The Quiet Ripple Defines The Pond

This is where Kanusha lives and thus where I spend most of my time. It is a great place. That said, all marinas have a certain sadness about them brought on by the large number of unused boats who have been neglected by their owners and are gently decaying. “What did I do wrong?” they must think. It reminds me of Black Beauty.

Eyes left

Check out big lifts in background.

Eyes right. The big building in the background is a mega San A shopping mall.

Anyway it is perfectly suited for boat restoration. There are huge lifts for when I have to work on her bottom. Indeed there are elevated cradles on which you can place the boat for long term work. This will be very useful as I will have to apply many coats of anti fouling paint. I also foresee problems with the center plate that appears to be heavily corroded and will probably need replacing. There is electricity and water but more than anything there is Tabata san.

Tabata san is my new hero. He is the harbormaster and a finer a guy you could not meet. He is a fixer. His phone is constantly ringing, he is running 25 different projects at the same time. He is undaunted. I mention my anxiety about shipping the boat from Miyako to Okinawa. He phones a friend. It is all fixed. I anguish about paperwork, inspections and registrations. He fixes all that. I look at my engine with grave doubt.

Would you trust this?

He says, “Don’t worry Neil san, we can lift it out and overhaul, if it is dead I will find you a good second hand GM1.” I tell you, this is all like grease on the boil of my worry.

Yay! Tabata san

A short walk from the Marina is a shopping mall.

You can get anything you want in the San A .

A big bag of hot deep fried fish for $2. I have eaten half of them.

Just next to the huge supermarket is a shop endearingly called a coffee farm. It is a find. They sell couscous, cardamon, fine wines and incredible choice of coffee. The staff are joyful. Japan how much do I love you?

Alladin’s cave

So, dear reader, the nature of this blog is about to change. The large part of the content will now be devoted to a restoration project on a 1992 Norfolk Gypsy, which Naoko named Kanusha because it does not mean anything.

Some will remember that in July 2016, I visited the beautiful island of Miyako to look at a Norfolk Gypsy that had miraculously found its way there from the dreary, er to some, coast of Norfolk.

To have any chance of restoring her from her sad state, a few factors were imperative; permanent residence status in Japan – check; lots of time –check; I have retired.

However there are many ditches, slaps and stiles between Miyako and Okinawa. I mean, find someone to load her and all her designer luggage onto a truck in Miyako, organize ferry to Naha, then truck up to Ginowan Marina. In my diminished state, burnt out from 40 years on the treadmill, this is a daunting prospect.

Well, on the 30^th of December 2017, she arrives at Ginowan Marina on the back of a truck. This appears miraculous. It must have something to do with the proximity date-wise to the birth of sweet baby Jesus.

It’s a bit like getting married.

Luckily she fits onto the trailer. There is much adjustment to get her perfectly placed and leveled. I sort of circle as the harbormaster, of whom more later, and the truck driver give a performance of great skill and delicacy.

Tight fit.

There is a moment of drama as the centre plate is a bit lowered and so the boat cannot sit on the trailer. The weight of the boat will certainly push the plate up but if taken askance it could also bend, snap or generally deform the center plate.

Protruding center plate.

I shout, “ Go, go!” The crane lowers and the center plate rises into its slot.

We chock, wedge, jack and there she is extant in Ginowan. Wow!

Chapter One

So, since my last posting much has changed. I have left my beautiful house by the sea and have moved to my new crib. I have sold or got rid off the majority of my possessions. I no longer have a job with concomitant salary and status. I am now just another bum. But worse than all of that I have had no Internet access.

One thing that is slow in Japan, and indeed in other countries as far as I remember is the installation of a household Internet connection. It takes over a month here. This has meant no blog entries during one of the most tumultuous and exciting periods of my life. It has also meant no email except from my phone. I do not like using my phone for mail. My fingers are stubby, arthritic, swollen and do not respond well to the lightning fast messages from my brain. They are so huge that each time I try to hit a letter on the diminutive keyboard, I usually hit three. This then entails much deleting, which in turn, generates more errors.

These fingers were made for thinning turnips.

Today everything changed as the men from AU, my internet provider arrived. AU is a big Japanese telecom firm whose name sounds too much like the classic Scottish greeting of “Hey you!” as in “Hey you Jimmy, youse looking at me or chewing a brick? Either way youse gonna lose yer teeth!”  If you phone a delicate Japanese friend normally their answering machine message starts with a very loud “AU”, I still take 2 steps backward.

Anyway I expected them to plug a modem into the wall and go away. Not so, first a  cherry picker truck comes and  3 guys install a cable.

Getting my money’s worth

Then cable is pulled along the corridor outside my front door.

Vince Cable

The action moves inside.

Such fun

So the incredible fiber opens the world to me. The speed is amazing.

This  is actually a slow moment. Normally it is above 700 mbps. Worth waiting for.

I am back in business, however I have a moment of regret on losing the blissful anonymity that no internet brings.

I always remember the terrible shock when I spied hundreds of men, squadrons of concrete trucks, cohorts of diggers, starting work on the LHC. Having spent some 10 years involved in the negotiations on funding plans and political support, all of which is very abstract, it was sobering to see that it was actually happening.  We were like committed.

The same is true of my boat project.

I get up very early on Monday and race over to Chinen san’s yard. We are going to truck my trailer down to the Ginowan Marina.

I love my trailer

I get to ride in the truck, which makes me very excited.

We unload in Ginowan.

So the trailer is in place. All I need now is a boat. Maybe I should start calling her Kanusha because that is her name.

I will be spending a lot of time here.

Kanusha is on her way. She is a bit like an arranged marriage wife. I do not know her yet we are committed to spending the rest of our lives together. I agonize that the uprights on the trailer are too narrow for her ample girth.  Well, let’s ask Doris.

