The Quiet Ripple Defines The Pond

One is pleased to be published in the Marine Quarterly.

How much is that doggie in the window?

Notwithstanding, one is confused that the article is so short.

Very dull. I would have been happy to pose.

Why is my photo not on the front cover?

Those conversant with the ways of boats will acknowledge that only a part of the pleasure actually comes from sailing them. The major enjoyment comes from preening the boat. I spend most of my weekend sanding, oiling and varnishing  the new boat, whose name will not be uttered until Dileas goes to her place of final rest.

Mast and bit of wood that goes down the middle get oiled and varnished

I enjoy this so much. watching teak oil seep into very undernourished hardwood is one of the great pleasures of life.

Teak oiled

There is still much to do. The horses need to be manufactured. The oars need to be made. There is no tradition of rowing in Japan and it is not possible to buy oars longer than tiny dinghy size. I buy 8 ft lengths of 5cm diameter hardwood that I will will turn into oars. Every wooden part needs at least 4 coats of varnish. As it takes 24 hours for each coat to dry and due to the bind of having to go to work during the week, this will take some time. So many projects, which are of course the key to contentment.

Getting better

Here is a film about varnish. I seem to slur my words rather in this film. Alzheimer’s?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdU4_YbcocE

I have often thought that my poor boat Dileas was a lot like Marilyn Monroe. She lived a short,  dazzling life, much admired by all. She was famous around the world. Even now millions of people are reading of her grace and  her allure to men in the Spring issue of ‘The Marine Quarterly’, to which you should all subscribe.

http://www.themarinequarterly.com/

Ultimately she died a sordid and lonely death, abandoned by all her friends and lovers.

‘And it seems to me you lived your life
Like a candle in the wind
Never knowing who to cling to
When the typhoon set in.’

Sorry Dileas.

Good Bye Norma Jean

Today we finally hauled the shattered remains of the once universally desired Dileas away from her beach of shame back to a place of dignity before her eventual burial, which will be preceded by many drooling panegyrics.

This has been a long and emotionally charged drama into which many players have made their entries and exits. I thank them all. Here is some history:

https://quietripple.wordpress.com/2014/10/12/poor-dileas/

https://quietripple.wordpress.com/2014/10/19/dileas-agonistes/

https://quietripple.wordpress.com/2014/10/27/what-did-you-do-on-your-holidays/

https://quietripple.wordpress.com/2014/11/02/resurrection/

https://quietripple.wordpress.com/2014/11/04/jeremy/

https://quietripple.wordpress.com/2015/01/11/cutting-up-dileas/

https://quietripple.wordpress.com/2015/01/18/hosanna/

So this morning she sits on the lonesome shore but I am determined that she will no longer be forced to display her disgrace. I have a dream. As Martin Luther King said,

“You gotta have a dream, if you don’t have a dream,
How you gonna have a dream come true?”
With kind friends and companions, we will fill shattered Dileas with bouyancy material, such as the plastic bottles and styrofoam chunks that are washed up on the beach in such abundance. Then we skin her with plastic sheeting and nuclear powered tape, so she is watertight.

Tight latex

Having lived in Japan, we are very good at wrapping things up.

Ready to go

We then bear her gently down to the sea and pull her back to the house; a distance of some 300 metres. Will she fill up with water and sink? Not so, she has been skillfully embalmed and enshrouded for her voyage.

Ship burial

Then we bullock her up the first few steps on the sea edge.

The steps are lethally slimy.

Next comes the stroke of genius. I run a rope from the hook of the mighty Hi Jet to the boat and use 600cc of raw power to haul her up the steps to the house.

You gotta love trucks

Nae borra!

Middle-aged muscle

So this was the best fun and, suprisingly, totally successful! Dileas is home.

Sunday was cold, windy and rainy, about as close to winter that Okinawa can come. Although this meant I could not get full joy from rubbing perfumed oil into my boat, it did mean I could go out and look at birds.

Little Egret

Another one.

Spot Billed Duck

Somebody has cut off this Greenshank’s shank.

A human planting exotic root vegetables

Today, Monday, culminates with another trip to the dentist. I have not wanted to bore you with more dentistry stories but suffice to say that I am coming to the end of another root canal epic that started in November last year. Today I had the mould, mold? done. It is always the best fun.

Manami san!

I return in time for a great sunset.

Summer is on the way

Today is Saturday and I have an almost un-interrupted day of pleasure. First I go to look for kingfishers with my new lens.

Manual focus is the new black

Tittle tattle

I then spend the morning sanding, cleaning and generally pampering the new boat, whose name cannot be spoken.

Voldemort

There is nothing better than messing around with boats.

I go to the university and spy Pintails on the lake.

I like it that they come to our lake.

On the way home, I see a beautiful Egret kinda wandering around.

Great White Hope, y’all.

Whilst watching the Egret another Egret slip, slides in.

Yay, Pacific Rim Egret.

I rush back to the car. I’m late. I have to go to a dinner. Suddenly about 10 meters from me a Peregrine Falcon explodes from the growth. This is a rare, rare bird on Okinawa. Even with my manually focus lens, I get it.

How to explain the importance of this?

I live in a sub-culture of seeing.

Following the theft of my D90 and 80-400 lens in California I am bereft.

I must buy camera and bird lens now. Ebay gets me an immaculate D300 and a Tokina 300 2.8 for next to nothing. New camera equipment is a really bad investment. As the big companies bring out new models, the nec plus ultra of 5 years ago is only worth $200. This suits me fine as I really do not need the features that the most recent cameras vaunt.

Serious lens for very little money.

My new lens arrives minutes after the boat. Like a spoilt child I do not know which of my new toys I should play with first. I mount the lens and to my distress I find I have bought a lens that lacks two important letters, AF. My new lens only focusses manually.  No wonder it was so cheap.

