Opua: interior restored
Opua: interior restored
Yesterday I finished installing the replacement chartplotter and the flexible water tank, and oiled the cabin sole. While there is still more to do, the cabin now has been restored to an acceptable standard, so I declared today a writing day.
I sent a letter off to sailinganarchy.com, which ran a photo of EGREGIOUS that resulted in a significant increase in the number of people visiting this site.
I managed to post Saturday’s entry in this journal by booting into Windows and downloading a free FTP application called Filezilla. This worked perfectly well, but the connection is slow and it took a long time, so, while I will continue to write these entries, I’m not sure how frequently I will upload them.
I have completed the readjustment and stopped waking up at 3:00 a.m.
Two of the biggest differences between being here and in Evanston are the quiet and the foliage. Evanston is certainly green in summer, but not as green as New Zealand is year round. The hillsides are covered with ferns and trees and bushes in shades of green beyond counting. This place is a botanist’s dream.
My mooring is about a quarter mile offshore. While there are houses scattered about the hillsides, there aren’t even any roads along most of the shoreline. Opua is not much more than the one-room general store, the Opua Cruising Club, the marina and adjacent boat yard and marine oriented businesses, and the car ferry boat landing. There is almost no traffic noise, and the only sounds at the moment are the flag flapping on the stern, water lapping at the hull, and the wind.
The only television series I regularly watched back in the U.S. was THE WIRE on HBO. I would have watched the SOPRANOS, but it wasn’t on.
I also saw a few episodes of a Brazilian series called, in English, CITY OF MEN, and when three discs came out on DVD I bought them and have just watched them here.
Both shows are about similar people, but living in different parts of the world. THE WIRE mostly about an area of Baltimore dominated by drug lords, and CITY OF MEN about two boys growing up in one of Rio de Janeiro’s favelas, where drug lords are kings. Both are very well done. CITY OF MEN has better background scenery.
I haven’t read anything since returning to the boat nor have I resumed my exercise routine. Physical labor has interfered with working out.
I have work to do on deck, and the bottom needs to be anti-fouled or cleaned. I’m considering just having it cleaned and hauling out later.
I saw online the other day a report about research done on rats in which a substance found in red wine was found to substantially reduce the effects of aging. The problem is that to obtain a comparable dosage a human would have to drink 1500+ bottles of wine a day. This seems difficult, not to mention expensive; but after all it is for my health, so I’m going to give it a try.
Monday, November 6, 2006