The Quiet Ripple Defines The Pond

31st October, 27 degrees, cool wind, beautiful sunshine! October and November are the best months in Okinawa.

We go for a drive up a little bit of the East Coast. My companion is Japanese and she points out so many things that I have never noticed or been aware of, even after nearly 10 years on the island. I realize I have only just scratched the surface of what Okinawa has to offer.

For example, we stop at an unremarkable building by the side of a harbor. I have passed it before and have taken it for some sort of administrative office. It turns out to be the most wonderful fish restaurant. I cannot read. I miss so much.

We go to a couple of fish markets.

Okinawa is so beautiful! Never more so than at this time of year.

I have not posted much about sailing because I have not done much. I feel guilty about this, not about not posting but about not sailing.

I think there are several reasons.

The first is the Geneva Ski Syndrome. If you live in Geneva you only go ski-ing if the snow is perfect and the weather is beautiful. If you go on a ski holiday from Middlesborough, you ski all day, every day, even if the conditions are atrocious. If you live in Okinawa substitute sailing for ski-ing.

Another reason is technology. I have an app which is amazing. It is Windy. It tells me exactly what the wind strength, wind direction, wave height, temperature, rain possibility will be.

In the er old days, you had a look around and if things were not too bad you would go sailing. If things turned out to be too hairy you would go back again.

Now you look at your IPhone, 12-15 knots of wind? North east wind, 1.5 meter wave height. Ooh, better not go out. Windy doth make cowards of us all.

Another reason is age. I am not as sprightly as I once was.

Anyway you will remember that the boat filled up with water in incredible rains before I was able to rig the cover. Read this https://thequietripple.com/2020/10/22/wet/

A few days ago, I take off the cover and survey the damage. All the lockers are full of water, everything in the lockers, tool boxes, rope, picnic table, cleaning stuff, clothing, etc etc are full of water. I pump and swab out all the water and give everything a clean. It is now beautiful weather and the contents of the boat lie steaming at the pontoon.

So today, at last, I go for a wonderful sail. It is the very end of October but still air and sea are warm.

We sailed out a few miles, just looking at the sea. Then we went about and sailed back in. Ha! what was interesting about sailing back in was a 30 foot Bermuda rig yacht that was also heading for the marina. She was way ahead of us but we were going faster and we caught right up. Not sure the big boat was trying very hard. The Norfolk Gypsy is a good boat.

On the way to the dentist’s surgery and indeed on the way back too, there is a place that sells the best fast food in the world. Okinawan Tempura!

Japanese tempura is a little effete, the batter is light and fluffy. Okinawan tempura is more like English Fish and Chips. The batter is thick, meaty and crisp.

Inside the door, there is a tiny room with a hatchway. There is a chart that displays the richness of tempura available.

Essentially, you can get tempura anything. If you brought in nail clippings or courgette flowers, they would tempura them for you.

You fill in a form detailing your desire. Today I get 2 fish and 2 squid. Next ring the bell and a lady’s head sort of appears behind much Covid screening. You pay. It costs 280 yen. This is nothing.

I hang around outside in the shade while my tempura is cooked. It is the end of October but still 29 degrees. The smiling lady brings me my food.

The food is served in brown paper bags.

It is so delicious!

Just for the record, I finally get around to installing anti chafe tubing on my bow mooring lines.

I think I have already mentioned that a new fish restaurant has opened just across the road from my apartment building. I finally get to eat there. I dislike eating in restaurants alone and I trap a companion into joining me.

It was a very enjoyable lunch.

Very Okinawan ambience with sanjin background music. Each meal was 1,180 yen.

So stabilizing to have an excellent fish restaurant just across the road!

Unannounced and unexpected, it rains very, very hard. The various weather apps I use predicted showers.

Mad rain!

The boat is uncovered. By the time I get down there, the cockpit is full of water that is overflowing into the engine compartment and from there into the bilges and so into the cabin.

Another couple of hours of this rain intensity could sink the boat.

It is very, very wet but I bail out the cockpit with a bucket and unleash the fury of the Gulper on the bilge. https://thequietripple.com/2019/06/10/so-much-rain/

I also pump out the cabin.

