problems.
“We have an angel looking over our shoulder all the time,” Gray said.
At each port they are met by friendly visitors interested in their round the world trip. The visitors bring the Grays home for meals, offer to paint their boat for free or loan them vehicles.
“They do want to share it in some way,” Gray said.
“We’re incredibly impressed with the people we meet.”
