The Quiet Ripple Defines The Pond

This is a great day. Winter seems totally over. Yesterday was my Mother’s birthday. She is 93.

Happy Birthday Mummy!

Today I am stable, no recovering from trips, no trips in the offing. The time is right to launch the Scaffie for her year of taming the mighty ocean.

Before so doing I go to buy some fish at Toya.

One of the boats has brought in a humungous Ray. Much excitement

Ready to go; well actually not. I have to lower the mast. Look how beautiful the Hi Jet looks.

I am now very experienced in the launching the boat thing. Thanks to Ben’s instruction, I can  now back the boat down the slip pretty well. The fishermen now clasp me to their bosoms.

Yay!

The long, well not very long, cold, well not very cold, winter is now over and the season  of  on-the -sea -ness begins.

Off we go

Captain Calder

I take the Scaffie for a little trot around the lagoon and then set her at anchor. Joy.

Where she should be.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever

I then take a delightful walk back to Shioya  to reclaim the truck and trailer.

I drive them back to the house and start the stowage procedure. The trailer I will hide deep in the undergrowth at the end of the er, um, bit of land that I have  rights upon.

The trailer will stay here until the typhoons come.

I run the trailer down the into the undergrowth like by pushing it. There is much speed and momentum.  All goes well until the trailer hits dense vegetation, whereupon it comes to an immediate halt. The end of the trailer canons into my pubic bone. I am catapulted to the ground where I lay stunned and unable to rise. I imitate the actions of a beetle on its back. My arms and legs move frantically in hope that I will be able to right myself. Alas I am damaged and can only lie there on my back until the pain and shock subside.

The villain of the piece

I eventually rise and stumble into the house to massage my pubic bone.

I go to Hiroshima University for a couple of days. The campus is actually a long way from downtown Hiroshima, which is a drag as I feel I should see the Peace Museum thing on one of my trips. Anyway I have the best of times.

Nuclear wasteland

The night before the thing we have to do, we go to eat okinomiyaki, which is like indigenous in Hiroshima.

okinomiyaki people

Really good

We do the  university assesment thing and then go out to dinner again. This time it is a pretty good cross section of the university’s senior management and a couple of er distinguished guests. There is a wonderful guy from Singapore and me.

The menu is above the plate. 10 courses?

Holy cow – what a night!

What I love about the Japanese is their determination to have a good time. Had this been in the U.S., we would have continued to have discussed the the day’s meeting and maybe had a glass of wine.  I France, it would be a good meal and wine but everyone would maintain pomposity.  In Japan, we eat incredible food and get to know each other really well. I think this is because the Japanese have the ability to shed hierachy, inhibition, discretion, reserve, work-concerns once alcohol enters the picture. We have a wonderful evening!

Kampai!

Such wonderful food

Vice President of Research and I discuss important strategic issues.

Great bunch, preparing for the symposium the following day.

So, God bless you folks at Hiroshima University.

Around this time of year in Okinawa amazing things happen to dead trees. One moment they are a bunch of dry sticks with a few dead leaves. The next they spout amazing yellow flowers of a totally tropical genre. Take my word for it, death to beauty in in a day.

Like on the third day he rose again

More used as I am to the slower development of swelling bud to blossom, the Okinawan sudden eruption of floweriness from dead wood always envigorates me.

Don’t look at the flowers, look at the dead wood.

Anyway, I pull off the road into a parking lot to admire the yellow dead tree flowers. The parking lot turns out to belong to a glass blowing er smithy. I wander in. As this is Okinawa, I am greeted with great courtesy.  I protest that I am just a drifter looking at flowers. “Oh how wonderful, in that case let me show you how to blow glass.”  This is a bit of a non sequitur but off we go.

The furnace is full of gallons of molten glass.

Rolling in the Rye Grass

I don’t like sponge cake

He makes me a vase.

I mean, I was just driving back from a meeting.

