The Quiet Ripple Defines The Pond

I went to Tokyo last week and ate this

Evening meal

Breakfast – check out little baby fish.

When I go to Tokyo I like to stay at the First Cabin Hotel at either Haneda or Narita airports.

I have written about these places before but they are a source such joy to me that I can not restrain myself.:

Things I like:

It reminds me of skool

I can pretend I am in a hut on the Antartic shelf

It has lightning internet

It is 2 mins from the departure security gate

It is 1 minute from any number of restaurants

I do not have to get up at 3:30 in the center of Tokyo and worry about getting the right subway

It is dirt cheap

I also delight in the fact that there are no doors on the rooms, just a sliding screen thing, which you cannot lock. It is understood that we live in a civilized society where people are not going to rob, murder and stuff, you.

Come morning, I stumble into the spotless bathroom area for a shower and that sort of thing. Everyone is wearing the blue hotel pyjamas. It is like a scene from a prison movie or a British public school. We all hunch over the sinks with bleary eyes, tousled hair, I mean not me, as we ritually scrub our molars.

15 minutes later we are all bursting  out to catch flights. Everyone is immaculate in suits and ties, I mean not me.

Such fun.

First Class Cabin. Notice extra space beside bed. Most cabins are smaller.

You will remember that I mistakenly ordered 29 kilos of mutton when Ben was here. This fills every nook and cranny of freezer space I possess and there are 4 legs of lamb in  a freezer at the university.

Today, Mark gives me a shoulder of venison and a bottle of Scottish beer. Tara gives me 3 packs of bacon, a pack of sausages and a huge bag of chicken breasts. She also gives me half a bottle of Lagavulin and  a bottle of Aberlour.

Freshly grallached.

What am I going to do with all this meat?

Very strange moth, probably carnivorous

I love to have a project and right now I have a meaty one – the thwart.

Readers will remember that I went down to the woodyard to negotiate a new thwart.

By the way, this is my new car.

Anyway this is what my buddy, the wood dude, came up with.

Probably not Oak but very hard nonetheless.

I drill and soak in teak oil.

I love drenching wood with oil

I stand outside in the sun. I sand, oil and watch.

An Osprey passes by

A caterpillar says hello

Ponsettia in its natural state

A little yellow flower with bug

New thwart in situ

So, I feel this thwart project will keep me going until the end of 2015. I have to varnish, refine hole placing and finally bolt onto the boat. So much pleasure.

Tara has been a joy and light at the University for the last umm 3 years. Unfortunately, if you see what I mean, she has submitted her thesis and will move on down the road. I mourn her passing. Tara is without doubt the finest flute and whistle player with a doctorate, er nearly, in Quantum Physics in the visible universe.

Tara tells it like it is

I have enjoyed playing music with her immensely. She is the real thing. I mean she is from Midleton, County Cork, where Jameson whiskey is made. She plays with great understanding and drinks, parties, is, in the same way.

There is a big party to say adieu.

Yay Tara Okinawa

We play a million tunes.

Tara and the rest of us. Best Irish music in Okinawa

She is very smart.

Further on down the road, Tara

Respect Tara.

So, not much to say in this little text other than this has been a glorious weekend. I have spent it outside. Just wandering around but above all gently nurturing the Scaffie back to top condition. This will be a long job as she has had a hard season. Okinawa for all her beauty, is a stern mistress. She exerts a hard toll on all things material. Spiritual stuff, neither rusts nor corrupts here but everything else does.

Spot the crack. You have to click on all these photos to really understand.

The main focus of the refit is the thwart. This slab of oak holds the mast in place and through it run and cleat the halyards. You will remember that it disappeared over the side some time in the summer.

https://quietripple.wordpress.com/2015/08/19/golly/

This event left the thwart with a significant crack across it. I must fashion a new thwart.

Ben’s Shisa watch my every action

It detach the thwart from the Scaffie and disassemble

Thwartless

I go to the wood store. This is the best place. It is full of exotic hardwoods and the boss man and I have had several interesting conversations. I mime, “Please  cut a replacement thwart for the Scaffie from a plank of amazing hardwood.” He gets it instantly. He then lists the different woods he can make it from.  I cry “Oak!” He cries,”Oak! So des, Oak arimas!”  We cry on each others’ shoulders. I cannot wait to see what he comes up with.

It smells wonderful

The weather is perfect. The skies are huge.

Early morning from the deck

Night falls

From the roof terrace

I walk up and down the beach.

My house is the white one.

End of November

I spend a long time watching a pair of Ospreys fish in the bay.

Getting ready for the wild plunge onto insouciant fish

I then blunder around looking for birds.

Blue Rock Thrush

Grey Faced Buzzard as it gets dark

White Wagtail

Ultra rare Eastern Yellow Wagtail. Only comes here from Siberia on package holidays.

Yay!

Before Ben leaves we take the Scaffie out of the water for her winter refit. She needs lots of Teak Oil, sanding, varnishing, scrubbing and general love. Don’t we all.

