The Quiet Ripple Defines The Pond

I always enjoyed Ezra Pound’s parody of”Sumer Is Icumen In”

Winter is icumen in,
Lhude sing Goddamm,
Raineth drop and staineth slop,
And how the wind doth ramm!
Sing: Goddamm.
Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us,
An ague hath my ham.
Freezeth river, turneth liver,
Damm you; Sing: Goddamm.
Goddamm, Goddamm, ’tis why I am, Goddamm,
So ‘gainst the winter’s balm.
Sing goddamm, damm, sing goddamm,
Sing goddamm, sing goddamm, DAMM.

That said, in Okinawa where the sky is blue and never is heard a discouraging word, a bit of wild, wintery weather is very welcome. I wear my winter woollies and big red coat.

Add in the wind chill!

I go to Cape Manzamo.

Not a day for boating

I love a rough sea

This photo is in black and white. Note waves breaking over the rocks in the background

I do like to be beside the seaside

Wild and wistful ocean

The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore. I love living by the sea. She is versatile and inventive companion.

Cold Golden Plover

Miserable Grey Tailed Tatlers

Greenshanks or maybe Marsh Sandpiper. Age makes decision so difficult.

I look forward to spending a year on Cara.

So, I am very fond of my big, woolen, red, coat as what I wore a lot in freezing Nevada. To my delight I wore it today in Okinawa! The weather is fantastic. It is blowing a gale, raining heavily and even coldish.

Cape Zampa

I went out to Cape Zampa to get my prescription filled with fresh air and spray. Huge waves breaking over the cliffs and I got completely drenched not by rain but by sea water in the sky.

I have been diving here

Difficult to get the scale but these are big rocks

Wow

At times I felt that I might have needed gloves.

For those of you who worry that I have left Okinawa, er worry no more. Here is proof. I have moved from -20 to + 20 degrees centigrade.

Breakfast in January

I gently spruce up the Scaffie.

Warm

I look at my Hibiscus.

I grew this in a pot

I look at the what’s it called.

Can’t remember

This is my house and palm tree

I go for a walk to look at birds.

This either a Temminck’s or a Great Cormorant. Both winter here and look the same.

Can’t remember

Little Egret – notice yellow feet.

Seagull?

Amazing hibiscus everywhere

I watch an Osprey catching lunch

Notice color of sky

Missed

A little bit of bread with no cheese

My car

Okinawa is a nice place to live.

My learned brother Ian has spent a lot of time researching the life of Sir Ernest Shackleton, who is famous for Antartic exploration and for being the inspiration for Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest.”

Here  is  Ian on South Georgia doing research with a shovel.

Anyway, he has just published a paper in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medecine proposing that Shackleton had a hole in his heart. The main evidence is that Shackleton ate his dogs and clearly anyone who can eat little doggies must be lacking heart.

“Oh! it is absurd to have a hard-and-fast rule about what one should eat and what one shouldn’t. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn’t eat.” This is a Shackleton quote on eating dogs that was snitched by Wilde. Wild is the chap on the left of the group. He later added an ‘e’ to his name and went on to be a playwright. The dogs in the photo are clearly nervous.

Here is a conversation between McNish and Shackleton during the awful voyage of the James Caird, McNish speaks first.

“How you can sit there, calmly eating muffins when we are in this horrible trouble, I can’t make out. You seem to me to be perfectly heartless.”

“Well, I can’t eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs. One should always eat muffins quite calmly. It is the only way to eat them.”

“I say it’s perfectly heartless your eating muffins at all, under the circumstances.”

From this we can understand that Shackleton’s crew were all aware of their leader’s heart condition. The conversation was also shamelessly plagiarized by Wilde.

Ian at home in Clapham eating muffins.

Anyway, bravo Ian!

