The Quiet Ripple Defines The Pond

So, I remember as a youth that one of the phrases that reputedly featured in English/French phrase books was ” My postillion has been struck by lightning.”

How often would you have used it?

In James Thurber‘s 1937 New Yorker article “There’s No Place Like Home”, a phrasebook from “the era of Imperial Russia” contains the “magnificent” line: “Oh, dear, our postillion has been struck by lightning!”. Thurber speculates that such a “fantastic piece of disaster” must have been rare, “even in the days of the Czars”.^[11]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_postillion_has_been_struck_by_lightning

Er, so  an expression that I came up with in Japanese class was “Watashi wa gasorinsutando gai sukidesu.” which you all know means “I love gas stations.”

This is true. The gas station experience  here reaches a level of joy that is unimaginable to Europeans and most Americans. Check out:

https://quietripple.wordpress.com/2011/09/17/full-service/

How often would I be able to use this expression in day-to-day conversation?

So, today I am asked to greet a group of Okinawan business folk

whom are touring the university. At the last moment I am told that they represent the owners of the gas stations on the island!

I am half way through my greeting, in English with interpreter, when I realize I can use,  “My postillion has been struck by lightning.”

I say “Watashi wa gasorinsutando gai sukidesu.”  to great glee and amazement  from listeners.

I can say little in Japanese and the odds against  placing something as bats as “I love gas stations” in conversation must be huge.

But I did it!

Big thank you to Aya sensei

Love is a many splendored thing

Er, I won’t go into the background to this photo but all in all it has been an unusual day.

I set off to clean my beaches but rush straight home again with my heart a pumping. I grab my camera and it is still there when I make it back to the beach. Yes, a Seagull! The first I have seen in 2 years in Okinawa.

Black Tailed Gull. Notice black and red tip to beak.

It looked very bedraggled.  I suppose it was blown in during the bad weather last week.

Why are there no seagulls on Okinawa?

A grey morph Pacific Reef Egret just beside the gull.

This is a search and rescue helicopter

So, I go fishing as the sun goes down. I had been out earlier and had a huge bite. Obviously a monster fish that I played expertly for some time until the line broke. I suppose it could have been the reef  but lets pretend not. Anyway I get out to the reef and it is quite rough  with big breakers crashing onto the coral. I anchor a bit further out but frankly it is too rough to fish so I head for home.

A bit too choppy to fish.

As I approach the shore I notice there is a police car with lights a flashing in my parking lot. Indeed there are two policemen waiting for me on the beach. Apparently someone phoned in saying there was a kayaker in danger. They stay an hour and are very thorough.

I then go to a party where most of the people are tremendously drunk. We stand around a bonfire but have difficulty hearing ourselves speak because of the search and rescue helicopter clattering up and down scanning the water with searchlights and the thuds of huge, drunk Americans keeling over.

I wonder if  all that fuss was because of me?

I have decided to save money and lose weight. The latter so I can be accustomed to the skeleton-like physique that I will own in destitution and the former as an attempt to delay destitution.

I have adopted two strategies. The first is to stop shaving, thus saving money on razor blades. The second is to feed myself from the sea. Just outside my door is a lagoon full of food. I am determined to raid it and have been daydreaming a lot of sitting on the kayak in the warm sun leisurely reeling in my breakfast.

It is simple. I paddle out to the reef where I know from various diving adventures there to be loads of fish. I sling my hook, or anchor, and bask in the golden rays and fresh air as the fish bucket more or less fills itself with fresh squid, tuna, mackerel, parrot fish, snapper and that kind of thing.

I have the gear

Irresistible to squid so I am told

Alas, the weekend arrives with high winds and high seas.

Anyone for tennis?

Where I was planning to anchor the kayak

I am so frustrated but I suppose delaying reward due to danger is some kind of definition of intelligence.  In addition daydreaming is in my experience nearly always more fun than the real thing.

I go watch birdwatching.

Cattle Egret

Chrysanthemums are a big export crop for Okinawa.

