The Quiet Ripple Defines The Pond

So, this is an old man’s story. I make bad decisions.

I knew that the cockpit and all the upper surfaces of the boat had to be repainted. Boat paint is very specialized stuff and is not easy to come by.

A mess. This shot does not show the  intense crazing that is the result of 10 years of Okinawan sun.

This is what all the paint looks like.

You will remember that I went to San Francisco a few weeks ago. One of the main objectives of the trip was to buy paint for the boat. Serious boat paint is highly specialized stuff and buying it in Japanese was intimidating.

West Marine is a huge U.S. boat shop. They have everything.  https://www.westmarine.com/   They have an ‘outlet’ in Sausalito and I went there 3 times to wallow in boat stuff.  The drive from San Francisco to Sausalito is one of the best ever! Over the Golden Gate Bridge and through Sausalito, such fun.

Anyway I buy all the paint I need for the boat. This costs several hundred dollars. I should point out that the wonderful paint guy at West Marine said that he did not think I could take paint on an international flight, but I was too excited to hear.

A little later I reflect on carrying several liters of paint in your checked-in luggage on an international flight. I check the rules and the answer is   –  NIET!

This is so obvious, but my old man view did not take  law into consideration. So, I leave lots of wonderful paint behind  and arrive in Okinawa, paint-wise, the same as I left.

I put my head on Sato san’s lap weeping and explain my dilemma.

” No problem, Neil san I will order the paint from Yokohama.”

A few days later he delivers the paint.

He refuses to let me pay.

As you all know, the success of a paint job depends entirely on the preparation.

I have spent the last 2 days meticulously sanding the top of the boat. It is dirty and tedious work.

The best 8000 yen I ever spent was on a rotary sander

As a respite from sanding, I dismantle a strange device that lurks in the depths of the boat.

This thing pumps grease to the propeller shaft bearings

I polish her and say charming words to her.

She responds

So brace yourselves, the future holds little other than boring painting posts. Today I took off my T shirt as I worked. Returned home, writing this post, I can feel the burning on my back that indicates that the Okinawan summer is on its way.

So, off I go to take my practical-in-the-boat-test for the completion of my license qualification. Like the theory test, this turns out to be very different from what I had imagined.

The sun is shining as I set off and I only take sun glasses with me. I stop off at the boatyard to check on the boat and find I have new neighbors.

A shiny red speedboat and the amazing Tag Boy. Spelling mistake I think

My impression of how the day would proceed was that all the candidates for the theoretical test were to be taken on a boat, shown what everything was and then taken out for a demonstration trip. If we were lucky, we might get to steer.

I show up and find an instructor waiting. I am the only student.

Yuta sensei beside the boat. Notice that the weather is closing in.

It turns out that I am to have 4 hour training course, after which an inspector will show and I will have to demonstrate my abilities.

Yuta san does not speak English but impresses on me that everything must be done by the book, otherwise the inspector will fail me. We go through, engine checks, hull inspection, safety equipment checks, navigation light checks, windscreen wiper checks, which turns out to be crucial. We then do switching on the engine, not as straightforward as you would think, warming up the engine – 10 secs exactly at 1000 rpm.

We move onto knots. I have to be able to tie a bowline, a clove hitch, a sheet bend, a double sheet bend, a fisherman’s hitch, a figure of eight knot and of course a cleat hitch. Luckily Mr Pritchard taught me these when I was a Boy Scout and they are burnt into my memory.

We then head out to sea. Leaving the mooring, how to untie the mooring lines , how to stow them, when to bring in the fenders, correct speed in harbor etc, etc. Each action has a precise way of doing it and failure to comply results in failure.

I have never driven a speed boat before.  My limited experience is on sailing boats or open boats with outboards. This thing has a steering wheel and is very powerful!

By now the weather has completely changed and it is dark and pouring with rain. Yuta sensei asks if I want to continue. I assure him that this sort of weather gives me a big advantage and in Scotland it is always like this.  However, as I am looking through dark glasses, it is like sailing at night!

Pouring with rain. I know how to switch on the windscreen wipers.

We go through changing course, slalom at high speed, man overboard procedures, picking up a mooring, navigating astern, compass bearings. Again all of these and many other techniques have to be done just right, mainly involving constantly looking around and ostentatiously checking that the control lever is in neutral whenever we stop.

Aregato Yuta san!