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/12/polar-explorer-ernest-shackleton-may-have-had-hole-in-heart-doctors-say

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/12095607/Sir-Ernest-Shackleton-suffered-from-a-hole-in-the-heart.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/a6808396.html

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/health/article4663680.ecehttp://www.medicaldaily.com/sir-ernest-shackleton-legendary-antarctic-explorer-died-congenital-heart-defect-known-369060

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3396796/Pioneering-Antarctic-explorer-Sir-Ernest-Shackleton-suffered-congenital-hole-heart.html

http://www.sciencecodex.com/a_century_after_endurance_shackleton_diagnosed_with_hole_in_the_heart-173246

http://now.howstuffworks.com/2016/01/12/the-heartbreaking-end-legendary-adventurer-sir-ernest-shackleton

So my return ticket is for the 5th January. I looked at it once about 2 months ago and noticed that the flight left late at night. However looking again just now by accident, I notice that the flight actually leaves at 12:05 am on 5 Jan. That is tonight! I have lost a day and but for a trick of fate would have shown up tomorrow and missed the plane. Here are a few random shots from a great stay in California.

James

We see breakfast

My coat.

Parking lot Nevada

Makes a change from Miso soup and seaweed for breakfast.

What?

Thanks James, thanks Ben

The goal of this  trip was to visit Ruby Lake Wildlife Reserve in Nevada. The website is very seductive, http://www.fws.gov/Refuge/Ruby_Lake/

It does not however mention that it is virtually inaccessible in the winter, that the lake is frozen and the whole region covered in feet of snow. I could have deduced this from study of weather reports but in balmy Okinawa it is difficult to integrate snow and ice into climate prognosis.

We, Ben and I, head off from San Francisco in the car with no name. It is a great car but uses a pint of oil every 100 miles, which points to something rotten in the motor. Will we get there? Will we get back?

It is really, really cold throughout the whole trip. The record being minus 18 fahrenheit -28 centigrade, in Battle  Mountain. The scenery is glorious.

East on I 80

We follow the California Trail that brought the wagon trains from the East. I 80 was essentially built over the ruts. America is big and after a day’s driving we stop in Winnemucca.

“Winnemucca’s brothel district, while smaller now than in the 1980s, is known as “The Line” or “The Ring Circle”, based on the layout of the street where the brothels are located. Sex workers in the town must register their vehicles with the local police.”^{[5]  Wikipedia.}

I thought you would like to know this.

We stay in a very cheap motel -$49.99- and eat KFC.

Next morning we head off to Battle Mountain for breakfast.

Model T in garden of collapsing house in Battle Mountain

– 3 fahrenheit ! Minus 18 centigrade

Main Street, Battle Mountain, Nevada. It is very ,very cold

On to Elko and then we head south towards Ruby lake. It starts fine as, although the road is narrow, it has been more or less cleared of snow and ice. This changes suddenly and we are confronted with a big decision – continue or turn back. The road is covered in snow, we are in the middle of nowhere, we have neither snow tyres nor chains, the car is hardly designed for off road stuff. If we slide off the road or get stuck it will be nasty as it it is way, way below freezing and there are no signs of humans. We have no gloves nor boots. Anyway there will be nothing to see when we get there as everything is frozen solid.  We go on.

Jack Rabbit dreams of Bermuda

The road to Ruby Lake.

Cosy

Log House

What is this? No field guide. I think it is a very pale Red Tailed Hawk. No it is a pale Ferruginous Hawk

We did see some birds on the way down the lonesome road. A very fine Golden Eagle who sat on his post until we were about 5 yards away and a Bald Eagle.

Trumpeter Swans, actually I now think they are Tundra Swans. Notice yellow spot on adult’s bill.

Ben at Ruby Lake. Spot the lake.

Nature Morte

Okinawa to Ruby Lake

Great trip. Here is a poor video:https://youtu.be/lcDwfAdqlsU

Well driven Ben.

Ben and I head towards the Sacramento wetlands in the car with no name  to observe geese and to check on my future home.

