The Quiet Ripple Defines The Pond

When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the creator

Posted on June 24, 2013 by spikekalashnikov

So yesterday evening I row the boat out to the reef for to go fishing as the sun goes down. I tie up to a convenient buoy that I believe has been left by coral study people.

Convenient

I gently fish in one Okinawan style. This means filling a little wire basket with tiny dead shrimp that you can buy at any corner shop. Once underwater the shrimp in the basket thing are released by jigging on the line and float downwards. Float downwards? Anyway below the little basket is a string of lures that look like shrimp. Fish in feeding frenzy bite these and are busted.

It is fun and leisurely. It is still 30 degrees. I catch 4 fish, all of which I throw back.

The sun goes down with usual splendour.

Kenneth McKellar

In the sunset of life

There is something about being in a boat as the sun goes down when suddenly there is an unmistakable tugging on the line that still thrills me, Doctor.

Thank you

I cast my eyes towards the land to see a huge spaceship moon creeping over the hill.

Hello

I row back in er in the moonlight. Will a 2hp chinese outboard spoil the silent moments?

Very tranquil

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged fishing, Moon, sunset, tranquility | 3 Comments

Of Lepidoptera and Arachnids

Posted on June 24, 2013 by spikekalashnikov

The walk from my deck to the beach through a couple of meters of undergrowth reveals this.

Big. Do not walk into these guys’ web especially nose first.

Lepidoptera in love. Notice different markings of male and female.

Butterflies are everywhere

A black and white one

I wish I could find a butterfly book. The ones you see are of course only those who agree to pose. There are loads more that are more camera-shy. One resembles a big sheet of tissue paper that has been launched into the wind.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged arachnids, butterfly, lepidoptera, spider | Leave a comment

There Will Be Blood

Posted on June 23, 2013 by spikekalashnikov

Off I go again and this time I turn on the fuel. Sure enough after some coaxing the Black Knight starts.

Can you see the smoke and cooling water?

Summer is here and I have a boat

However it is no good, there is no real power and he suddenly stops just as before. Mene mene Black Knight teckel upharsin. Black Knight you have been weighed in the balance and found wanting. You are not the solution to my engine dilemma.

However a solution has, I hope, been found. I go to eBay and find a delightful little 2hp Chinese motor. After a few emails it appears to be on its way to Okinawa.

Check out the very convincing video.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/140706157234?item=140706157234&viewitem=&sspagename=ADME:X:RTQ:MOTORS:1123&vxp=mtr

Seems to have the necessary bits

I somehow feel the Japanese customs might mess this up but no harm in trying.

Blood. I watch the Lions beat Australia. Very lucky as the Australians would have won convincingly had they had a kicker.

Notice the red color

At half time I slice the top off another finger with my deadly Japanese vegetable slicer.

These things are absolutely deadly

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged blood, boat, British Lions, outboard, summer | 4 Comments

More Bugs

Posted on June 22, 2013 by spikekalashnikov

I stand up from my desk to head off to Bedfordshire. There is the most incredible screeching noise and a huge bug flies up from the floor and crashes into my face. It then takes off to the kitchen wall and stays there.

It is a huge cicada, about 5 cms long.

Later

Anyway she seems to have gone this morning. What a great bug! Her alarm shriek is heart-stopping.

A common outboard motor bug is fuel starvation as I have explained in a previous post. I get up early on this beautiful Saturday. I bring the boat around from Deadman’s Cove, mount the Black Knight and row out into the er blue lagoon. I worked most of last Sunday cleaning gunge and detritus out the fuel system and now is my chance to see if it has made any difference. I pull the cord , nothing. I fiddle with different choke, throttle combinations but there is no sign of life from the Black Knight. Oh dear, but with outboard motors t’was ever thus. I row back in and take out the plug which looks just fine. It is then I spy the gas on /off switch, which is in the off position.

Who cares that I wasted all that time by being stupid? Not me really, I just like being outside with some kind of purpose.

It is a beautiful sub tropical Saturday. Note typhoon damage from last year, poor trees.

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Billy, the Big, Badass, Black, Bike-Bug

Posted on June 19, 2013 by spikekalashnikov

As I set off for work this morning I notice several things: Big Red has a puncture, there is a big, badass, black, bug sitting on the saddle and that I have forgotten my access badge to the university.

I rush out of a lunch with the conductor of the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra to the local mega hardware store. There I find a tyre, an inner tube and some tyre levers. The tyre and inner tube are a size larger than Big Red’s shoe size. You can’t always get what you want but you might find that you get what you need.

Cycle Parts is a very cool expression in Japan.

When I get home there is Billy, for so shall he be named, sitting on the bike. I shoo him away zennishly and remove the front wheel for repair. I prop the new tyre and the old against the wall whereupon Billy scuttles across and take ownership. He sits on top of the wheel daring me to move him.

He is telling me something.

I feel the time is not propitious for tyre repair. Billy will decide.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Bike, Billy, Bug | 2 Comments

Johnnie Scobie

Posted on June 17, 2013 by spikekalashnikov

What a remarkable day.

The first indication that things were diverting from normality came when I greeted a distinguished guest; composer and director of principal concert venue on Okinawa.

On learning that I hail from Scotland he starts to hum “Loch Lomond.” I join with the lyrics and we sit in my office singing. I explain the meaning of the song and we weep on each other’s shoulders. I only met him 5 minutes earlier. Aaah the power of song to induce states of emotion.

Next a colleague who hails from the US comes in and says that he overheard us singing and that his childhood was spent listening to Kenneth McKellar. So did I.

