Red lead in Manitowoc

Back in the United States again after fifteen years! And now back in New York again after more than nineteen years...

I arrived in Los Angeles a week ago on an Air New Zealand flight from Auckland. Tired and jet lagged, I just spent the afternoon in a hotel near the airport. Next morning I continued on to Milwaukee to visit Kent from Søren Larsen and his girlfriend Liz. They both work on the Denis Sullivan, a three-masted schooner that is kind of the flagship for Milwaukee. She was undergoing refit in Manitowoc, a little north of Milwaukee up along the coast of Lake Michigan. I started the first day with a paintbrush in my hand, patching red lead on bare spots of the underwater body.



The Denis Sullivan up the slip.



She seemed to be a well-built ship and she has the coziest interior ever. This is the galley.



Helmsman's position.



Happy first mate of the Denis Sullivan.



People working everywhere. Here are bosun Liz and captain Tiff. Clearing seams from old oakum, before caulking the hull.



Peter, shipwright. Caulking.



The ship was actually lifted, not slipped up. Pretty heavy duty equipment.



There were two ways to get on board, climbing a pilot ladder or using the scissor lift. The head seen in the scissor lift is attached to deckhand Lime.



Deckhand Wynn operating the scissor lift, looking sooo relaxed...



I went to see the maritime museum in Manitowoc in the afternoon. USS Cobia, submarine from the WWII is a part of their exhibitions.



Foredeck canon of the USS Cobia.


We all left Manitowoc on the day before thanksgiving and went to Tiff's house in Milwaukee to eat pizza, drink beer, play pool, etc. And on the very Thanksgiving day, last Thursday, I got on a flight to New York.

Touring the North Island

I left Japan a little more than a week ago and now I am writing from a friend's apartment in Brooklyn, New York. So many places I have visited the last few days! It started with a cheap JetStar flight from Kansai Airport, via Gold Coast, Australia to Auckland. It was a bit nostalgic to visit the "city of sails" again. On my second day in New Zealand I rented a car and drove up to Whangarei. I made a little detour to look at the Kauri Museum and the Waipoua Kauri Forest, so instead of three hours the trip took all day and I arrived really late. I stayed two nights on Søren Larsen. Interesting feeling to be back and see the ship where I left her. I was back in my work clothes, taking down awnings, fastening deck equipment and building an outboard engine bracket. Was Malaysia and Japan just a dream? Did I ever leave Whangarei and New Zealand?



Log from the Kauri Museum in Matakohe. This was my first stop on the second day in New Zealand, a couple of hours from Auckland. Today very little is left of the great kauri forests that once covered large areas of New Zealand. Look at the size of that chain saw blade!



Kauri was not only appreciated for its timber, but also for the kauri gum, which is a bit similar to amber. Big lumps, lots of them!



The planks obtained can be quite big. Such as the one used for the table here. Kauri was one of the preferred woods for Maori carvings and canoe building.



I continued north from the museum in my little rental car.



The scenery of the Northland district is just amazing. As sceneries usually are in New Zealand.



I forgot the name of the funny looking, very symmetrical pine trees they have here. But I love them.



West coast sea view.



The weather was dramatic on this day.



Guess the main wind direction...



Finally I arrived in the Waipoua Kauri forest. A decked pathway led into the jungle-like vegetation.

First I went to see the biggest Kauri tree still alive, the Tane Mahuta or Lord of the Forest. The path made a sharp turn and the first thing I saw was a sign, starting with the words "You are in the presence of one of the most ancient of trees..." I looked up and there it was. Awe.



This is Te Matua Ngahere, with the largest trunk diameter of any living Kauri tree. (The largest kauri trunk ever recorded was actually twice as thick.)



"Three Sisters", three large-medium sized Kauri trees standing close together. Notice the size of the man down to the left in the picture.



Me in front of a kauri tree.



It was already getting dark when I left Waipoua. I arrived in Whangarei maybe an hour before midnight. My first stop was our old spar shed right inside the main gates of NZ Yachts. Cubie and Jarren were here, burning the midnight oil on their new project which they bought a while ago.



Søren Larsen was looking really good in the lovely spring weather.