Rigging the cover is ferocious because the rain is so hard. I succeed but it is strong stuff. Good for a fat old man.

The few photos I took with my beloved Canon G10 exposed her to the elements such that I think she has died.

I think she is dead. This is the third G10 I have killed by wetness.

https://www.kenrockwell.com/canon/g10.htm

One of the great joys of living where I do is the proximity of a Farmer’s Market.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ginowan+Hagoromo+Market/@26.2850138,127.7478941,15.93z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0xcfef77afb6b0f6ad!8m2!3d26.2854119!4d127.74382

In Okinawa the availability of fruit and vegetables is seasonable. You eat what is coming out of the ground or off the bushes and trees, right now.

Added to this is a strong ‘eat local’ theme. The Farmer’s Markets sell local produce. Each bag has a label that details where the vegetable was grown and when it was harvested.

I love it and get most of my food here. This is what is on offer in October.

It also stocks local meat and fantastic fresh fish. It is right beside the harbor.

It is a wonderful place. I am so happy.

Arisa tells me that the market will close at the end of October. How can this be? Apparently there are fewer and fewer vegetable growers in Ginowan -urbanization- and the cost, in Covid times, of bringing in stuff from elsewhere is prohibitive.

So sad.

On the happy side, I have to go to the bank to register my change of address. I have already done this but apparently they screwed up. The staff are very apologetic and, having filled in the necessary forms, with lots of help, they formally present me with a Mickey Mouse pen.

More happiness! Overnight a fish restaurant opens up across the road.

This past week has been an unhappy one for me. You will remember the dinner last Saturday, beautiful art, beautiful people, beautiful food and drink.

As always misery and pain are never far away.

But pleasures are like poppies spread,
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed;
Or like the snow falls in the river,
A moment white–then melts for ever;
Or like the borealis race,
That flit ere you can point their place;
Or like the rainbow’s lovely form
Evanishing amid the storm.–

It is my great privilege to own a canteen of silver cutlery. Actually I do not like to use the verb own. I am the family member that has it at the moment. It is a family er thing.

It is one of my earliest memories. I climbed up to look inside.

The canteen is complete. There are 12 items of big stuff, knives, forks. fish knives, fish forks, cake knives, cake forks, and lots of items as what we rarely use, crumb scoop, fish serving knife, fish serving fork, nut crackers and on and on. It is complete. No item is missing after all these years.

At the dinner, we use a lot of beautiful cutlery.

The next day when all is washed and counted, oh dear, I am one silver teaspoon short.

I am uneasy but not yet terribly worried as this has happened before. A fork goes missing but is found in the wrong drawer, a soup spoon, after a couple of days of absence, shows up amongst the daily usage knives and forks.

The silver teaspoon does not show. My anxiety rises. I search everywhere. Nothing.

I even recover the post party garbage bag from the garbage depot and go through it piece by piece. Nothing.

I am very unhappy. I am the person who destroyed the integrity of the family canteen.

There is now one piece missing. All these years, all those meals.

I am unworthy.

I have mentioned before the industrial build of my kitchen sink’s drainage system. It is one of the things that I particularly like about the apartment. The sink is not draining very well so I rummage around in the drainage basket.

I find the spoon.

I am restored.

I feel so much better.

I go to look at Black faced Spoonbills, about 400 in the whole world. Their rarity corresponds with my silver teaspoon.

I am, of course, very pro vax mainly because one of my very early memories is having my polio vaccination back in the 50’s. I think I was six yeas old. I still have the round scar on my left shoulder. I remember it not because of the injection but because afterward my Mother took me to a restaurant to have lunch. I think this was the first time I went to a restaurant. I was very excited and the food, probably reheated slices of mutton with potatoes and carrots followed by suet pudding, seemed decadent and sophisticated.

Henceforth, I have always enjoyed vaccination

Ginowan City sends me a message informing me that I can get a Flu vaccination almost free because I am so old. I cannot resist.

With help from a friend, an appointment is made at a clinic that is very close to my home.

Of course everyone is super friendly and helpful.

I also discover that this clinic, so close to my apartment, has an English speaking doctor. Good news because if I ever do get sick, I can crawl to the clinic and explain my difficulty in the language of Shakespeare.

