Lemsip is a traditional british cold remedy. I need it as I fall sick in London. I spend the final two days in England semi-conscious in a darkened room in Clapham.
Drugs
This is not what I had planned. However, there is something luxurious about drifting in and out of sleep listening to Radio 4.
I am now in Helsinki with my Lemsip. I am not sure of the ethics of taking 12 hour flights with a severe cold. I do not even have a Japanese cold mask.
Sunday started badly and got worse. I went to the supermarket to stock up on edible pleasure for the coming week. Half way through the check out, as the teenage girl pulled each item from my basket, said what it was and how much it cost, I realized that I had left my wallet at home. I drive home, pick it up, drive back to Marudai and pay. Delightfully the folks had put my basket aside so I did not have to start from scratch but I felt asinine even so.
I go diving and somehow on the walk out to the boat I drop, I think, my mask into the sea. This is a mask with prescription glass so I can see clearly now. I search but to no avail. I go back to the house to get another. I finally set off and after feeble attempts to sail, there is no wind, I finally row out to the dive spot. All of this is irritating.
I strap on the BCD and tank and flop over the side of the boat into the crystal water. Unfortunately I have not put on my fins. They are lying in the bottom of the Scaffie unreachable. So I have to take off all the equipment, heave it into the boat and then heave myself in after. This is becoming increasingly difficult as my once noble body slides more towards the slack, fat end of the spectrum.
Anyway the whole point of the trip was to try out an underwater bag thing for my big Nikon SLR. The bag thing certainly looks the part and I like the idea of very high quality underwater photography. You put the camera in the bag and go through an elaborate ritual of closing such that water does not get in. I had not thought things through for the camera bag is full of air. This means extra buoyancy resulting in extreme difficulty in sinking underwater. I did not have enough weight to compensate for the rubber ring effect of the camera bag. All of this is intensely irritating.
I finally abandon the trip. I go back to the boat and try to dislodge limpets from her hull. This results in severe lacerations to the fingers of my right hand. I scramble back into the boat and row home with blood everywhere.
At home I open the camera bag. It is full of sea water. My beautiful camera has died.
I loved this camera like a very brother. But I killed it.
So we stayed in a guest house in Aka called Sakubaru. It is shabby, disorganized, devoid of ceremony, pretty much like the rest of the village of Aka. I love it.
My room
What I finally noticed about Aka and indeed other villages in the Keramas, is that there are no big hotels, no tourist shops. It is just a little remote Japanese harbor. People rent out rooms to visitors but that is about it as far as the tourist industry goes. I ask about this and am informed that although they could make millions by selling land to Sheraton , Best Western, Hilton etc, they prefer not to.
Aka
Kinjo san and his wife Mari san, as what own the guest house, ask us up on the roof to watch the stars.
Kinjo san and Mari san.
We drink awamori and Orion beer. Soon Momo san and Mami san show up with a sanshin.
They sing and play
It is dark on the roof
After a while another Kinjo san shows up. Now he can really play that sanshin and what is more he knows Scottish tunes. We sing Auld Lang Syne, Morning Has Broken, Amazing Grace and amazingly, Coming Through the Rye. He had no idea where he had learnt the tunes.
Anyway he played and I sang with help from the other Kinjo san.
Coming through the Rye as in: “Gin a lassie meet a laddie coming through the rye”
Anyway Aka Jima is an amazing place.
It has the best beaches. Beautiful sand goes straight into coral hence incredible snorkeling.
So we are in Aka at exactly the right time for lo Saturday night is Matsuri night. The big summer festival is held under the bridge. It is a bit like Glynebourne. Everyone sits out on the lawn having an evening picnic before the show starts.
Our party. We talk opera
A Hoopoe comes to play
The most gracious women in the world drinking beer ferociously
There is a series of local acts. It is incredible fun.
Under the bridge downtown
The kids dance
I usually try to slip out the back if communal dancing is suggested but in Aka the whole village got up to dance and suddenly Jeremy and I found ourselves doing the same thing.
Under the bridge downtown, I gave my life away
The Red Hot Chili Peppers got their inspiration from the Aka Matsuri. This is an opera in 3 acts.
Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word.For mine eyes have seen thy salvation,which thou hast prepared before the face of all people.
Jeremy, James and I go to Aka shima for 3 days of diving.
I will not be able to capture the rapture. I have never had 3 days of such repeated astonishment. The underwater seas around Aka are about 3 divisions above the seas around Okinawa,which themselves are in the first division. This means we have to invent new language. Aka underwater is in the flam flim, the shnurt grunt, the rang tang, the whee whee, the click clack, the spoon wheel, division.
Masa san is our guide
The weather is ideal. The water is so clear that you could make contact lenses from it. We dive in T shirts and shorts.
There is the ambient Okinawan miasma of happiness and joy.
James
I cannot film underwater. I do not know what to do. This not any thing like what it is like, like.
The real colors are brilliant and startling. Watch the video with the highest possible resolution.
Jeremy on the high seas
Masa sensei is one good compadre
Like Simeon, I am now ready to die. What more is there to see?
The joy of shiny baubles soon wears off. A brand new car soon becomes the thing that takes you to work. It has a scratch down the side. I have heard that it hath been said that a beautiful woman soon becomes someone who does not wash up. Herrick’s Julia went to the toilet.
Aha! My Scaffie and I still thrill in the excitement of adventure. It is is Sunday. The weather is everything a poor Scottish boy wrapped in a damp plaid dreamt of as the August rain lashed the heather. ” Neil, there’s nae more porridge.”
The wind is onshore but very light. The lagoon is turquoise as a we gently glide over the shallow water towards the Zampa cliffs
Notice the new traveller.
I anchor on the coral and look around for a while to anchor the beauty Wordsworthlianish. I have a new second hand BCD that I bought in anticipation of Jeremy and James’s arrival next week. I throw it with tank over the side of the boat. I follow and having worked my arms through the straps of the BCD and having stuffed the breathing thing into my gob, off I go into the most amazing dive stuff. No shiny baubles here, just everlasting quality.
The coast line is cut with a series of ravines. Each ravine is covered with a remarkable variety of coral. Where there is coral, there are fish. My scuba ambitions are very precise. I want to look at pretty things. Depth, difficulty, nitro, dive computers and that sort of thing I empty my nose on.
Here is a short movie that does absolutely no justice to the incredible colors.
Holy cow! I emerge from the wonder world and am faced with the ultimate test. Can I get back in the boat? This manoeuvre has gained an enormous significance for me. It is not easy. It is about height. I have to propel myself high over the bulwark to flop down into the boat. This height is generated by my arms pushing upwards and my legs, with fins attached, generating drive. I am an old man. Today I succeed but I sometimes see myself like the old grey wolf who soon will not pin his buck.
We sail elegantly off the anchor but the tide is going down, the lagoon is shallower. The wind is pleasantly stronger. Will I be able to cross the reef into the lagoon? Or will the water be too shallow and the Scaffie crunches into coral?
We head to the bar.
Tennyson worried about crossing the bar or reef.
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.
The big sail drives us towards the bar
We cross the bar with inches to spare.
What a great sail! I pick up the mooring and go to say hi to the clown fish family that lives just meters from my house.
I mean what has happened to your home? It is blanched like Blanche de Castille
Each year the local Eisa dances troupes do a celebrational tattoo down Takashiho Odori, as what is the main street in Yomitan. It is unmissable. It is the end of Obon. Okinawa celebrates.
Rangers!
I love this. Band after band passes by, strutting their stuff. I an certainly missing 80% of the real meaning but the scraps that fall from my master’s table fill me with pride and solidarity with the people of Okinawa.
Yay!
It is very hot.
Another half bottle will do you no harm at all
Um, how can I get it across that this is not something organized for tourists? I am the only tourist present and I have lived here for nearly 6 years.
Kids dance
Go ancestors
Like do not f**k with me
Okinawan women are a delight
Ditto
Will he no come back again
How can they dance in flip flops?
Anyway, it is a remarkable afternoon, shot through with authenticity.
The Quiet Ripple Defines The Pond 