A day out on the island
Salsa af Stavsnas
Ellinor Ristoff Staffan Ehde
Wed 4 Sep 2013 20:45
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Tuesday morning Lou came by and asked if we wanted
to take a tour around the island. We thanked him but had some things to do
before. I had to take off the flens on the outside of the boat where the exhaust
pipe comes out. Keith came by and tested his new homemade pipe. And it
would fit after some cutting.
As I was struggling to take this piece of aluminium
off, Keith came by again and we decided to drill out the screws since everything
was corroded into one package. Why? Well we found out when we got it all apart.
Some i------t had mounted (yes Im sorry for the _expression_ but sometimes
you wonder who works on a boat without knowing eloctrolises) the fitting with a
BRASS ring, Stainless steel screws and an aluminium flens. Congratulations! We
could as well charged our batteries from that mixture together with salt
water.
Working outside the boat in a dinghy that moves
with the swell is proving, believe me.
Anyway now we have a new hose and what was really
nice was to see the glass fibre inside the fitting, it was 2-3 cm thick and dry
and clean like new.
I also filled the batteries with distilled water
and needed more, something that has been a problem to find.
Once done with that a quick shower and off we went
for some pleasure. Lou showed us around and also introduced us to a real
inventortype of person. Ken Kingsbury, he has a small company called Upwind
Innovative Marine Technology. He let us try his invention, a catamaran that has
a propulsion from fins instead of propeller. Very much like the hobie cat
trimaran solution.
But his idea is to build a ship with that
propulsion driven by wavemovements.
The lagoon we tried his invention was astonishing
beautyful, and it was also more dense with turists.
Stopped for lunch, we bought some local food from a
super market. Lou needed to fill the car with gas and we wanted to pay so I went
to the ATM machine to withdraw some cash with my brand new card. And what
happenend? The machine kept the card!
So after the round trip I took the bike to the bank
in town and they where very relaxed about it. So hopefully our bank in Sweden
and they can sort things out.
But before Lou let us off he drove us to the
hospital and I runned nside the laboratory to ask if I could buy distilled water
and yes, I could have it for free!
Lou is a great guy, very generous with his time. He
believes that the tradition they had at cooks should be kept, that you adopt a
visitor and show them around.
As we made the drive around there was time to chat
and we learned that an island is divided among ancestors since the first ones
came.
This means that as there are more people, more will
demand their share of family land.
This is an old law/tradition but today they use
genetic testing to proof their claim. What an interesting contrast!
In the evening we where invited for dinner at Miss
My together with the german family from Super Molly. It was very nice, and also
nice to know them better. We always passed by them or where
bypassed. |