I intend to die in a camper on the back of a pickup truck and this necessitates purchasing both. I had better hurry as I hear the bell tolling. Accordingly we drive fast up 80 to the camper workshop

Casket

Have a look at the 4 Wheel Camper site:  http://www.fourwh.com/

We then head north as the evening draws in. Thousands of geese are flying into the wetlands to spend the night in ponds of freezing water.  It is an soul restoring sight. The vast majority are Snow Geese with some Ross Geese and White Fronted Geese, I think but I have left my field guide in Okinawa, thrown in.

Snow Geese settle for a freezing night in the swamp.

Snow Goose

Grace Slick Goose. No, White Fronted Goose

Ferruginous Hawk, I think

It gets dark so we head to Walmart.

Outside Walmart.

We are up before dawn to catch the early birds catching the worms.

Ben with the car with no name

We pass a unforgettable morning.

Don’t know what this is until I get back to Okinawa. I have got very rusty on American birds. Cooper’s Hawk

White Crowned Sparrow

We go for breakfast in the Black Bear Diner.

Eggs Benedict

We go back to the wetlands and have another glorious session of wildlife.

Bald Eagle! I have seen them before but usually a thousand miles away. This one sat on my knee.

Eggs Benedict

Some of a million Snow Geese that take off at the same time.

Glossy Ibis

I do not understand this. Gas was $4:50-$5:00 when I left 8 years ago

Such happiness, cheap gas and millions of rare birds.

So I wake up to a very wet and blowy Xmas day in Okinawa. Mind you it is still 20 degrees but it feels chilly. I bumble around and finally find myself at the airport. I fly to Taipei. I fly to San Francisco.

The boys pick me up at SFO at about 7:30 pm on Xmas day. I do not recognize James who now has a full beard. Ben’s car is working and we zing back to Fell.

Alan has arranged for a whole lot of beer to be delivered.

James has cooked roast duck, Chinese hairy potato and bok choi. It is delicious. We drink beer and open excellent gifts from around the world. We have a lot of fun.

Thanks everyone!

I go to bed and draw the cover, which seems a bit thin, over me. I am asleep in 2 seconds. I awake at 2:30 with my teeth chattering and chilled to the bone. I had not realized that the cover was only flimsy decoration and I was lying on top of a super warm sleeping bag. Too long in Okinawa where a sheet is usually sufficient cover. I feel truly awful and lie foetus like in the sleeping bag desperately trying to warm up. I have not been cold for years.

Another double Xmas. Lots of adventures programmed in the wild west.

I go to Tokyo for lunch.

I get up at 5:30; hightail it to the airport for the first flight. It is a 2.5 hours flight, which gives me a wonderful window to read a book that brother Ian recommended. It is about two guys who sail and row a small boat through the North West Passage. Great fun, a little blemished by Royal Marine officers spending too much time talking about their relationship. Are Marines allowed to talk about relationships these days?

Anyway their relationships, I mean adventures, are very similar to my own on the Scaffie. Mine tend to be warmer. However they do a great job describing the frustration and tedium of beating against the wind in a small dinghy with no motor.

Okinawa

So we beat our way into Tokyo against the wind as I am reading about sailing in a rock strewn passage in terrible conditions.  Suddenly the wind gets up and the fog comes in. We crash against huge waves of turbulence. We cannot see where we are going. We are kicked around by the wind and sea. The dread of the big wave that will be the end is ever present. We finally break through the fog and, oh no!, we are only 1oo metres above the reef, I mean runway. I don’t think we will make it. The tiller does not respond as we are buffeted up, down, port, starboard. The rain crashes against the widows.

There is a sickening crunch as we smash into the rocks.

Later, after lunch, I fly back but this time it is a smooth broad reach.

Flying can be a lot like sailing.

Why is it that very rare birds fly into windows more than common birds? Why is it that cats catch Bullfinches, Goldfinches and Hawfinches in preference to Sparrows?

Ryukyu Green Pigeon. I have only even seen two.

Maybe this is evolution. These birds are rare because they have not worked out plate glass.

Brown Headed Thrush. I have never seen this bird alive.

Ruddy Kingfisher! I have seen 2.

Nature red in tooth and claw and window.