The Quiet Ripple Defines The Pond

Walking down the stairs this morning I come across one of my favorite bug species. I used to know what they are called but alas, have forgotten.

They always make me happy. This is a baby one.

Down at the boatyard, I am distressed to see people glorying in having slaughtered very rare and soon to be extinct fish.

This should be banned lest the Marlin goes the way of the Dodo. Would people be allowed to hang up dead Rhinos?

I spend a lot of time taping off the areas that I will  paint with anti-slip. This is a delicate job as the corners of said areas are rounded. It is difficult to tape arcs. I think up a very clever little technique, too complicated to explain here, which I think is going to work.

First coat of anti-slip on some of cockpit surfaces.

A reminder

Kiyuna san roars in. We fix up a rig with cooling water, diesel feed, jumper cables to my car’s battery. Kiyuna san touches a wire to the starter motor. There are sparks and she starts!

This wonderful! I have got an overhauled engine.   Thank you Kiyuna san! Thank you Yanmar!

A reminder

So, I am heartily sick of painting the boat. This morning I finish the 5th coat. The result, is of course  unsatisfactory. To the outsider, it looks wonderful but I only see the tiny runs, dribble, splashes and brush-marks that could have been avoided.

I now only have to do the anti-slip stuff but that can wait a while.

Kiyuna san comes by with the totally restored gear box.

All bearings changed. Kiyuna san ripped them out with his teeth.

The gearbox will outlive me

Tomorrow we will try to start the engine!

Change of subject.

I met  Naoko Matsubara san in 2014 and since we have become friends. She is one of Japan’s leading artists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matsubara_Naoko

She very generously painted a mural for our university.

She is wonderful.

We have a dedication ceremony with lots of high rollers. I think mainly of my engine.

This is a very distinguished bunch. The People on the photo are: left to right:
https://www.oist.jp/senapathy-gopalakrishnan
https://www.oist.jp/albrecht-wagner
https://www.oist.jp/yoko-aniya
https://www.oist.jp/jerome-friedman
https://www.oist.jp/mr-koji-omi
https://www.oist.jp/peter-gruss
https://www.oist.jp/curtis-callan
https://www.oist.jp/yuan-tseh-lee
https://www.oist.jp/kiyoshi-kurokawa

Me, Naoko, Peter, Betty.

I go home and contemplate the amazing sunset season.

Only the beginning.

Back to it. I am down at the boatyard at 8:30 applying the final coat of Toplac; I hope.  Kiyuna san  roars in and explains that the engine is finished. Yay!

Looks like new!

So schedule is – finish painting – put boat on higher cradle – do wizadry on center plate – put boat back on original trailer – re-install engine. Nae bother.

We fiddle with rudder. Look at that huge lump of teak!

Again, it is too hot to paint by 11:30 so I wend my weary way home.

It is such a beautiful day that I release Medium Blue and cycle over to a place which the Americans labelled ‘Mermaid’s Grotto’. This is an awful name, smelling of sleazy bar in Miami, and I refuse to use it.

Great place. 5 minutes on Medium Blue.

I snorkel.

The sea is warm. Look fish!

Wash my sins away

Baby Barracuda

The only other people on the beach are three young Japanese girls.  They wave at me and beckon me over. I run. I am such a coward. I dread being sleazy.

Medium Blue is a worthy successor  to Big Red

It used to be common to hang a grapevine, ivy or other greenery, “bush”,  outside an inn or public house to advertise the availability of drink.

Notice bush hanging outside pub. Yay Bruegel!

If the drink is good, it is not necessary to advertize it – good wine needs no bush.

Outside Sake brewery – big bush.

Before I go to the airport I am quickly taken to an adjacent sake brewery.

I never drink sake. The drink in Okinawa is Awamori. This visit however was an eye opener.

I learnt how  good sake is made and I will do my best to drink it henceforth out of respect for the extreme care and craftsmanship involved in its manufacture.

Barrels of sake advertized by bush

I have to buy a bottle,

Aregato

I zoom back to Okinawa and leaving the airport, I stop off at the stinking pond. This is the home, sometimes, of a very rare bird. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-faced_spoonbill

This one’s bill is not very black. A Hybrid?

Good luck. I hope your race survives.

That spoon, that spoon, that spoonbill.

I must go to mainland Japan more often. There is so much to discover.

Having written propaganda all morning about chirality, you try doing that, I am taken on an amazing ride.

We visit the Hiroshima Peace Park.

No comment

We go to Miyajima.

Amazing.

They make spoons here.

Spoonfull

I buy one as I actually need one.

Rice spoon made from Maple.

Chirality

The place is infested with deer.

Oyster udon and conger eel on rice, washed down with Miyajima beer.

Thanks Nori san for driving me around.

We work hard on how to win a multi million dollar, yen, euro, clamshell,  grant to set up an international center to study integrated chirality. You know how it is.

This is the best fun.

Then we go and eat.

Hai!!

Oichi!

