Spaans Water vecka 2 english
24 June 2019
• Curacao
by Wim van Blaricum • Hot!
I spend the first week of my three weeks solitude painting on deck and renovating the sprayhood. The second week was spend doing a lot of small time-consuming jobs from my 'list' like changing and cleaning filters on the watermaker, order spare parts for the engine to be send to Sweden so Elisabeth could take them with her, fixing a leaking radiator in the doghouse, polishing all stainless on deck and some more 'computer work' while sitting outside of the 'Pirate's Nest'. I also had some discussions with the skipper from 'Antje', who also has a Spectra watermaker, on the free bus ride to the supermarket about the flowrates and filters of the feed pump. As a result I removed the 20-micron filter and just use Spectra's own 5-micron filter. The result is that our little Ventura makes 2 litres more per hour (21) which is about as much as we can get out of it at the by Spectra recommended 13,6 volt. The disadvantage is off course that we have to change the rather expensive filter more often but the filters are washable and can be reused a few times.
I also had a mail-discussion with Thomas, the builder of our windvane. He will build us a new rudder according to my specifications and send it to Curacao. Hopefully it will work as it should this time otherwise the heap of aluminium will end up on the bottom of the ocean. I also collected information about the countries we might visit in the coming months: Columbia, Panama, Ecuador and Chile. While sitting on the free bus to 'Vreugdenhil' I also asked the other sailors about their experiences of these countries. A few days ago 'Artemis' with Neill and Heidi anchored behind us. We met them on St. Maarten. Nice to be invited for dinner.
The weather continues to be windy with an occasional shower which turns the boat into a brown desert. Because of the weather visits ashore are with two- or three-days interval. It is often that I sit and read in the cockpit until late at night. Most things on 'the list' have been done. The only things left are oil change of both the engine and the outboard. While on the hard at 'Curacao Marine' I found two books in Dutch about the Roman Empire. The first one was a biography of Augustus, the first Emperor of Rome. He was one of the most powerful leaders in the world even compared to our time. It is not often you can call a month of the year after yourself (the eight month was called after him). The second book I found was Jan de Hartog's 'De Centurio' which is a fascinating tale. The book is a continuation of De Hartog's books 'De Kapitein' and 'De Commodore' which I already had read. He also wrote 'Het Ziekenhuis' (The Hospital) which every America lover should read to get rid of the illusion that the USA is a democratic country that takes care of its inhabitants.
Åtföljd av sex av sina visaste män reste Gule Kejsaren till berget Chu-T'zu, för att tala med den mystiska Ta Kuei. I Hsiang Ch'engs vildmark hamnade följet vilse. Efter en tids vandring stötte männen på en pojke som vaktade hästar. "Vet du vägen till berget Chu-T'zu?" frågade de honom. "Det gör jag", svarade pojken. "I så fall", sa de, "vet du kanske var eremiten Ta Kuei har sin dolda boning?" "Ja", svarade pojken, "det kan jag berätta för er".
"Vilket fascinerande barn!" sa kejsaren till sina följeslagare. "Han vet så mycket ... Låt mig ställa honom på prov." Han klev ut ur sin vagn och kallade till sig pojken.
"Kan de berätta", sa Gule Kejsaren, "om du vore ansvarig för imperiet, hur skulle du styra det?" "Jag vet bara hur man sköter om hästar", sa pojken. "Är styrandet av imperiet annorlunda än det?" Kejsaren var inte nöjd med svaret och frågade därför på nytt. "Jag anser att regerande knappast tillhör det du bekymrar dig om. Ändå skulle jag vilja veta om du någon gång tänkt på det."
Pojken svarade inte och kejsaren frågade honom på nytt. Pojken svarade med en fråga: "Skiljer sig rikets styre från att sköta om hästar?" "Förklara hur man sköter om hästar", sa Gule Kejsaren, "så ska jag berätta för dig." "När vi sköter om hästar", sa pojken, "försöker vi se till att inget ont händer dem. När vi gör det lägger vi undan allt inom oss som skulle skada dem. Kan det vara så annorlunda att styra ett land?"
Den Gule kejsaren bugade två gånger mot marken. "Himmelske mästare!" utropade han.
I could not find an English translation of this anecdote about the Yellow Emperor of China so you will have to use Google Translate.
Accompanied by six of his wisest men, the Yellow Emperor traveled to the Chu-T'zu mountain, to speak to the mysterious Ta Kuei. In Hsiang Ch'eng's wilderness, the sequel ended up lost. After a while, the men encountered a boy who guarded horses. "Do you know the way to Mount Chu-T'zu?" They asked him. "I do," replied the boy. "If so," they said, "you know maybe the hermit Ta Kuei has his hidden dwelling?" "Yes," replied the boy, "I can tell you that."
"What a fascinating child!" Said the emperor to his companions. "He knows so much ... Let me put him to the test." He stepped out of his cart and called him the boy.
"Can they tell you," said the Yellow Emperor, "if you were responsible for the empire, how would you control it?" "Is the rule of the empire different than that?" The Emperor was not satisfied with the answer and therefore asked again. "I think that governments hardly belong to what you worry about. Still, I would like to know if you ever thought about it. ”
The boy did not answer and the emperor asked him again. The boy replied with a question: "Does the kingdom's rule differ from taking care of horses?" "Explain how to take care of horses," said the Yellow Emperor, "I will tell you." , "We try to make sure that nothing bad happens to them. When we do, we put away everything within us that would harm them. Can it be so different to control a country? "
The Yellow Emperor bowed twice to the ground. "Heavenly master!" He exclaimed.
On Midsummers day I took the long walk to 'Jan Thiel' and the 'Albert Heyn' that is situated there. The area consists mostly of hotels, resorts, restaurants and so on but you can also find quit some big villas there. The beach is nice and the coast is a National Park so the snorkelling is good.
Unfortunately there will be no snorkelling for me for a long time because the mosquito bites I got while the boat was on the hard at 'Curacao Marine' got infected. I made a visit to 'Artemis' since Heidi is a nurse so she could have a look at them (The truth is that Elisabeth forced me). Heidi immediately took her scalpel and cut up one of the bites. Now I take antibiotics and put an ointment on the bites. This is already the third time my mosquito bites get this inflammation which I never had before. It seems that getting old gives a lot of irritating physical problems. I feel for Martinus, the old tugboat captain of 'The Centurio' who had problems accepting himself at the age of 74. He becomes interested in the (successful) Roman attempt to reconquer Britannia in 386 after Christ, mainly because the Romans towed all their soldiers and material across the channel from Boulogne in France with the help of rafts. He follows the track of a 'Centurio' (a colonel) through England which gets unforeseen consequences for the old Martinus.
While Elisabeth is in Sweden I took over some of her tasks like defrosting the refrigerator. I had been given clear instructions about that. The other task was to keep on practising 'sit' and 'paw' with our cat, Obama. He mostly ignored my commands but in the end he got tempted to take the sweet anyway and sat down and gave me his paw.
I also made a few more visits to 'Artemis' so Heidi could check my mosquito bites.