Harbour Life #2
Straight And Square

January-February. Dry season. Hot hot hot, My brain stops working at 1100 hrs. If I do not write my day's job list I will simply sink on my bed and sleep. The usual solace is to jump in the water ten times a day, but my algae barrier has been destroyed by Tim's people, and, it must be said, it was not exactly fool proof. So our harbour water is covered again by a thick, stinking algae layer. Moreover, I have an infected wound on my leg, so I cannot swim anyway. An agent makes my residence permit extension procedure a roller coaster ride and does obvious attempts to cheat and overcharge, most of which I neutralized but that consumes time and brain capacity, recurring heart fibrillations (worries?). I fell in the dark in the algae with my sax on the way to a reggae gig, injuring my wrist. My ears clog again. Black spots are floating in my eyes. My fungus cream does not succeed to kill my ringworm infection. I slept in a wrong position and painfully blocked my upper neck vertebra. The doctor failed to find the cause of a distinct acid feel of my stomach, I fell with my dirtbike and deeply scratched my leg. I sense light symptoms of depression (in the clinical sense) while already for years on the maximum dose of the serotonin reuptake inhibitor Efexor (venlafaxine). My agents delayed my residence permit extension  such that I will now be illegal in Uganda in 8 days. But for the rest I am OK.

Philemon is back, without Mashabala, and got some assistants from Roland for  the harbour sheeting. So I can go for my Sese Islands wood hunt - about which later.

While I leave for our Sese Islands wood hunt, Philemon cuts his first harbour sheeting pole, in the stench of a thick algae layer

As told, on the way falling in the my own harbour filled with a stinking algae layer, I arrived at a reggae gig where I had been asked to play. Reggae is characterized by a slow rhythm, with a beat chord the second and fourth beat, and bass guitar patterns typically skipping exactly those two beats ^{[listen (Bob Marley sample)]}. That's about it the rest of the evening. As soon as you play something else, it clearly "not reggae". I did not go there thinking I could tip that balance, and I did not. But one moment I came surprisingly near. I did not realize it at the moment, until a video DVD of the concert started to circulate on which I discovered that at one moment I got close. I found a beginning of readiness of the band to indulge in steps in the dark, but the girls knew their time to step in and restore order ^{[listen and watch DVD fragment (compressed version. Problems playing? Right click and "Save Target As", then play downloaded file)]}

Drying the glue of the seams (lower one containing 10 mm steel wire).
My algae barrier "version 1.2" (rope-suspended) [see version 1.0, bamboo-suspended])

Barrier prevents South winds to blow algae in the harbour

First 10 m of harbour sheeting done. Our gang plank is now technically refined: connectable and detachable from the shore side, but...

The first prototype construction was unsatisfactory

Philemon sinks the algae barrier to allow a North wind to blow algae out. Note the black colour of the water: it works, no more blue-green carpet, no more stench, and a booster for my reputation in and around the harbour. Even Tim's harbour side starts to appreciate the result.

Tim's Lake Rescue NGO diversifies: its floating  platform now transformed into party boat and for rent, his rescue boat "Spirit of Tullon I", though still afloat, seems to have lost its peddle, now propelled by a plank

And ... animated evening party conversations on the steering deck