Of course the highlight of Saturday was my first eisa performance. I was able to do two run-throughs beforehand, which did a lot to soothe my nerves. But I was given the stage left placement, which meant that I had nobody on my left to follow (two of the three songs have components where we all face left, which meant I was ‘leading’, or at least not following). My timing was out of whack and I made all sorts of mistakes, but there weren’t any lights so I was reprieved from most people noticing. At the start of the Sabani song – the third – I put a hole in my drum! I didn’t know what to do so I stopped, switched the drum around, and then joined back in. I finished well and was really pleased to have the first performance out of the way.
[I think eisa outfits are not very fashionable]
Sunday was Sabani, one of the most important days of the year for Zamami. I recognized the event as a great photo opportunity, so I woke up at 4:30am to photograph the boats at sunrise. I organized my ride on the support boat of the village office team and was requested by them to photograph the start, which is what I was going to do anyway. At about 8:15am the race started and a few minutes later I went over to the village office’s boat location. And couldn’t find anybody. I frantically scanned the beach as support boats hurriedly came ashore to pick up their riders. No village office boat. In five minutes it was all over with and, despite the help of two different people, it became apparent I was not going to be a participant in the Sabani race as a paddler, cheerer, photographer, or party-goer. My boat had left without me.
[The start]
Moping seemed like the best solution so that's what I did most of Sunday. But not wanting to waste the weekend I decided on a last-minute camping trip to Yakabi Island (about a 1.5 hour paddle). Upon arriving I was dismayed to find the wind and swell coming out of the West. I observed the breaking waves until I thought I could make it through. I was wrong – I rolled the kayak. Thank goodness for dry bags. I set camp and hurried out to a rocky point to fish till dusk, where I actually caught a sizable needlefish - about 4’ long and 6-7 pounds – but turned him loose.
Just after dusk I arrived back and ate my dinner in the last moments of light (I forgot my headlamp). A storm arrived about 40 minutes after I lay down. I was the only thing holding my tent down, so I had to wait for a break to run out in the rain, find two big rocks, and tie my tent down to them.
At 3am I awoke to another storm. But this time sand was blowing up against my tent. With patterned spacing. I had a hunch what it was so I investigated. I was right: it was a turtle. She was building her nest immediately at the foot of my tent. I got a couple pictures before moving the tent forward a bit. This one only took 1.5 hours so I still got some sleep before sunrise. I hooked a fish – somewhere between 10 and 20 pounds I figured – but lost it just as it was dragging me into a sure-disaster area of crashing waves.
[My alarm clock]
[Can you follow the trail to my tent?] The day turned out beautiful and the diving team with the girl I have a crush on came up to me while I was paddling home. I asked if they were doing any afternoon dives and they were so I booked right there on the water. And at 3pm I went out for a beautiful shallow-water dive where we got into a school of tiny, translucent fish (I could see their skeletons!).
More Sabani pictures later this week.
2 comments:
How did you put a hole in your drum? Is your tent really small? Or is that turtle HUGE?
I don't know how I put a hole in my drum! I wish it was the case that I'm just really strong, but there are others in the group far more powerful at eisa than me, so I fear it has something to do with my technique.
My tent is somewhat small - it would be cozy for two people. The turtle was the smallest of the four I've seen nesting - maybe just under a meter long? She was also of the 'rarer' variety that they call Red turtles here in Japan. I think this is a sub-species of what the greater biological world calls Green turtles, but I'm not sure.
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