Day 96, Year 5: Refrigeration and Trip to Fort Cochin
Date: Saturday, January 30, 2010
Weather: Clear, Sunny Day; Beautiful Full Moon
Location: Bolgatty Hotel Anchorage, Cochin, India
Who’s who in Cochin? It seems like everyone here is Nazar. We have Nazar on Boat No. 7, Nazar and Ibrahim on Boat No. 113, and now the man trying to fix our refrigeration system turns out to be Nazar instead of Anil. And the waiting game continues. Anil, who turned out to be Nazar, was supposed to arrive at the boat at 9 am. Zazar on Boat No. 113, who we thought was Ibrahim, came by at 8 am to tell us that Anil would be here at 9 am. But it was 10:30 am before Mark got the call to pick him up at the ferry dock. Anil, who ended up to be Nazar, checked things out and discovered that he needed a compressor to vacuum out the system. And, of course, the compressor was back in Fort Cochin which is a 20 minute ferry ride from here, but then you have to add the time waiting for ferry. So Mark took Nazar back to the ferry terminal which is quite a little ride from here. Nazar said he would be back in an hour, so at 12 noon when Lynne of Constance, Judy of Freebird, and I needed to go to the ferry terminal for our little ladies’ day adventure. Mark took us as he thought Nazar would be returning at about the same time. Well, Mark waited, and waited, and waited, until about 2:30 pm and then came back to Windbird and decided to go to Bolgatty Island is get more water. Naturally, as soon as he did this, Nazar called and said he was at the ferry terminal. So back Mark went. Once back on Windbird, Nazar realized that he needed 220 volts to run his compressor and we run on 110 volts. Mark had to run about the anchorage looking for anyone who could loan us a 220 inverter (ours bit the dust on the way here) and he found one on Hafskip. Nazar vacuumed the system and then discovered that our new tank of R134A gas that we bought in Ao Chalong was empty, so he couldn’t recharge the system. I guess Mark used more of the gas on the way here trying to fix things than he realized. But now we are on hold until Monday morning when Nazar will return. Our refrigerator is still running fine, but we just don’t have a freezer. So the refrigeration story will continue on Monday.
While Mark was struggling with the refrigeration saga, Lynne, Judy, and I hopped on a ferry to Fort Cochin. While waiting in line to get ferry tickets, we met a young woman named Catherine. She is a year older than our daughter Heather and is a biologist. She is from Montreal, but lives in the Yukon between Skagway and White Horse. I’ve been there, so believe me when I tell you that is in the middle of nowhere. She interviews fishermen for the Yukon Fisheries Department, among other things, races a team of fourteen sled dogs, and somehow manages to escape to India once in a while. She has spent most of her time in India in the north, but is now enjoying southern India. Once we arrived in Fort Cochin, Catherine decided to stick with us while we explored. We first walked to the area of the Chinese nets. These huge nets hang out over the water with system of large logs and huge rocks hanging from ropes above providing a leverage system. The rocks are raised and the nets go down. And only a few minutes after the nets go underwater, the rocks are lowered and nets come up. A fisherman with a big net goes out to gather all the small fish that have been caught in the net, and then the process starts over again. There is a series of these nets, probably eight to ten of them, and they seem to work in synchrony. The one furthest out to sea is lowered first, then the next one, and so on. We were standing by the one most inland. And as soon as it was lowered, the whole series started again. Fascinating. But we all decided that we needed something to eat and drink, so we started backtracking to find a place. Judy decided that we just had to go this swanky, swanky hotel on the water, so we did. It was EXPENSIVE, so we ordered lime drinks and a couple of appetizers that were way overpriced. But it was a lovely setting on the water and we luxuriated. Then we set off on our shopping expedition. We wanted to go this store called Fabindia. We found it and it did have fabulous Indian clothing that was really not too expensive. Then we went to another shop called Cinnamon which was a bit more upscale. There were lovely items for a price a little too steep for us. By this time it was getting late, so we had to abandon a trip to the third shop we were searching for and we headed through backstreets to get back to the ferry dock and said our goodbyes to Catherine. On the way to the ferry dock, we found a fabulous book store and another shop with beautiful rugs and wall hangings. We will definitely return to Fort Cochin just to browse the shops and see some of the major tourist attractions there like the Mattancherry Palace built in 1555, the Pardesi Synagogue built in 1558, and a Dutch palace from the same era, but we had run out of time for today.
It is a holiday here, the anniversary of Mahatma Ghandi’s death. We had planned to have Happy Hour on Bolgatty Island at the hotel, but Dave of Freebird did some reconnaissance and found that no alcohol could be served because of the holiday. We had hoped to find a place with air conditioning so we could meet in the evening without the threat of the voracious mosquitoes that live here. But that didn’t work out, so we gathered on Freebird. Beverly and Greg from Freemantle, Australia, came to join us. They have been here for fourteen months, and were here for a year in the 1990’s. They shared some of their knowledge of the area while we all watched the biggest full moon of 2010 rise. Cochin seems like an easy place to wile away the days, so we will continue to do that.
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| 100130 Day 96 India–Refrigeration and Day Trip to Fort Cochin |
