Sailing Britannia: Coconuts, Solder, Mystery... Light!

In a scene reminiscent of the movie "The Gods Must be Crazy", a man on the beach here in Albert Cove stumbled upon an interesting piece of flotsam on the beach as he went out to catch fish for his family. It was sort of mushroom shaped - about two feet in diameter with a clear plexiglass dome and a squat "stalk". Caution labels were printed in both English and Spanish.

The man took it home, hoping that when night fell it would light, as some of the buoys here do. The palm covered structure he shares with his wife and children has no electricity save for the eight D cell batteries that he's placed in series using a stalk of bamboo as a housing, allowing for use of a small DC radio. A cluster of LED lights once competed with the radio for battery power but this has stopped working awhile back, so the only light comes from the fire.

When we stopped to anchor in front of his home, we were invited by "Bill" (a westernized version of a name that I'm sure I'd find unpronounceable if he hadn't been as kind) to have brunch with him and his family. The cruisers brought brownies, pasta salad and a casserole dish. The Banabans prepared taro root, coconut, fish and crab. All drank kava for the better part of the afternoon.

The "homestead"

Lauren Boy and I dismantled the mysterious dome and found a microwave antenna (GPS?) coupled to a solar array and sealed lead acid batteries. As we debated what in fact it was, I grinned as I realized that despite the fact that we were able to determine some of the components of the charging circuit, ascertain the health of the batteries, etc. it was equally mysterious to us. I felt like we were on the right side of the cultural divide.

We ripped out the microwave antenna (I like to think that Command Central somewhere is now on high alert) and added a socket for the spare lights that we had on board - a self contained solar power station.

As we watched the sunset and I saw the lights turning on shoreside, it felt good knowing that we'd made a meaningful contribution to improve the quality of life for our new friends.