Back to the harbor where we practice coming alongside and correct mooring. This is not easy and Yuta san is very demanding.

Anyway at 5:30 the inspector shows up. I am frankly worried as, although I know my way around boats pretty well, this is very different from remembering all the details of correct procedure.

The inspector, Uehara san, is 67 years old and worked on tankers for 43 years. He is a great guy. By the time we start the test, the visibility is very bad and this unites us. We just get on with it like old sea dogs. He puts me through my routines and he tells me great stories about messing around in 300,000 ton tankers.

I pass.

I phone Shoken san, who is the boss of the ‘sailing school’  that is, in a very loose way, preparing me for my license. He tells me that I have passed the theoretical written test.

Thank God!

I studied as hard as I could and failure would have been another nail in the coffin.

Tomorrow, there is a practical test, when apparently we all go out on a boat. Shoken san says that there is nothing I can do to prepare, nor to study.  I er trust him.

Things are vaguely moving towards a working boat.

I check out 15 year old sheets and halyards.

I try to polish my pintle!

Brass polish that I got in California. Not much good.

I then install the bottom pintle. This is tricky, as she is bolted through the transom  and I have to fumble through inspection holes in the stern lockers.

Through the hole.

Prior to installing the pintle I use compound and polish on the transom. This is the first time I have used the product and my polisher. It is not successful, as I use too much compound, which is sprayed around as soon as I switch on the polisher.

See splashes of compound everywhere.

I finally get the hang of it and the transom comes up very well. Years of salt, sun, soba, sashimi, etc; are ground off and buffed up.

The bottom pintle is in place.

Sato san comes by with my paint that he has ordered from Yokohama. Sato san is a good man and a very experienced boat painter. I have this wonderful feeling of security that he will guide me through the painting.

Primer, thinners and topcoat.  Yay!

I spend the rest of the day sanding down the top structure in an attempt to remove the major crazing before painting. It is dirty work but generally successful.

Right I have sanded, left I have not.

A very good day and incidentally, it is hot, I am sunburnt.

Quite rightly I have to take both a theoretical and a practical exam on my knowledge of things nautical before I can sail away. The qualification is known as your license.

The didactical approach for the theory exam is interesting. You are not given classes nor a text book, but a folder with 16 previous test papers. You are then told that by taking all these previous tests you will teach yourself the correct answers to the obscure and arcane questions. I understand the logic. The same questions come back over and over again. It is a bit like pattern recognition.

I study like crazy. I find it difficult to study at home as there is the lure of the computer. I need a very quiet place.

I take 16 of these tests – each has 50 questions.

I have to go to the university for one last project and subsequently go to the  university library to study.  After some minutes, the head librarian comes over and asks me to leave as I am no longer a university employee nor visiting scholar. How are the mighty fallen!

Actually, one of my tasks prior to retirement was to establish an alumni policy. I should have got on with it.

Anyway, I go to the Onna village library, where I am welcomed and study away to my heart’s content. No harm done.

After 16 subsequent exams, I am only making 3 or 4 errors in 50 questions and feel very confident.

The theory test is held at the Okinawa Marina in Awase. It is very formal with an invigilator who walks around the room to make sure we are not cheating.

This is my test document with my ID number and my desk number .

The exam of course  contains many questions that I have not seen before.

Oh dear, I fear I have failed! I will only know on Saturday.

I head down to the Marina to get on with my next major task – repainting the cockpit and the cabin roof. The existing paint has been exposed to  years of intense UV and is in very poor condition.

It is crazed.

So again this calls for a lot of sanding. I hope that most of the crazing will be filled with the primer and the 2 coats of paint. Very poor condition areas, I will treat with an acryllic filler before painting.  I hope to paint next week but there is a lot of tedious work to be accomplished before the paintbrush hits the deck.

I have a long chat with Kiyuna san. He shows me engine progress.

Much rebuild – new piston rings, valves ground, new alternator and starter motor, er not yet fitted. Nearly there.

He asks me if I am going back to Scotland. I tell him that there is really no reason for me to go back there. He replies, ” Neil san, sometimes no reason is the best reason.” Discuss.

As a pastoral introduction, let us talk about the vegetable garden up the street. You may remember that I was worried that the old lady who maintains it, had run into difficulties. Not so.

I pass by today to see that beds of rushes have been laid across the garden. Previously, all the potatoes, onions, cabbages have been removed.