So, here I am back in Japan. Air travel is truly amazing. I worry about what will replace the jet engine – solar? nuclear? Hmmmmm.  Maybe we are living in a short-lived golden period of air travel. Like, I mean, gasoline cannot continue to be so cheap. Prices must rise and I will no longer be able to zoom around the world with not a care.

I spend the day getting the Scaffie ready for the sailing season. I finalize the thwart. How often have any of you finalized a thwart?

Notice the stainless steel bolts

A lot of work has gone into this.

I was in San Francisco yesterday

I will now eat fish.

Today is St Patrick’s Day. He killed an entire country’s snake population. They take him very seriously in the U.S.

It is an amazing Californian morning.

I go down Palo Alto to see Melinda. Her baby is due today so I go to the Florist on Fell and ask for a Babyshock Bouquet. The flower lady tries to steal my phone and then puts together the weirdest collection of succulents, cactii and thorns that I have ever seen.

“This bouquet is guaranteed to precipitate labor” she affirms.

Melinda!

Melinda is a total star but the bouquet does not do the trick as we sit in the warm sunshine drinking coffee and reminiscing.

O’Flaherty’s, San Jose. Scene of many, memorable, musical, moments.

I join The Crooked Road Céilí Band , friends from old, for 4 hours of non-stop music.

More drink, more reels!

The place is packed with people wearing outlandish costume getting sh*t-faced on a Thursday afternoon. Banjo, Fiddle, Hammer Dulcimer, Flute, Guitar.

San Jose!

Another outstanding day!

James and I rent a truck for a day from Getaround www.getaround.com

You just go to the app and search for cool  truck and it shows you where the nearest one is. It kept coming up with 1701 Fell. We took this to be an error as we live at that address. Finally we went outside and there was a big shiny F 150.

Truck dwarfs house

So we fill her up with all kinds of boating stuff and let that easy old V8 haul us South to Moss Landing.

Is there anything more pleasing than an outboard in the bed of a big truck?

Moss Landing is a sort of old peoples home for sailing boats. The boats very rarely get out and few people come to visit them. The whole place is over-run with Sea Lions and Sea Otters and exotic birds. If you have a boat you can get insanely close to them. We have a boat and a truck to put it in.

Pumped

So, as usual I have left my U.S. bird field guide in Okinawa so my identification is going to be shamefully vague.

Gull, I think Californian, eats dead fish.

Old lady surrounded by layabouts

The engine starts!

Sean Connery’s first job was a sailor

Lonesome Sea Lion

We potter around hoping the engine will not conk out. There is strong breeze and inflatables are impossible to row against any kind of wind.

Brown Pelicans

Are you looking at me or chewing a brick?

Brent Goose

Can’t remember but probably Curlew

Pterodactyl

Common Merganser ? – actually probably Red Breasted Merganser

Horned grebe

Amazing day!

Jet lag has its advantages. On Saturday I am wide awake at 4:00 am thus in plenty of time to get to the famous Kezar Sports Bar in time for the kick off at 7:00am. Scotland play France. I like it that this bar is humming so early in the morning.

The Sots, I mean Scots, are in white.

What joy to watch Scotland beat the French while eating a Full Irish Breakfast. Scotland have now won two matches in a row.

Two matches in a row,two eggs over-easy, two rashers of bacon, two sausages, two black pudding, two white pudding, tomato, toast, hash browns, and  as much coffee as you can drink. No miso soup.

It is a very good start to the day. It is pouring with rain so we go for a walk. We exult in the compost heap in the Golden Gate Park.

Mountains of wood chippings

Bison bombed

Billy the Bison

We go to Land’s End because the ocean is wild.

Bonnie carries James through a lake.

This Little Egret followed me all the way from Okinawa.

Handsome James

We go home and tune up the outboard for tomorrow’s adventure.

The motor runs

We then went out for burgers and beer. Great day.

As I get off the plane at Kansai, there is a charming Japanese lady waiting for me. She guides me through the airport, facilitates the border control procedures, leads into a special security control corridor and thence to the super-duper lounge. She of course sees through me as a pretend VIP instantly.

I’m looking through you

I have had a lot of this kind of thing recently.