The new deckhouse is very similar to the one that was demolished by the wave. Only newer.



She was scheduled to sail the following Monday so there were jobs going on everywhere.




Even Jarren was working.



A lot of new names onboard.



The local seagulls didn't seem to worry much about the chaos.



We had a BBQ on Saturday evening.



Spirit of New Zealand was up the slip not too far from us.



And a couple of crew from Spirit of New Zealand joined the party. Here their captain is talking to Steve, the owner of Søren Larsen.



Gathered in front of a campfire on the "beach" after the BBQ, just like the night before I left the ship in March.



And we burned the old deck of the Talisman, Jarren and Cubie's boat.

I left New Zealand on Sunday evening and I arrived in Los Angeles in the morning of the same day. Finally I got that day back, which I lost when I crossed the date line westbound a year ago!

Kyoto eye candy and relativistic near-light speed travel

I have arrived in LA and bargained for a cheap hotel room with free WiFi. I left New Zealand at 7pm today and when I checked in to my hotel it was around noon. (Nope, no relativistic near-light speed travel, just that funny things happen with the dates when you cross the date line.) More blog posts will come soon about NZ and USA, but let us first return briefly to Kyoto.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to meet Mr. Kashima, a craftsman who works with the traditional art of painting family crests on Kimono. I was introduced to him by Mr. Matsuishi, my Japanese teacher. Kyoto has a lot of traditions and many old skills have been preserved here, particularly from the trade of kimono making. A formal kimono has the owner's family crest painted on both sides of the chest, in the neck and on both sleeves. The job is done by hand with Chinese ink and a thin brush. It is an incredible precision job which takes many years of apprenticeship to learn. No room for mistakes, kimono silk is expensive!



Kashima showing different designs of family crests.



There happened to be a kimono show in the building where I met Kashima. Here is some eye candy from that occasion.



Some kimono have long sleeves called "furisode". These are mainly worn by young unmarried women.



Note that two of the spectators in the background are also wearing kimono!



This picture is from the imperial palace grounds. These are clothes for the court nobles and they are of a much older and more elaborate type than the kimono above. During the Heian perioid (794 - 1185), a glimpse of the twelve layers of a court lady's sleeves, with its beautiful color composition, could be enough to put the hearts of young noblemen on fire.



Another great opportunity to see some really old fashioned Japanese clothing is the Jidai Matsuri, which translates as the "festival of the eras" or the "festival of ancientness". Despite its name, this event doesn't not have as ancient traditions as many other festivals in Kyoto. It was established in 1895, to commemorate Kyoto's thousand years as the capital of Japan after the emperor had moved to Tokyo. It is basically a historical reenactment festival, where thousands of Kyotoites parade on the streets in costumes from different periods between 794 and 1868.



People lined up in front of the Heian Shrine during the Jidai Matsuri.

Kōyō overload in Sennen no Miyako

Kōyō, as we learned in the last blog post, refers to the color of autumn leaves. Sennen no Miyako means “the 1000-year capital” and it is a nickname for Kyoto. The city was established as the Imperial capital in 794 and, although the de-facto power center shifted over the centuries, Kyoto remained the home of the imperial family until the Meiji restoration in 1868. If you ask some modern day Kyotoites, this is still the true home town of the Emperor and capital of Japan. People from other parts of the country are sometimes referred to as being “from the countryside”. It does not matter if they are from Tokyo, a megacity which totally dwarfs the little rural 1.5-million people town of Kyoto.



The Imperial palace grounds were open to the public a couple of days this month. It is a vast park area with beautiful buildings sprawling all over. A little while before closing hour on the last open day, I was finally able to drag myself over there, a five-minute ride on my bike.



Japan is one of very few countries in the world that does not have an official national emblem. Instead the Chrysanthemum Crest is used, which is properly the family crest of the Imperial family. The gable ends of the Imperial palace grounds were totally cluttered with chrysanthemums.



I love the well balanced unruliness of Japanese architecture!



The gardens were so incredibly beautiful... Just a bit difficult to catch it in a two-dimensional photograph. Kōyō in the background.



Glimpse of kōyō



Big kōyō.