Anyway today I take it out to see if I can use it to any effect.

Blue Rock Thrush

Great White Egret

Windswept White Wagtail. Click on these photos to get Hi res.

Greenshanks. Edward I was known as Longshanks.

Mr Kentish Plover

Mrs Kentish Plover But I dillied and dallied, Dallied and dillied; Lost me way and don’t know where to roam. And you can’t trust a “Special” Like the old-time copper When you can’t find your way home.

I think I will keep this lens.

Weighs a ton

I have been weak with excitement throughout the day. Today my new, old boat arrives. Actually I do not think I have told you about my new, old boat. She is a Scaffie, which sounds like a skin disease. http://www.honnormarine.co.uk/Scaffie/Scaffie.htm

She comes from the UK but has been lying around in a back yard on the mainland for some years. She is in need of care. I am good at this.

She comes on a truck

Previously owned by Italians

Of course there is no crane or anything to get the boat off the truck. I rally a lot of middle-aged muscle from the university and we manhandle her down onto the trailer that previously bore Dileas.

Middle aged muscle

We had no plan, no leadership but it worked.

Safe on the trailer

Thanks

I can now redouble my efforts to invade North Korea. The boat looks wonderful and clearly has quality build. Lots of brass and good wood. Whilst in California I purchased gallons of Teak Oil and Spar Varnish. I will now embark on a makeover program for er, um, what shall I call her? Probably Dileas.

Damsel in distress

What larks Pip!  So many adventures ahead.

Wheee!

I have been mulling over the car crash I had in California. I remember well the hurtle towards certain death. I remember the shock of impact and the unearthly silver dust that filled the car. I then remember nothing until I find myself scrambling around in the undergrowth trying to make it back to the road. How I got out of the car, which was severely tilted both on the X and Y axes, I do not know.

All the damage was on the driver’s side.

I do not have a scratch nor bruise. Nothing even from desperate climb through thorn and shattered trees. Since the accident I generally feel much better. My knee seems to be improving and my leg is much less swollen. I am also aware of a silver dust like aura that surrounds my body.

I feel a lot like this

There can only be one interpretation. I died in the accident and am reincarnated as a God.

I somehow always felt this would happen.

I better put this on my CV.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJvVEt6F_Xw

I do not like staying in conference hotels. Especially in the US where they tend to be soulless Hiltons and Marriots attached to the conference facility. Worse still, if the conference is in San Jose, which is a car city, because even if you leave the huge conference center, Hilton/Marriot conglomerate, you are confronted by a six lane boulevard and a feeling of hopelessness.

I search for a cheap motel on El Camino and find one, The Valley Inn, perfectly attuned to what I wish from a San Ho hotel experience. Here are some Yelp reviews:

“Worst hotel I’ve ever stayed inn. Very crusty old and not maintained.”

“This place by far was the worst place iv stayed.. Over priced no chair tv doesn’t work.”

“Simply the worst hotel I’ve ever booked. Customer service was beyond non existent & the “Owner”/”Manager”/”Everything” as he called himself on the phone was an idiot at best.”

“I have to say that if there were laws about truth in advertising these people would be in jail.”

It was very scary. All night people were trying to open my door. The doors do not close…

I love old style motels and the Valley Inn is perfect for me, it is cheap, has personality, has louche people hanging around, women who,after dark, say “What you got for me honey?”

Before the sun goes down

My key

my plug-hole

Best room in the house

I am at the AAAS meeting, which is immense fun. I catch up with old friends and colleagues, listen to mind-blowing talks and spread the OIST gospel.

Vint

Bill Slowhand Cabbage

I also go to the Exploratorium in SF to talk about the future.

Mary, Melissa and fat man

The best restaurant in SF is in the Exploratorium. There are amazing views out over the bay. Just settle in, eat excellent food and watch the boats go by, like er sitting on a dock on the bay.

Melissa,Silva Rob.
Thanks Youhei for the photos.

So I go down to Stanford in a rented car. I get the car through a website: https://relayrides.com/  It is fun. Individuals rent out their own cars and you choose which car you would like, normally through an algorithm involving proximity and price.

I get to SLAC and wallow in nostalgia. Lots and lots of old friends. Melinda and I are walking down a corridor when Burt Richter, Stan Brodsky, JoAnne Hewett and Marty Breidenbach came out of their offices at the same time.  What a corridor! We all cried on each others’ shoulders. Thanks to everyone who gave me such a warm Californian welcome. The air is full of helicopters – Obama is coming to the university later in the week.

I go quickly to Palo Alto Bayshore to photograph advocets. I go to Big 5, the best shop in the world, http://big5sportinggoods.com/store/ and then to the bank. Somewhere along this route my incredible camera with the really amazing 400mm bird lens is stolen from the car. Palo Alto is not Okinawa. How? I don’t know but I think I had to lock both doors on the rental individually or by some informed slight of hand on the doorlocker thing. Don’t worry I got my revenge on that car.

I make a very bad decision.

“Why drive back up 280 when you could drive through the redwoods up 84? Pass Alice’s Restaurant and cruise down to the ocean as the sun is going down and drive up the wild Pacific coast line into SF, er instead.”

I take the wrong option.

Cruising down to the ocean as the sun is going down on a very wet and muddy 84, the back of the car just slides away. I try to correct, which makes things much, much worse and in a nanosecond I am plunging off the side of the road. I collide with a baby redwood. I thought I was going to die. I survived but not the car.

Let people steal my camera, would you?

I am Ok. Thank you seat belt and airbags. This is the first car accident I have ever had, except for one on Jura.

You are totalled.

bald like me

I suppose I should have checked the tires before I set off.