Friends and companions

Let not the relaxation disguise the work. I really hope we win this grant.

I get a call from ex-work, asking if I can come in. I reply that I am flying to Hiroshima but can come in for a short time on the way to the airport. I really had no suspicion. It turns out to be a birthday ambush!

Amazing cake baked for Tomomi and I by the very sweet Natori san

Natori san is a good person. She has organized the event and baked the best cake. Tomomi and I have adjacent birthdays.

We blow for a long time without success.

Before tasting Natori san’s cake

After tasting Natori san’s cake

Thanks.

Suddenly I find myself in Hiroshima.

The chimneys locate sake breweries.

Nori san, Isobe san and I stand before one of the many spring of pure,pure water that supply the breweries.

We eat Okonomiyaki, of course.

Wonderful birthday!

I have lost the thread over the last days as I have been away. Anyway I have now given the the topside 2 coats of Pre-Kote and 2 coats of Toplac.

Looking good.

One more coat of Toplac should do it.

Painting a boat four times should be a selection procedure for senior executives. The first, maybe second time I am very careful and slow. The third and fourth times, I am much faster but sloppier. I cannot maintain attention to detail, I just want to get it done and move on. Is this a good or bad thing? What is the correct balance between accuracy and getting work done?

Once the the Topside is satisfactorily smeared with Toplac, we enter into the final painting phase – anti-slip!

Most of the cockpit and significant part of the top-deck have to be treated with anti-slip paint. Anti-slip paint prevents you from slipping, falling over the side and, er, drowning.

All the bits that are not white will have to be painted with anti-slip

I worry about how I will hunt down this very particular paint.

Sapristi! Sato san, for whom I have total respect, passes by and casually says, “Do you need anti-slip paint? I have some lying around.”

Yay! Sato san

The paint is called Interdeck. It is the best.

Myrrh

The drive home is a joy as the forest has never looked more beautiful.

This is not a good photo as it does not capture the blazing white of the Iju blossom

This is purely archival, do not feel obliged to read it.

I am at the boatyard at 8:30 and immediately start to paint.

This is the first real topcoat – just Toplac and thinners. So here is the deal; this paint is very high maintenance.  To achieve a smooth coat, the paint has to be in a good mood.  Toplac likes thinners, but not too much and, you guessed it, not too little.

Heat makes the thinners evaporate very quickly and so, in the high temperature environment in which I work, the paint is constantly changing mood. One moment he/she is smiling and cooperative and then suddenly, he/she is stiff and difficult. I crave low temperature.

I paint the topside for the 4th time.

Tabata san and Kiyuna san foregather to discuss how we can find a high cradle to allow center plate fun.

I would be lost without them.

One of the landmarks, certainly from the sea, of Okinawa are two huge towers/pylons, whose function has always remained secret. So that no one finds out, they are being dismantled.

View from back of boat.

Anyway by 11:30 there is no point carrying on. The paint is unmanageable and I am dizzy from heat exposure.

The message here is, do not paint your boat in high heat. 

Regrettably, it will only get hotter over the next 6 months so I will just have to tough it out if I want to get the boat in the water this year.

The boat thing is actually a finely tuned project management exercise. One thing has to be completed before another can be started. Major delays  on one activity renders other jobs impossible.

The biggest unknown, or punch in the mouth if you wish, is the center plate. I need to get the boat onto an even higher trailer to refine raising and lowering of the center plate. Height equals instability, trying to clamber around with paint pots and my huge bulk when she is precariously perched, augurs tragedy.  Health and safety demand that all painting is done before I try to get her onto a higher platform.

Anyway the basic message is; to keep the project moving, I have to finish painting. Painting is on the critical path.

Just a reminder

Saturday was the day to paint.  Friend and ex colleague, Natori san, kindly offers to help.  Two things go wrong. First, it is raining and second I do not have any paint.

Yay Natori san!

There is a guy at the boatyard who is the paint man. Yachts and boats are  being repainted all the time and he is in the thick of it. This is not simple stuff, but scrupulously careful preparation followed by high professional skills. This involves spraying on gel coat.  I could never do his job.

All well and good, but he said he would give me my newly tinted cream paint over a week ago but no show.

I rush to the boatyard this morning, Sunday, and Sapristi! there is my paint. Happiness and joy!

Such joy!

OK, so here we go!

This coat is the last of the undercoats. The formula  is 30% Pre Cote, 30% Toplac, 30% thinners.

Getting the paint right is crucial.

Cream, get on top.

It is very hot. This means that the paint goes off, cool speak for dries, very quickly. This is not good as you find yourself working with a viscous glue whereas what you want is a smooth, unguent fluid like Baxters  Royal Game Soup.

Little by little.

I can not paint for too long. There is heat exhaustion and also, and I can not think of the word for this syndrome, which is, at first I am very careful and scrupulous but as the day winds on, I just slap on the paint.

You have to know when to stop. Starboard.

Port

Good day but you cannot paint well in high heat. I will be back very early tomorrow for the first topcoat.