Very clean

Gran Sasso is a famous physics lab in Italy that generates external funding with booze

Diligent readers will remember that I was in Tokyo on Thursday. I travelled with my er supervisor. He has all kinds of VIP status, why he knows not. Anyway, I parasite off this and sit in VVIP lounges at airports. These are a bit like luxury jail cells: no windows and they don’t like you to move away from the exercise yard. He also gets very swish limos.

Beyond er supervisor influence, the reason that I am so well treated at airports is due to a falling out with United. After years of super incredible status, they demoted me to zero status without warning. This caused  a deeply embarrassing incident at Haneda. I try to check in through the business line and am turned away. I go red faced and bluster that my Platinum status affords me that privilege. They gaze at me with the ” you sad f*ck” look in their eyes and say, “Economy check in is that way, er, sir.” The whole airport is laughing at me as I trail over to the 500 person line.

Anyway, through my usual incredible luck, I run into an United high priest a few months ago to whom I express my displeasure. He fixes everything and adds VIP reception when I fly United.

Why am I telling you this? Because for the next few days I will be  in San Francisco, sleeping in a sleeping bag on an inflatable mattress on the floor of one of my sons’ bedrooms.

The contrast pleases me.

Burgers!

I go to Tokyo for a thing, which is actually a reasonably big deal. The trip is stamped with terror.

Early morning Tokyo. Little do I know.

The day starts well.

We are driven in great state to the place wherein the action will take place. My biggest responsibility is to buy Jonathan a sandwich for lunch. I venture out into the wild streets of Ginza to find a sandwich shop. At first it is euphoric, whoa Tokyo, whoa!

Japan loves Eddie Jones.

Yay!  I find a sandwich shop.

There are a couple of sandwiches and a chunk of chocky cake in the bag. Each sandwich is beautifully wrapped, the cake is boxed and beribboned.

Smug in that I have carried out my heavy task, I head back to the place. This is where the terror starts. I cannot remember exactly how I got to where I am. I set off into the high building maze of Ginza. I have no idea where I am going, every huge street looks the same. Am I heading towards the place or diametrically away from it? I am illiterate and can read none of the many maps that are posted. Well actually, I can read “You are here.” but, you know, what is the use of knowing where you are if you don’t know where you are going, er, dude?

I feel true terror. Months of work and preparation, thousands or millions of whatever currency, guests from all over, and I am stumbling, with Jonathan’s sandwich, along identical streets with millions of other lost people.

Anyway, I make it.

So, the thing is in a huge auditorium on the 12th floor of an 459 floor or something building.

I listen attentively until I feel the floor shake.  I immediately envisage 100,000,000 tons of concrete dropping down on my head as I in turn drop down at the same velocity, waiting for the inevitable squish as we hit the deck. What will it feel like? Will it hurt?

The little quakes go on.

I sweat.

The thing goes on from 1:30 to 6:00. Throughout I am in a state of primal dread.

Tokyo, you are too hard-core for me.

Anyway, I survive and fly back to find that the Spring “Marine Quarterly” has arrived.

Hooray! I can relax reading about shipwreck.

Soothing

How do I love Okinawa? Let me count the ways.

Today is very soft. It is gently warm and wet. There is a post party drowsiness. I look at the orchids on the deck.

This is an orchid

About 2 weeks ago when I was pimping the mighty HiJet, I backed her up without paying sufficient attention, whereby the half open door caught on a tree and was nearly twisted off its hinges. The result of this stupidity is that the driver’s-side door no longer closes.

I take the truckette to the gas station across the road and mime, ” Is there anything you can do about this? I fully understand if it turns out to be a futile exercise.” Yasushi san  says, “I will totally give it my best shot.”

I go back about an hour later and there is a gang of guys with rods, poles and perches levering the door back into position. Remember this is Sunday lunchtime.

I go back half an hour later and the truckette is fixed. The door swishes to closed with elegant clunk of a Rolls Royce. They charge 540 yen.

Notice how smart the HiJet looks post pimp. Notice the straightness of the door.

Okinawan induced bliss.