Yay, this is summertime preparation. Everything is OK.

Vegetable growing in Okinawa is very different from my previous experience. This is because it is so hot in the summer that even Mediterranean  stuff like Tomatoes, Aubergines, Courgettes, are frizzled. Here you plant Goya and, I think, Courges, I cannot remember the English name.

The structure is for Goya and the rush base is to make the Courges happy, I think.

Watch this space.

Back to business. I get to the boatyard to find a lowered center plate.

May not mean much to you.

I thought that the center plate might be the end of the road.

Horribly corroded and totally jammed in the most inaccessible, secret parts of the boat, I feared that it would not be possible to release it.

As usual, I had underestimated the genius of Kiyano san. To be frank, I do not really understand what happened, but it appears that the retaining pin was not the real showstopper. He removed it but still the plate refused to surrender.

Check out the saw blade.

He sawed up and down the sides of the center plate, releasing kilos of rust and shells. The center board slot was totally occupied by decay and squatters.

Once this lot was out, the plate came down.

This is an immense relief to me as  I had, for a moment, felt that the project was over. Not so, there is still a way to go before I get a smoothly operating center plate, but I have been to the top of the mountain and seen the other side.

Kiyuna san in all his glory

Kiyuna san does all the intelligent stuff, I do the stupid stuff.

I roll on the second coat of anti-fouling.

It is dismal stuff, full of chemicals and constituency of glue.

Cover my sins.

Looking good.

Starboard.

All of this is a lot of fun. What is more, I am outside in sunshine for hours every day.

Big day at the boatyard.

Otis, marine biologist at OIST, comes down to help.

He has the right gear, like a boiler suit.

We spend the morning sanding the bottom of the boat. We hear the thunder of the Harley and Kiyano san arrives.

He explains that during the night! he has looked at my center plate locking pin problem. I had imagined this pin to be a big steel bolt thing, but Kiyano san, who is so far above me in all things mechanical, identifies it as a big split pin.

This is a split pin.

He explains that the split pin’s reluctance to being withdrawn is not because of corrosion but because of bent-ness. As the boat was lowered onto the original trailer in January, the whole weight of the boat came onto the center plate, forcing it upwards and so bending the retaining pin. https://quietripple.wordpress.com/2018/01/09/then-the-tuckets-then-the-trumpets-then-the-cannon-and-she-comes/

I have worked alongside many amazing people, including lots of Nobelists, but Kiyano san stands shoulder to shoulder with these.

He says, ” Dai Jo bou, Neil san, I will make special tool and pull out pin . Tomorrow center plate come down.”

Friends are good.

Anyway, Otis and I finish the sanding and overall preparation of the boat’s bottom. This has been a long and hard job.

Of course the, ‘why bother’ question  comes back. Why bother scraping and sanding the bottom of a boat that nobody will ever see? I blame my parents.

Otis paints, as Mike, one of the boatyard buddies, looks on.

Anti fouling paint in Okinawa is black. I have scraped and sanded off multiple coats of red and blue paint from early lives, but if you want to fit in in Okinawa, then it is the black bottom.

Black

So, what a great day! Kiyano san can fix the center plate and Otis and I paint the bottom of the boat black.

Hop down front then doodle back [doodle means “slide”]
Mooch to your left then mooch to the right
Hands on your hips and do the mess around,
Break a leg until you’re near the ground [break a leg is a hobbling step]
Now that’s the old black bottom dance

Those of you who have watched the film Braveheart will remember that  the Scots were kinda blue – not emotionally but rather pigmentally.

Scrape my boat

I am faced with more awfulness of scraping ancient anti-fouling paint, of which there are at least 5 coats, from the bottom of my boat. Most of it is colored blue

Before pain comes pleasure, and I have a delightful lunch with Natori san and Tomomi san.

Yay Natori san

Yay Tomomi san

Notwithstanding, the bottom of the boat has been multiply painted with many coats of different colors of antifouling paint. Should I slap on another coat? Hell no! This is a major refit and so I am obliged to scrape off all the previous coats of paint before I repaint. Why ? I do not know really, other than Puritan work ethic.

I am ready

I lie on my back under the boat and scrape away the ancient paint. This is both exhausting and very uncomfortable.

I have never been attracted by computer games.

On a different tack, I have felt defeated of late by my center plate. It is jammed in the up position, in which position it is blocked by a retaining pin, which is turn is corroded and immoveable.