Anyway, I am committed.

My colleagues organize a farewell BBQ on Saturday, which turns out to be the coldest, and most dreich day of the year.

Thanks

Teruya san, Arisa, Natori san tend the BBQs

Tina, Naoko, Justin – wonderful people.

Natori san with Kikuta san, for whom I have total respect. I mean both of them. http://www.oist.jp/news-center/videos/ichiro-kikuta-yambaru-byobu-exhibition-painting-forest-full-life

Chinen san, who is a good person, gives me a very fine Japanese flute. I find it difficult to play.

Nagahama san, left, is the Mayor of Onna and a good friend.

Onna gives me a beautiful Awamori flask. I am very touched.

This you tie around your waist and swig from, unless you are driving of course.

We have to move inside cos it is too cold. Now this may not seem a big deal to most of you folks but in Okinawa it is unheard of.

Chinen san plays my flute

I blubber a bit. There is actually a lot of blubbering all round.

Lots of speeches

A  wonderful video on 7 years at OIST. Thanks Micheal and Natori san.

We all blubber

Kinjo san,  my favorite cleaning lady, gives me amazing orchids. I am humbled by Okinawan generosity.

I play a lament – ‘OIST nae more’

So, I cannot salute the generosity of my colleagues enough for organizing such a wonderful farewell.

He has bought the Scaffie, the trailer, the Tophatsu and the truckette: all the things I love.

Miseria

New owner. He will treat her well.

Thank you Scaffie.

Late last night I heard the screen door slam.

Lots of good times with that boat – more good times to come with next boat, whose name is Kanusha. I asked Naoko what I should call the boat. She, without hesitation said, “Kanusha”.  “What does it mean?” Again without hesitation, Naoko says, “I don’t know.”

Great woman.

The same can be said about my retirement date. There is a flurry of things to do. However I would like to thank folks whom I have worked with in this last week of my life of travail.

These are our Community Relations people. I love them dearly.

We have a big deal meeting over the last couple of days with the Weizmann Institute, https://www.weizmann.ac.il/pages/  and IST Austria, https://ist.ac.at/

All their senior like people are here and I believe this is the last presentation I will have to give in my professional life.

I hide

All said and done, by miles the high point of the day, was a retirement gift from Yamada sensei.

Shinman Yamada with his wonderful daughter Miwako

It has been a great privilege to become friends with Yamada sensei and his family. I am very touched when he gives me two cups to mark my retirement.

This is art

Life is good.

La Truckette spends a lot of time standing and waiting. Of late, she has demonstrated her valor. As I negotiate the change of life, she plays a critical role.

Today I have to pick up the fridge and washing machine as what I have bought for my new apartment. We drive down into deepest Okinawa and load up.

Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’er land and ocean without rest:

“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”

I install them in the new crib.

Only cold water

Exciting photo

I then rush back to the house because a conglomeration of students have bought the little blue boat.

https://quietripple.wordpress.com/2013/06/06/a-boat-of-my-own/

We load her on the Truckette.

His state
Is kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’er land and ocean without rest:

Bravo La Truckette

As we charge down the road I am sure that the way that the boat is rigged contravenes many laws but in Okinawa, I feel that there is still a feeling of tolerance towards transporting boats.

So, we drop the little blue boat off in Chinen san’s backyard, which is right on the sea. Chinen san, my hero, lets the students keep the boat in his yard, which is directly below the university. Thank you Chinen san.

Little Blue Boat’s new home. I think she will be happy.

Things start to get serious. I have to get rid of lots of junk that has been gathering around the house or  rotting on the deck. Okinawa is not kind to stuff. Everything rots and corrodes at very high speed.

Luckily I have the truckette, which I load up with rotten tables and chairs, old BBQs, and a chest of drawers that I bought in Bedford in 1976. Sorry to say sayonara because I spent hours stripping paint off it, 40 years ago. Stripped pine was very fashionable in those days.

Tsuha san helps

The chest of drawers then went to Switzerland, France, California, back to France and finally Okinawa. Okinawa did for her. The humidity and heat warped the frame and the drawers such that it became very difficult to pull them out. This I found very annoying so she had to go. After 40 years I just chucked her out. Is this a good or a bad thing?

One of Okinawa’s attractions.

So I have doubtless done a very stupid thing but, as I have probably mentioned before, no risk, no fun.  The safe option, the trip carefully planned, the ferry booked in advance,  leads to each adventure being reduced to frantically trying to join up pre-established dots. No fun in that.  Mike Tyson had it right about planning. “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

Actually, I am getting a little off subject here. Yesterday I went to Miyako Jima and bought a wreck. I aim to restore her to something like her former glory but who knows this may be a good daydream but an excruciating reality

The start of a long and doubtless stormy relationship

It is pouring with rain in Miyako. Taguchi san, the owner, and I look at the boat in a disconsolate way, both of us understanding the depth of human folly. The rain and overall dreichness is the perfect setting.  We have to wait for the wonderful Samae san who has agreed to interpret. Eventually the rain is so strong that we go and sit in Taguchi san’s car. I have a very strong Scottish flashback; sitting in drenched wool, in old car on desolate harbor side, waiting for the rain to stop.

Saemi san. The rain has eased.

Anyway we all go to have Soba.

Soba makes everything OK

There are many difficulties ahead. I have to arrange transportation to Okinawa, install the boat at a marina, find people who can fix the motor, the electrics, get new sails, all in Japanese.  This should keep me busy.

Taguchi san drives a hard bargain.

After the business part, Saemi san takes me for a short drive around Miyako in the driving rain.

Miyako Jima is big on bridges

I like bridges

This is what I plan but fully expect a punch in the mouth