The Quiet Ripple Defines The Pond

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.

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.

Ryuishiro, Kanako, Juna and Carlos come to stay. We have the best fun.

Ryuishiro loves the boat.

Kanako at the helm

She steers unassisted all across Nagahama bay.

Juna!

Isn’t it great when kids love sailing.

Matsuda sensei is the best, er in so many ways.

The buckets contain baby turtles.

Kanako loves sea slugs

Raising sail for another day of adventure.

Carlos at the helm

You can have so much fun with a rubber ring

Carlos, whose real name is Yasunori, is a good man

Simple things

Anyway, we had a wonderful time. Children make everything more fun. Thanks Carlos and Juna.

Well, not the oldest thing I own because I have inherited some very old stuff, nor the oldest thing I have bought because I have purchased some 19th century maps. What I am trying to say is that the thing I am about to talk about is the oldest thing I bought new in my lifetime that I have still got. Er I thought this was my yellow diving bag that recently went to it. https://quietripple.wordpress.com/2016/07/02/bye-bye-bag/

However, as I was stirring my gruel last night, I realized that the wooden spoon I was using was a couscous spoon that I had purchased in Oran in 1975, which certainly predates the bag. These spoons are made out of palm trees. That does not sound quite right. I mean , you can make a lot of spoons from one palm tree.

Palm Tree

I used to have an orange plastic comb that I used at school. It would pop up every 10 years or so but I have not seen it recently. Maybe it is in San Francisco.

Hooray, Kanako has come to stay.

I would be interested to know if any gentle readers have old stuff. I know my brothers have beautiful  handwoven Calder tartan rugs that I think were bought in the 60s.

Painting

The words in the title have many meanings: cricket I think is bail, water from boat is also bail, I think, misery woe sorrow, is definitely bale, as is a compactness of stuff like cotton or hay. Then there is the whole leaving category as in: “Sorry chaps, left wing has gone, time to bail out.” or more recently, “Dudes, I am like totally gone, time to bail.”

So it has really rained a lot.

Greenshanks dreaming of Spain

How many years of evolution before Cattle Egrets invent the umbrella?

The rain fills the Scaffie with water. She becomes very heavy and I fear that she will drag her anchor or maybe rip the anchor cleat out of the thwart, if you see what I mean. I rush home from work to bail. This could mean: jump from aeroplane, leave a party in San Francisco or empty a boat of water. You decide.

Very low in the water

The rainwater comes nearly up to seat level.

I bail with my little red bucket, which I hold very dear.

Having bailed I wade home to eat. I fear or exult that OIST has changed stuff around here. When I came here, big lumps of meat were not. You had to wangle your way onto an Ameircan base to buy steak. This was always kinda demeaning.

Now, in the supermarket down the road, I can buy amazing steak.

Is this a good thing? 

Am I destroying Okinawan tradition?  I bail.

My life has been characterized by a series of lucky breaks. One is the tree that grows smack in front of my house.

I remember my early childhood as hours and hours staring at willow pattern plates in cold rooms as the rain slashed against the window panes.

We used to have lots of this stuff. Where is it now?

Now between my house and the sea, is a very beautiful tree.She reminds me of my childhood. She reminds me of Willow Pattern.  She is elegantly formed and gives each gaze seaward a benchmark of quality. “Look at me!” she insists,  “Before you look at that vulgar blue sea stuff.”

What she looked like 3 years ago.

Just prior to moving into this house, Okinawa had been battered by 3 big-boy typhoons. My tree looked fragile and I did not know if she would make it.  I have nursed her assiduously by cutting back invasive vegetation and pruning any dead wood.

Notice how much the vegetation has grown up

I lash my saw to a bamboo pole and clear away the tree stuff that is blocking the purity of my view.

She is so happy and healthy but caveat typhoonum

My tree is doing very well. I am so happy.

Red fish

More plumeria

Oriental Turtle Dove

Tim with number one boy Hugo

More turtle release with Rumi san. I walk over to her beach gazing at supersonic sunset.

No work done on these photos.

It is very warm and pesky fruit bats get tangled in my hair.

Red sky at night

We release about 100 babies who charge down the beach and heroically swim away.

Too dark for real photography

Make up your own caption.

Click on this photo! Can you see all the v shaped ripples? Baby turtles heading out to sea.

Thank you Rumi san.

I was very excited going into this weekend. It is Summer, I have tanks, I have boat, I can still manage to haul myself into boat. These are all the ingredients needed for a lot of fun without drowning.

Rain

All day Saturday it rains like crazy. Thunderstorms  that bring no wind. I stay inside sulking.

My front room

I have inherited amazing orchid display

Red sky at night

Finally, on Sunday afternoon the weather clears but even so there is little wind. Notwithstanding I slowly reach across Nagahama bay to the Cliffs of Zampa and the best diving in the world.

What can a poor boy do?

I dive.

The video only captures 10% of the amazingness.

I then have a very long sail home. The wind such as it is, blows more or less towards me. I set off on long tacks.  The worst thing about sailing is not high wind and dreadful seas, it is gentle winds blowing against you.  I make very slow progress but frankly who cares? It is a magnificent evening.

A guy on a paddle board overhauls me.

Not quite the weekend I had anticipated but incredible all same.

Tim and his baby Hugo were on the beach with me but somehow I did not take a photo of them. I regret this.

It is summer. I take off my shirt. I lurch into the Scaffie for an evening sail. In the process it would appear that I wrenched off my Raybans as I find only the string things that attached them to my person. Oh dear. Maybe I will find the in Davey Jone’s Locker tomorrow.

The wind is perfect, the weather is hot, it is the end of a very satisfying week like, you know,  you know, kinda, workwise.

We charge over the reef

I decapsule a bottle of beer as what had been left behind post party.

I look at it accidentally and discover that it had been brewed in Wisconsin. Wisconsin! I am surging over the reef in Onna son on a hot Okinawan evening, drinking  beer made in Wisconsin.

Guess the name of the beer? Leinenkugel! Germans in America now in Okinawa!

Hey, Politicians leave those immigrants alone.

https://www.leinie.com/

Welcome

Pure

Wonderful evening and I have the whole weekend ahead!

Rumi san, the lady who gave me the plumeria cuttings, came to the party. To my amazement she humbly mentions that every year she releases thousands of baby turtles onto the beach  next to her idyllic guest house.  http://www.sunset-bh.com/english/index.html  Would I like to take part?

My first pink plumeria flower came out today

She explains that the real danger for turtle eggs are typhoons. The sea comes right up the beach, floods the nests in the sand and the eggs rot. To avoid this she locates the nests, digs up the eggs and reburies them in cosy sand boxes on her deck.

Turtle hatchery

I go over tonight as the first babies have hatched. There are five and after sundown we release them.

Ready to go

It is a beautiful evening

It is too dark for photography and flash would not be appropriate. The little darlings go like hell straight to the sea and off they swim. One in a thousand grows to adulthood – boo hoo.

I know where I am going

Good luck

Golly.