The Quiet Ripple Defines The Pond

After all the razamatazz of last week, things had to change. It is written.

“After the morning there comes an evening
And after the evening another day.
Being much more like a commanding officer
Than a man to die upon the gallows tree.”
Quite so.

The curse really began when I tried to fix the mighty Hi Jet. Nothing difficult here. Remove flat battery and replace with the the new battery that I use as a bedside table. However the sly one has many ways of tripping up honest folk. This time he placed the terminals on the new battery on  the other side  from the original battery.

The way the battery is meant to be set up. Terminals at the front giving the + terminal on the left  and – terminal on the right.

However the mighty Hi Jet’s battery leads come from behind the battery demanding that the terminals are at the back of the battery.

Yea, e’en so.

This means that the positive terminal is on the right and the negative is on the left, which in turn means that I connected the positive lead to the negative terminal  and in fact never really  connect the other one because of all the sparks. Result –  fried electrics, well actually probably just a blown main fuse. However this is where living in a country where you are too stupid to learn the language becomes tiresome. How to explain I want a new main fuse? Where is the main fuse located anyway? I flag and leave the dead truck at Chuyoya port.

Anyway the day after the party, I go for a great sail all the way past Cape Zampa and what’s more I see a Short Tailed Shearwater.

Yay!
(not my photo)

I then turn around and batter my way back up the coast in the hope of making Tern Island.

Not to be, as it gets choppy and I am not making much headway against the wind. So I turn around and hightail it back home. Wonderful sail, wind behind, sun above, 35 mins to get all the way back home. However it is very low tide, no way over the reef except through the Iron Gates. I get it all wrong. We end up on the reef in 6 inches of water. Luckily by this time the waves haves gone so there is no surf to grind her to fiber glass dust. We just perch on the reef waiting for the tide to come back in. It begins to pour with rain.

She also serves who only stands and waits . On the reef.

Moving pictures. https://youtu.be/Z2A0o7YlTOk

During the night a huge centipede crawls into my left ear and snuggles deep inside.

My new lodger

I now feel very bad with swollen ear and fever and nausea.

Home of the centipede.

The ear, nose and throat doctor takes some convincing that there is a centipede in my ear, even after examining me. He finally agrees that there is one in there of the genus ‘severe infection.’ It apparently does not like antibiotics and will come out during the night whilst I am asleep.

Our interns, which is a totally unsuitable name for world-class science writers, Joykrit and Laura have come to the end of their  stay. We have a party.

This a good day to have a party. There is a full moon, there is a beautiful sunset, Harry has cooked a pig, Science publishes an article saying how great we are.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/349/6247/488.full

The Peer review report used the adjective “outstanding” 54 times and “inspirational” 567 times, the world’s most famous science journal sends a message that they are going feature OIST research on the cover, the Scaffie is in the water.  All in all, time for a party.

Cook that pig

Life is hard

The vegetarians

Feeling the heat

Matsuda sensei, the world’s greatest ceramicist, for whom I have total respect, gives me a plate and Laura an awamori bottle

A table – that’s French

Rare photo

The first course

Juan Luis, the quantum cowboy, sings.

Good week

Good dog

The fridge at 2:00 am

For several months we have been building up to a major external review of the university. They like us = happiness and joy, they do not like us = misery and pain.

It finished yesterday. Happiness and joy. So despite the fact that this review has dominated my life for some time, I will say no more about it and get onto important stuff.

The poor Scaffie has been out of the water for weeks. She does not like this, she has fever all day and chills at night. At 7:00 this morning Hisashi, Laura and I foregather to relieve her pain.

Everything goes wrong. The battery of the mighty Hi Jet is flat. We manage to start her using jump leads attached to Hisashi’s rig. We get to the harbor but subsequently the mighty Hi Jet refuses to start no matter what power is injected from other cars.

The truck is dead

We push the Hi Jet and trailer into a corner for later treatment and row the Scaffie out onto the wild and wistful ocean. It is 7:30 on the most beautiful morning so far in the long history of the globe.

We humiliate ourselves by raising sail in every possible wrong way. We are blown onto the shore twice. Luckily there are few humans around to witness my uselessness. Notwithstanding, Laura helms us back to the mooring in front of my house

Laura at the helm, 7:45

We sail onto the mooring most elegantly but nobody sees it. Anyway the mighty Scaffie is back on the water.

Much later, after work stuff, Sunset comes and I am at sea.

Red Sail in the sunset

I mean, what can I say about sailing towards the sunset as everything slows down?

Tranquil

Bye bye 30 July 2015

Anyway, I sail back in the gloaming and pick up the mooring under sail, which most of you will not appreciate the wonderfullness thereof. I swim back to the house in bath temperature sea.  The moon is nearly full.

I am very happy not being a lunatic.

When in England I was able to take photos of English birds – mainly Tits.

This is a Blue Tit but it does not look like one.

Greater Acne-ed Woodpecker

Dunnock

Great and Blue Tits

That’s all folks.

London- Amsterdam-Taipei- Naha.

Home again.

Yay!!

Fish

Okinawa

Whee!

Ie Jima

What can I say?