I lift up a pile of dirty clothes to find a huge spider. It gives me a very poisonous look. I immediately rationalize that I should leave it alone as it has as much right to be in the house as me. This is of course cowardice. I can visualize its huge fangs pumping leprous venom into my delicate skin  as it stares into my eyes with dark, secret, love.

Boris  4 inches across

However I also realize that if I do not remove it then the venom pumping might happen on my eyelid as I sleep.

The answer of course lay with the BBQ gloves that Rosy and Barry sent me for Xmas. I put them on and feel invincible. I succeed in trapping the monster in a Tupperware box using the mirror that James gave me for Xmas. Thanks all for the very useful gifts.

The spider now roams free in the undergrowth howling for a mate.

Post Scriptum

I showed a photo of the spider to the my admirable cleaning lady, Tsuha-san. She reassured me that the spider was not dangerous and was very worried that I had killed it.

During the recent trip to Baja we cooked exclusively with a dutch oven. These are wonderful devices. If you do not have one, buy one now. You never know when it might come in handy. They are the perfect camping companion as long as you do not have to carry them. We had the mighty Range Rover.

Ospreys love dutch ovens

You can cook anything in them from Crepes Suzette to Coq au Vin.

Here is a culinary record of the trip.

Crevettes au Feu du Bois

Boeuf Bourguignon

La Poule au Tecate

Ragout de Boeuf Mexicain

Saucisse et Lard Caramba

Des Oeufs Plats a la Couvercle

“Thoughts are slow and deep and golden in the morning.”
― John Steinbeck, Tortilla Flat

Anybody’s guess – maybe Virginia’s Warbler.

Here is some more info on dutch ovens:

or

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_oven

The principal goal of the adventure was to go see the cave paintings in the canyon in the mountains. They are well hidden in the nearest place to nowhere. Bad, bad road to squalid mountain village with bits of goat hanging from the washing lines.

Your to goat to be true
Can’t take my eyes of you.

Beam down on me Baby.
We’ve always been together

She was just 17

5 hour mule ride down very, very, very steep track down into the canyon. It is terrifying.

Check out the videos:

http://youtu.be/9t63dbKE9KA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spQY2FbCUtM

I don’t like sponge cake

Yay! Manuel. He sure knows mules

Sausages

Breakfast – Tortillas and Coffee

Sleep out all night with saddle as pillow before scrambling up the canyon side to get into the caves.

Old

Mene mene tekel upharsin

No change for thousands of years

Two of my sons

Rouge et Noir

This is not a trip for the fainthearted. No, “Have you ridden a mule before?” nor “Here is your safety equipment.” nor, “I’d like to explain our evacuation plan if you fracture your skull falling off the mule on the way down.” nor, “This is the camp site with hot showers and counseling.”

We saw 6 other people during the whole trip.  Do this trip. The paintings are stunning.

New Year’s Eve and we are camping on a beach about 40 miles from anywhere. It gets dark we start drinking beer when we spot headlights creeping along the deep sand track that leads to our camp. What?! Who?! Why?!

Too good to be true

He is a kinda park ranger whose job is to stop predation of lobster and abalone along a couple of hundred kilometers of coastline. He immediately asks us if we would like some lobsters. Christian is very friendly and clearly delighted to have someone to talk to as he has spent the last two years living in a cabin with only abalones to converse with. He cracks open a bottle of Tequila and pours us big shots. He does not drink himself.

Christians are naturally the best and can kill people

He rants on and on in Spanish and we grin, understanding little. We want him to go away. He goes over to his truck and produce a GUN! He grins and waves it around. We wait for him to put on his wrestling mask before blowing us away. The atmosphere  is a little tense.

He wants me to talk to his American buddy over his radio.

Buddy says:

“Neil, it is important that you know that the goodness of the Earth is flowing through my veins – over.”

“Er, Happy New Year – over.”

“My body is trembling in unison with the vibrations of the life force – over.”

“Um, did you have a good Christmas? – over”

And so on. Christian, who has put away his gun, makes drinking gestures indicating that his buddy probably drinks too much.

After several shaking of hands and farewells Christian finally leaves. We breathe a big sigh of relief. The poor kid was clearly very lonely but guns change the tone of a conversation.