What to do do?

Kiyuna san rumbles up on his Harley and I explain my dilemma. He sniffs around and says, ‘Dai jou bu.’ This means, ‘ Hey, no problem.’  I had been much depressed by my center plate, and felt that it might be the punch in the mouth that knocks out my project. It does not worry Kiyuna san, so I guess everything is OK. He is a good person to be around.

Many coats of paint

I do a good day’s work resulting in a full scraping off of paint under the boat. I will now sand and subsequently apply a new coat of anti-fouling paint.

So here is the big question. Why bother? Why not just paint another layer on to all the others?

Well, I will leave you to think about this.

Braveheart

I take a day off from cruel and unusual punishment and wander around. It is the best day. This time of year is unpredictable weather-wise in Okinawa. It can be drab rainy and grey, but this year the weather has been splendid, especially today.

I take a day off from the scraping and sanding. I just bike around the area around the apartment and enjoy early April.

Amaryllis growing wild

Morning Glory has special significance in Japan. https://quietripple.wordpress.com/2011/04/21/good-morning-glory/

It is in the hills, in the streets , on the landing grounds, on the beaches, we will never surrender.

I  return to one of my favorite spots, the tomb on the island.

This is 5 minutes from my flat. I find it mesmerizing but I have never met another human on my visits

This is a wonderful time in Okinawa. It is still cool enough such that you can open all your windows and a cooling breeze wafts through the apartment. Not long from now, we will be sealed in air conditioned space.

Just a reminder

I creep  into the university and I am stopped short by an amazing Ikebana display.

Tomomi, my former colleague did this.

Different angle

She is so talented.

Tomomi and Ben in SF

First and foremost, ” Happy Birthday Mummy!”  Today my Mummy is 95 and a finer person I have never met.

God put on a full moon in recognition.

I celebrate her birthday by struggling with my centerboard.

It will not come down.

Moth and rust doth corrupt.

I belatedly read the boat’s instruction manual with due care, to find a sentence that mentions a center board retaining pin.  This holds the plate in the raised position.

This is it. It is found in the most obscure cranny of the boat and even during very thorough cleaning, I never came across it.

I am very excited by this discovery and fantasize about sliding the pin out like a well oiled, er something, er can’t find the word, and the plate drops. Of course it refuses to comply.

No slide out retaining pin = no centerboard. No centerboard = no sailing boat. Strong juju.

I think I will have to drill it out unless the esteemed Neil Thompson Boats  http://www.neilthompsonboats.co.uk/norfolk-range/norfolk-gypsy/ can suggest a solution.

Anyway, I spend the rest of the day scraping and sanding off anti fouling paint from the bottom of the boat. My brother Ian has likened this activity to ‘cruel and unusual punishment.’  He is right. I am filthy, aching and covered in a layer of blue dust. I wash off the worst at the boatyard and head home.

I notice huge crowds outside the bull fighting arena in Ishikawa and pop in.

Okinawa

His mind is elsewhere

Yay, a winner. Notice tiny boy on back of mad bull.

Do you like sponge cake?

I finally get home and shower. I am covered in blue dust despite efforts to clean up at the boat yard.

Bluebeard

As a child, with my Mummy, one of my clearest memories is the burning pain of getting soap in my eyes. It seemed to happen every time I washed or took a bath and so I now naturally shy away from such activities.  As I shower off the blue dust, I realize that I have not had soap in the eyes pain for years. Have they removed the pain stuff from soap and shampoo?

On my first visit to Japan, which was in 2001 I think, I bought a kitchen knife.

This knife has brought me happiness and joy ever since. She has been my companion in  the kitchen for 20 years.

She is made from soft, not stainless steel. This means she can be sharpened to razor edge very easily.

She is now old and the ever present Okinawan decay syndrome, has hit her hard.

I am very pleased to remember the word “Tang”. This is like the steel part of a knife that goes into the handle. I cannot remember the name of the person I have just been introduced to, but I can remember instantly obscure knife terminology .

Her tang has had a hard life.

I clean her up and introduce her to the new handle. I am not the first to experience knife trouble and replacement handles are easily found.

I insert the tang into the new handle. I then drop the set up onto a hard floor. This drives the tang into the handle.

I love my knife. Back in action.

So, many thanks knife. I hope we can  work together for years.