Grunt

Au clair de la lune.

Rosy and I go to see Mummy. We drive through film-set English villages with wooded tudor houses, ancient coaching inns, saxon churches where Edward Gibbon is buried. The Giant Hog Weed  surges from every hedgerow.

One of the Saxon churches where Gibbon is buried.

Told you so

Mummy at 92 is in good form, although I am not sure she really knew who I was. Her manners, impeccable as always, would of course not allow her to display any doubt and she welcomed me most graciously.

The background music in the sitting room of the home was a medley of sing along numbers. Mummy has always been a great singer and we went through, Ye Banks and Braes of Bonnie Doon, Flower of Scotland, These are my Mountains.   Mummy, Rosy  and I lead the singing and the other old ladies joined. After Scotland, we moved to Jamaica and sang, Yellow Bird, Island in the Sun and I Left a Little Girl in Kingston Town. Best fun. I played Amazing Grace on my IPhone as Mummy sang.

Sad to say, I’m on my way,
Won’t be back for many a day.

Lots of love, Mummy.

Roast beef of old England with roast potatoes, buttered cabbage,creamed horseradish, gravy and fine wine.

Thanks Muladys!

Auntie Margie has gone to it. May flights of angels sing her to her rest.

My sister Rosy organized the ceremony with great delicacy and skill such that Margie was remembered with respect and love but without undue  maudlin.

Cat themed coffin

Alan spoke the eulogy and others read and stuff. We sang “All Things Bright and Beautiful” and “Jerusalem.”

A gaggle of Calders

We than went back to Springbank to guzzle Egg Mayonnaise, Cheeses and Onion and Smoked Salmon Sandwiches.

Konichewa!

Later we ate Fish and Chips.

Has earth anything to show more fair?

Frenzy

England is where I am at. Barry and Rosy have the most amazing house and garden. It is beautiful. So far from Okinawa.

That ‘s the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children’s dower
—Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

Fulcrum

The best garden

Trees and lawns

Pink

Park

Prince Andrew

Rhubarb

Gate

There is so much more. Congratulations to Rosy and Barry for creating such beauty.

So the storm is over. All very satisfactory as I did not abandon my boat and leave her to be destroyed and abused by the wind and waves.  However now comes the challenge of getting her back in the water as there are so many adventures that I want to  taste, touch, feel, smell, eat, drink, rub up against and massage into my hair. OK I have no hair but you take my drift. I am determined to sail back to the Keramas and also to Tern Island.

Today? er no, the island is in a state of recovery from a  post Typhoon hangover and all is quiet and generally blurry. Also I will be traveling and so the Scaffie will have to remain onshore for a couple of weeks.

So, if I cannot be fighting the tiller then I embark on my secondary love – voyeurism. I love to look at things, from afar and also from very near to. This is what I do this weekend, apart from a lot of work, but that is dull.

Pacific Rim Egret. This egret comes in 2 morphs , one white, one grey. This is the first dappled one I have seen.

Cattle Egret. You have to click on all these photos to get the full dappledness.

Eurasian Tree Sparrow eats rice missed by the gleaners.

Post Typhoon Kingfisher

Kentish Plover. Dude we are going to build a Marine Research Facility all over your ass.

Tern Island – there are hundreds of terns nesting here. I will bring the Scaffie here and anchor just offshore and get the best Tern photos.

These are Roseate Terns. Notice black crown, orange bill, orange legs.

In the same place are Black Naped Terns.

To my great disappointment, it would appear that the pair of Black Naped Terns that nested outside my house has not returned.

I snuffle around in the bushes close to the shore a bit like the questing vole as in, “Feather-footed through the plashy fen passes the questing vole.”

Busy Bee

Madame

Mr Howe, who had a nick-name that I cannot remember, could not pronounce the word “wasp.”

Never seen one of these before. Very beautiful. I would pay anything for an asian butterfly field guide in English.

80% of the beach is made up of hermit crabs

They look like pebbles but they ain’t.

Great day watching dappled things.

At a time of great work intensity Typhoon Irn Bru comes to call. We are ordered to go home at 2:00 on Thursday. Yippee! Even in my position of minor responsibility, I still exult at the opportunity of going home from school. This typhoon was not expected to be too bad but after spending Thursday at home we get the message that Okinawa is also closed down all day Friday. Yippee! I mean dash, I have so much work to do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGyKpx12d_E

So it blows like crazy all Thursday night. I watch the Scaffie, who is on the trailer in front of the house. She is rocking and rolling about. I rig a hose and fill her up with water to give her stability.

All day Friday I watch Mel Brooke movies. They are so funny.  They would be impossible to make these days. They are totally incorrect politically and diversity -wise. Although their message is completely liberal. The films talk about ni**ers and ch**s and J**s and make risque jokes, so poor Mel would be hounded out of his job today. Watch them.

History of the world Part 1

Blazing Saddles

More Blazing Saddles

It is more difficult to make social change through humor these days. The necessary language brands you as a deviant. Liberal fascism.

It blows and blows all day. All my work plans and deadlines are shot to hell. Probably a good thing.

Here is a movie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUfNxOj1DcI