Happy New Year!

Tires become big on this trip. Luckily I had noticed that the spare was punctured before leaving San Francisco and made a note to get it fixed in Mexico. Baja California is the best place in the world for car repair.  Garages are so used to fixing things rather than replacing them that I feel much more confident here than in the US when things go wrong. Go wrong they do. On the trip down we stop in Guerrero Negro to find a Llantera, these are tire repair outfits that line the roadside, to fix the spare as we are about to head off-road into the mountains. It looks like someone has jammed a hunting knife through the tire and it looks very dead to me.

No problem, the llantera-ist sticks a huge patch on the inside as we eat seafood tacos on the roadside.

This better than any food in the world

We now have four good tires and a very dubious spare.

Coyote chows down

Some time later we are hammering down a dirt road on the way to the mythical Playa de Mallarimo, onto which the ocean currents wash amazing bounty from the Pacific, spices from the Philippines, cases of wine from Singapore, dancing girls  from Hawaii, boxes of IPads from China, or so a guy in a bar told me, when we become aware of a strange noise.

A puncture, Baja style

Out we get to find that the rear right tire, one of the good ones, has completely shredded.  The Range Rover has self-leveling air suspension and the only symptom of a major blowout at 70 mph was the noise.

Windows started tremblin’
With a sonic boom
Windows started tremblin’
With a sonic boom, boom
A cold girl’ll kill you
In a darkened room

We put on the dodgy spare.

Are we downhearted?

Do we want to head out into the wilderness on terrible roads with one very weak tire and no spare, probably  not,  so we head to the nearest town Bahia Tortugas to seek help. The folks at the Llantera explain that Mr. Tire is having lunch and that we should come back in an hour. I should explain that these tire shops are not like those to which we have become accustomed with racks and racks of beautiful new tires in every size and color. These are shacks with piles of bald tires, a floor of oil-drenched sand, a bath of dirty water and big iron levers. The chances of them having a tire that will fit a 2000 Range are not good.  But as usual when we get back there is a reasonable 3rd hand tire on the rim and we are ready to go.

A Pelican

The next day we are blasting north when there is a familiar noise, which marks the end of the dodgy spare. We put on the tire from Bahia Tortugas to discover it is actually a bit bigger, the tire wall is higher, than the others, so giving the truck a quaint lift at the right hand rear. On we go with only 1500 miles to home. It is New Years Day but we drive into a lonesome Llantera on some high plateau.

Lonesome highway

He has a 4th hand tire that will fit but the tread width is a size smaller. Who cares?!  So as I write this at the camp in Catavina, we have 3 good tires and two heavily used, wrong-sized tires and only 1200 miles to go. Are we downhearted? No!

Post Scriptum:

Now in Seattle Airport – we made it!

The truck is fixed, we load up, have a Chinese meal on Irvine and then take Lazlo to Martha’s parent’s house.

Lazlo

It is the 26 th of December at 9:00 pm when we point the mighty Range Rover South. She smells the night air, shakes herself down and takes off. Ben and James drive all night and 5:00am finds us sleeping by the roadside by the border in San Diego. We have to get Mexican insurance and no office is open yet. New Mexican border at Tijuana, which is very smart and then Mexico!

Noise, busted cars, trash, colors, nobody kills us and cuts our heads off. Don’t they like us?

Down the coastal highway, which has wonderful views over the Pacific, to Ensenada to buy fresh shrimp in the Fish Market.

Dead Fish

South ,South through the mountains of northern Baja, down to the fertile area around St Quintin, which is the er biggest, most productive, can’t find the right adjective here, tomato growing place in the world. The British set up a colony here in 1890 but drought ruined their plans and all that is left is a graveyard, which we could not find.

We head off-road at El Rosario and camp by an estuary full of duck and White faced Ibis.

Cold camp

We eat fresh shrimp tortillas and drink Pabst Blue Ribbon , which is wonderfully cold  because it is freezing outside.

Fresh shrimp! Mexico!

The coyotes howl at the full moon and the Ibis squawk at the duck who quack back.

I bis du bist etc

Yesterday I was in Okinawa.