Boat chores , brothers and kids
30 December 2018 | Vaitahu, Tahuata
Rolfo
Leaving the boat is a bid difficult at the moment. Strong winds blow down the mountain and we have to hold on tight when the bridle that holds the anchor chain comes to full stretch. It even busted a few days ago. Just another thing to fix among a sheer endless list.
I didn't change the engine oil for over a year , so i did that . And since i was down in my favorite engine rooms ( ja right) i changed the engine-coolant as well. I should have done it every year. But its been three years ..bad captain!! There was also a leak on a heat exchanger that i fixed by putting on some kind of gunk. The leak stopped, great !! Then we have a s-drive, that's where the propeller is and the gears. Its got a leak as well and it his seawater in the oil. Not good , but it still greases well .It doesn't look like clear oil anymore , its like mayonnaise When this headache first happened , we freaked out and had to pull the boat out of the water to fix the seals and change that oil. But we met a few sailors that were as careless as can be and ignored it....and since then we let the mayo in for 3 years . If the level of oil-water rises to much, i suck out as much as i can with a drill pump and replace it with clean oil. That's what i did yesterday...it was a mess. Dirty oil everywhere , even between my toes and under my fingernails, oh my oh my !! I also installed a 120 V inverter. Its a tiny thing i got from Canadian Tyre that hardly uses any power to charge my battery tools, etc. I started to buy drills and sanders in a USA version. I got a sander for 19 $ in Panama and a Dewalt battery drill and screw-driver for 159 Can$ in Quebec If you buy the same tools in Europe you get ripped off. So were slowly changing to Trump-power yeah!! Some lousy gel coat patches had to be sanded with that 19 $ sander and the dingy started to leak air AGAIN . That was a long and messy job . I also took out my American Sailrite sewing machine-monster and made new cockpit circular back supports. The sun crumbled the old ones . Great fun , cause everything was round , not many straight pieces to sew together. There where a few FFFf words and broken needles, but in the end i did it, and it looks....ok .
If you think sailing is a joyful ride into the sunset...forget it . Its greasy hands and dirty jobs. The work is often done in a few moments, but its the cleaning up and putting away all toys and parts that takes time. Thank god a have Daniela and she helps me a lot. No that's wrong : she does it all...because i dont put things away anymore...i wouldn't be able to find them !! Alone it would take twice as long...or longer , since i would take breaks and start watching ARTE in the afternoon , the German TV i receive here for free. Then there was a pleasant surprise: I got an hour and half phone call from my godchild Jacqueline in Switzerland. The poor women is struggling with some kind of rheumatic disease, so complicated i cant even spell it ..shit. that's bad news for her . Good news is that she told me, my brother is still alive and kicking. That's her father . Yes i have a brother, but he doesn't talk to me anymore. I dont know why , he just doesn't talk or write. His wive does the same to me. Silence seems to be a common disease these days . People often cut all contact with the outside world and if you ask them , they cant tell you why. So i took another chance and wrote him a mail. I wrote him a few postcards, letters and mails over the last 18 years , trying to get in touch with him .....but no reply...nothing. So maybe now .I dont know. If i could take him out of this bubble he is living in , i would . He lives in a world full of ass holes. I am just one of them , i guess . Everybody is wrong , its all their fault etc etc. He got so angry over nothing that he didn't even show up to his own mothers funeral. He lived next door to my Moms apartment and ignored her for more then 20 years. Mom was hurt, same like me: she didn't know why. Shit like this is VERY hard for a mother. She passed away without ever knowing what happened. He didn't show for our fathers funeral either..his wive did the same...nobody knows why. The Silence... My Mom would say : I wish i would have abused him , or stole from him or anything bad. Then i would know why he is silent . But my Mom, Lotti , was a good person, a caring mother. But if you're good and caring, doesn't mean you kids will love you too. No, you might give birth to a lovely boy , raise him , love him and then...he turns out to become a Hannibal Lechner...then what ?? Sometimes live makes no sense at all.
Oh well, i have a few moments in this windy anchorage to think about ..things . In this x-mas madness, where a lot of people shop till they drop..to buy gifts and food. I stay away , happy that i could stay away , but i am thinking . I have two grandchildren and i asked my daughters : how many cubic meters of plastic toys has you're child received in his or her lifetime ?? I got one answer so far. The 4 year old girl might have received 10 cubic meter of plastic in 4 years. Then i thought with packaging and wrapping its 30 cubic meters !! But its not ME that pollutes the earth with plastic : ITS THEM. I shouldn't cry : i live in a plastic boat.
When travelling in the third world, you play with kids on the beach. They make drawings in the sand, play games. Build stuff, like their dream castle. There is no end in their imagination. Then they run away with a stick and an old tyre...happy to balance the tyre as they run. The mind killer ; the tab or smartphone hasn't fully arrived here yet . Thank god , kids have guts here and play and climb trees and explore on their own. Parents give them that freedom. But they are not stupid . An 8 year old boy comes up to us and shows us his "homework" for the 2 week x-mas vacation . They gave him a hole bunch of pages to fill out and color. He didn't want to do it since it was about x-mas in the winter. He needed to explain and draw pictures of a snowman . Then: Santa with a sled on snow, with Rudolph the red nose fucking reindeer. HE HAS NEVER SEEN SNOW , NOR WILL HE EVER SEE SNOW IN HIS LIFETIME... But some idiot bureaucrat in the French education system in Paris makes up these stories for the stupid islanders..and the kids are forced do it .I hope he doesn't do it , his Mom didn't think he should...
so ,with how many kilos of plastic did you shower you're grandchildren this x-mas?? And do you complain about the plastic in you're sushi??
Vive La France and Happy New Year... Enough for today with my stupid blog