We sail the Scaffie to the best harbor in the world, Shioya, where the the trailer awaits.  I have never been able to back the trailer down the slipway accurately. It jack-knives, it goes the wrong way and I end up pushing the trailer by hand thereby herniating my gut.  Ben takes control and gives a master class in backing up a trailer. We winch the Scaffie onto the trailer consummately.  We then take the boat home and again Ben backs her into the winter position without the slightest problem. I am in awe. How does he do it ?

What a masterly performance!

So, the Scaffie awaits months of tender care.

“I’m afraid we shall waste an awful lot of time.” “Don’t worry,” answered Snufkin, “we shall have wonderful dreams, and when we wake up it’ll be spring.

You may remember that I spent a lot of time working out how to winch the Scaffie into Dead Man’s Gulch. Check out: https://quietripple.wordpress.com/2015/04/11/dior/

and

https://quietripple.wordpress.com/2015/05/10/dont-it-always-seem-to-go/

However, now the fishermen allow me to use their slipway, as I am clearly mad, the need to winch the boat up the beach has evaporated.

However my brain has been squirming like a toad on the subject. The wheels on the trailer are too small. Yesterday, with a little help from my friends, I install new wheels, which, if I ever lose fisherman favor, will allow me to winch the Scaffie out of trouble like nae borra.

Previous decadent wheel situation

I like to keep my wheels on the ground.

Little Blue Boat on the trailer.

I feel a little bit over-prepared. I don’t generally like people who prepare for possible future difficulty.

So the car goes in for its road fitness test. You will remember that this takes place every two years in Japan. The test is called the Shaken after Welsh 80’s pop star Shakin Stevens.

Rusty Chassis was one of his greatest hits.

Ben leaves – boo hoo, he is a good companion.

Bye Ben, thanks for looking after me

Grey Heron in the slime bath near the airport.

I drive to the shop, where the main man is Yamada san, to see what pain I will have to suffer Shaken style. Ouch! Yamada san does an excellent onomatopoeic interpretation of rust eating its way through the chassis of my faithful pig liver colored March. It goes, “Crunchy,crunchy,crunchy,chew,chew,choo.”

I am surprised the engine has not fallen out

Living by the sea is good for the soul but bad for cars. The wind, salt, humidity, heat, crabs, do damage to metal.

So my car is over, long live the car!

Yamada san with Honda 750

Yamada san says, ” Why not buy this Honda Fit, which is fit and like fits you.” What a good idea.

I scurry off to a ATM. In Japan I can pull $5,000 from an ATM day after day, within limits.

Cash rules!

I now have a Honda Fit. I am am bound to lose weight.

Oh no ! Ben is about to leave. I take a day off and we go diving. First we go to Sunabe and generally burble about amidst the amazing soft corals as what is found there

That’s my boy

Ben

We then go for an evening dive straight out from my house. We swim out and everything is OK.  We watch amazing groups of Bat Fish who seem to be hiding. We become aware that  there is a very strong current zooming around. Beautiful clown fish but it is late, the sun is going down and we have to get back to shore. Normally this kind of thing does not bother me. I have total confidence in my physical ability. But, this time it is different. We set off for shore against a very strong current. I do what I can, but for the first time in my life I question my physical ability to get out of the situation I have engineered. Am I strong enough to get back to the shore?

I swim on my front, I swim on my back, I swim on my side, but nothing seems to work as the current pushes against me. I make no progress. I feel inklings of panic. Thank God that Ben is with me. He stays about 1 metre away from me all the way into the shore. I feel weak. Finally, after 30 mins of desperate  swimming from me, I reach a depth where I can walk. Ben is like a sea lion, he is aware that I am not doing too well and swims around me making sure that I am OK. Thanks very much Ben.

Oh no! I am I old?

Check the video:

So in honor of Jonah Lomu, Ben and I order a whole lot of food from the amazing: http://baticrom.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=20

This is Aladdin’s Cave. You can get what you want.  We want meat.

Japanese food is wild but from time to time, I want to roast, a chicken, a duck, a shoulder or leg of lamb. When I say from time to time I really mean all the time.

We get our quantities very badly wrong.

Dead meat

At 7:30 on a Wednesday night, a hyper polite delivery guy like delivers, 29 kilos of lamb, 3 chickens, a duck and lots of other stuff.   We have gone too far. There is neither tomb nor continent  enough to hide the slain.

Meat on the ledge

We light the BBQ.

I tried hard for many years to be a lawyer but happiness kept breaking through.

Hmmm, I now need to find a big freezer.

Every nook and cranny of my fridge is crammed with defrosting lamb, chickens  and a duck. What to do? I mean Ben leaves on Friday.

Ben has no mastery over the Sun. In fact I would suggest that the Sun has mastery over Ben. The last time he was here he went diving on the first day and this happened.

Factor 0

This time around he has been sitting in the boat exposing his  knees. This happened- warning – this video is gross.