Bonnie Kenneth

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_McKellar_(singer)

He takes out his iPhone with a flourish and plays me ” The Mingulay Boat Song” sung by bonnie Kenneth.

https://thequietripple.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/02-mingulay-boat-song.m4a

There is a background of Japanese and the hoot of the Pacific Reef Egret.

We cry on each other’s shoulders.

It is only 2:00pm and I am emotionally severely compromised.

Actually Kenneth’s versions of these great songs are horribly camp and over orchestrated but you cannot change your childhood.

The phone rings. It is my tax lawyer. My US tax declaration is ready and if I do not sign it today, I will incur grotesque penalties. I stop everything, jump in car and hightail it down to the Tax hacienda. I sign!

You have no idea what a relief it is to file my US taxes. I have fought the IRS before and the IRS won.

Gleeful, I return home to watch the best sunset so far.

The Mist Covered Mountains of Home

Kenneth McKellar will not go away and as I prepare an omelet I listen to his oeuvre.

I am slicing bacon whilst listening to Johnnie Scobie. I am in a dreamlike state and slice off the top of my finger with Japanese razor knife.

en direct

It bleeds like a motherfu****.

Flow gently sweet Afton

Here is the song that caused all the trouble.

https://thequietripple.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/19-were-no-awa-tae-bide-awa.m4a

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Science

Posted on June 16, 2013 by spikekalashnikov

Visitors, difficulties at work, all these occasions do inform against me. I am unable to do that which I really want to do, which is to put the motor on the boat and see if it will run.

I finally manage to get the time on Sunday. I bring the boat around from its little hidey -hole on the beach and attach the motor, previously fueled up from my brand new metal fuel tank.

Ifuel

Is the Black Knight mounted?

Anyway, I row out into the lagoon and after a few negligent pulls on the starting rope surprisingly the motor starts! My scientific aim is to test whether or not the motor is trustworthy to embark on major trips on the wild and wistful ocean.

All is not well, there is no real power and something is rotten in the state of Denmark. I make it out beyond the reef but the Black Knight cuts out, restarts and cuts out a couple of minutes later. This is a repeating cycle and the data suggests fuel strangulation.

A tiger has been trying to get into this tank.

So I disassemble the fuel system and sure enough it is full of sh1t.

The fuel pump is clagged

Regrettably, I do not think there is much I can do. On keeking into the fuel tank I remark that the whole damn thing is rusted like inside. All the rust gunge will continue to flow through the fuel process so that when out on the wild and wistful ocean, jets will be blocked and the motor will definitively stop. I will be washed out onto the East China Sea and never be seen again.

I love messing around with engines

By the time I put it all back together the evening draws late. I have no time to test whether the rigorous scrubbing out has made the slightest difference. Nevertheless I enjoy trying to work out what is going on and taking steps in a logical sort of way to better an imperfect process. Science I guess.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged black knight, motor, science | 4 Comments

Put a Tiger in Your Tank

Posted on June 11, 2013 by spikekalashnikov

My cousins ran a petrol station in Scotland. It was an Esso station. I around 1962 I think Esso started an advertizing campaign based around the slogan “Put a Tiger in Your Tank.” This struck my imagination very hard or like a freight train, if you prefer. I collected stickers of the slogan in many languages.

Italian

Spanish

Latvian

Chinese

Greek

Ouagadougou

Gaelic

Which leads to what happened today. I have been loaned an outboard for my boat. My excitement is intense and I rush from work early to get a tank, some 2 stroke oil, a funnel, a plug spanner and stuff to get the engine going.

Strangely they do not seem to sell plastic petrol tanks, just very elaborate and expensive metal ones. Not to worry as I remember that I have a plastic tank at home. It is too big really for the boat but I can fill it up with 2 stroke mix and it can act as a reservoir from which I can fill plastic bottles to take on the boat.

I rush home and walk over to my much beloved gasorinstandu brandishing my plastic tank. The attendant, who is a good friend, squirms with embarrassment as he mimes that he cannot put gas into a plastic tank. Ah so desu. Only metal tanks in Japan.

Aiee! I cannot start my engine. I will have to wait another day.

Still life of useless tank

I am very impatient. I hate to wait.

Sunset calms me some.

Sun sets around 7:20 in these parts

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged boat, Esso, Tiger | 1 Comment

Time Spent in Reconnoitering is Seldom Wasted

Posted on June 10, 2013 by spikekalashnikov

Thus spoke the noble H.W.Tilman. I spend the weekend reconnoitering my recently acquired boat.

Luckily it was a weekend of wonderful weather and messing around on boats in the warm East China Sea is recommended. Several issues have to be dealt with.

1. Fix the hole in the stern seat.

Yay, no problem as I have struck up a very intimate mime relationship with the man in the local hardware store. I mime repairing fiber glass and he leads me to the perfect kit.

The first layer

2. Can I drag the boat up the beach given my most weak hams?

The same guy in the hardware store responds ideally to my theatre of pulling a boat up the beach using rollers. He cuts me 4 x 1 meter length of sewage pipe. I experiment with boat and it works perfectly. Even I, a sexagenarian, can haul the boat out of harms way.

Rollers remind me of youth in Scotland.

3. Will the anchor hold the boat?

I row out to the reef to set and retrieve the anchor in different locations and depths.

I learn that coral can very soon chafe through anchor rope. Must buy more chain.

The anchor

4. This is the big one. Can I get out of the boat and back into the boat without capsizing it?

I do many drills in the wonderful sun and warm, warm water. Splosh over the side departing from different parts of the boat. Clamber seal-like back on over the stern without ripping off genitalia nor allowing the East China Sea to occupy the boat. I perfect a rope stirrup that goes around the outboard mounting. By placing one foot into this sling and launching myself low into the boat I can achieve both goals.