Another Typhoon appoaches.

I do not think it will be a big one. At the moment it is classified as a Tropical Storm. Nonetheless, I rig the cover and double all the mooring lines.

On the apartment tour prior to amazing dinner last Saturday, Japanese contingent suggest I get a stool for my bathroom. Here, folks wash at night. They sit on a stool and shower and soap themselves down. They then plonk into a bathtub and relax. No washing. Then they go to bed.

This is the name of my favorite shop, clearly named after Sir Walter Scott’s famous novel. Well actually the Japanese pronounce and spell it Ivano but these sort of small alterations from English to Japanese are common.

I suppose Ivano specializes in meat. You can get everything from pigeon to alligator if you so choose but I usually get no further than their amazing lamb chops. They stock everything that the exile craves for, double cream, saucisson, olives, chorizo, cheeses, pancetta, etc. etc. I do not have much money left but I fully intend to spend most of it here.

It is now October and after a couple of cooler days the temperature has gone back to the 30’s.

I organize a vernissage for Kikuta san’s amazing art. This has been very difficult. Getting all the people together at the same time is so difficult but finally the date is fixed. Even so two of the elect have to drop out at the last moment. Notwithstanding we have a colossal evening.

Most of the food comes from Ivano, except the fish, octopus and shrimp that comes from the water. The wines come from Hanada san’s extraordinary wine shop. The outstanding company comes from all over, well actually from Japan and the U.K.

It is a long delightful dinner that we finish off with grapes from Tomomi san and cakes from Hoppepan. After a lot of wine, we cleanse ourselves with tea made from the Getto plant, Alpinia zerumbet, by esteemed Izumi sensei.

We drink more nostalgic wines from the Jura.

Kikuta san’s works are totally vernissaged.

Okinawa has been very good for my feet. They used to be horrible now they are beautiful. A lot of sea, sand and sandals gets rid of stench and decay engendered by socks and tight shoes. But ‘et in arcadia ego’ my beautiful feet also build up hard skin, I think from walking around barefoot. I mentioned this to a friend. She immediately urges me to try Baby Foot.

In the box there are two bootees full of slime. You cut off the tops and slide in your feet. You then watch ancient episodes of University Challenge for an hour. Having showered off the slime, I am a bit disappointed. The feet are pinkish and tingling but nothing startling has happened.

However a few days later dead skin starts peeling off. It is wonderful as you can provoke a little starting tab and with care pull off big sheets of skin. I have never done this before. A new experience is always exciting at my advanced age. Snake like I have shed several layers of skin. Highly recommended.

My major misery over the last months has been the floppiness of my side shrouds. These are steel cables that act as guy ropes for the mast. On the Norfolk Gypsy the shrouds are attached to the boat by very attractive lashings.

Attractive maybe but I have been unable to get these lashings taught enough to induce sufficient tension on the shrouds. I cringe as Japanese sailors board the boat, instinctively grabbing the side shroud to steady the movement. I watch their eyes widen and the expression of shock and confusion, which no matter how hard they try, cannot be disguised. I am deeply ashamed of my sloppy rigging.

I install turnbuckles, not traditional but you know.

Covid lockdown has made me super unfit. I sit around eating and drinking like a hog, on the other hand I have watched so many episodes of University Challenge that my general knowledge has certainly improved.

Old men have gray beards, their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum, and they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams.

I tell you my hams are super weak.

Age has its advantages. Ginowan City sends me a Silver Card, strong juju object that gives me all kinds of privileges.

One, is free entrance to Ginowan City Gymnastics. Find it on the map.

https://www.google.com/maps/@26.2829737,127.7459866,1905m/data=!3m1!1e3

The building has a big gymnasium well equipped with weights, machines and stuff to make you big and strong. It had been closed because of Miley Cyrus but is now back in operation.

So this is great; I have a free gym minutes from the apartment. Every time I approach a machine, the guy comes rushing up and with no condescension, explains how I can adjust it to suit my massive bulk. He speaks no English but it does not matter. We like each other. Everyone wears masks. There are towels and alcohol spray on each piece of equipment.