Day 83 Domestic violence

Lagoon
Kurt was not up to surfing this morning so Mark and Andy were on deck at 6:30 while I was fixing breakfast. Suddenly, they heard screaming from shore and through the binoculars they could see a man beating up a woman on the beach. In true form, Mark decided that something should be done so he and Andy jumped into the dinghy and headed for the beach. Before they reached the shore, the man heard them coming, picked up the woman and tried to help her away.
Andy and Mark beached the dinghy and followed the couple. By their account they intercepted them and the woman ran away as they held the man back and delivered a pointed lecture that went something like "no hit woman!" Of course the outcome could be that she got a worse beating when the man got home but at least he probably had to change his pants before doing much else.
The stores were open and we needed provisions so much of the morning was spent retrieving supplies in the dinghy. The size of the stores in most of the islands matches the size of the island. This one was a giant for such a small island and we were pleased to be able to find things that we needed. Of course some things that we are used to from home are just not available in Polynesia in any of the islands or any of the stores. The best example is the barbecue lighter which looks like a long butane cigarette lighter. No one has ever heard of such a thing even in the Carrefour hypermarket in Tahiti. Somehow we expect that one will magically appear on one of the islands but so far no joy.
Yesterday I had an interesting conversation with Peter, the volunteer on top-to-top. I was telling him how surprised I was that every boat on the crossing has had some sort of problem with broken gear. The yachties attribute it to the 24X7 usage or the harsh and corrosive environment but Peter had another theory. His premise was that the volume of boats built by any one manufacturer is so low that there is no feedback loop to improve quality. He made the interesting analogy to cars where millions are produced every year and the manufacturers have much more opportunity to improve quality. In fact, with the success of Japanese cars, every auto manufacturer must make his products ever more reliable or they go out of business.
I tried this theory on Mark who initially gave the standard yachty response but when I asked him if Yamaha had challenged the traditional manufacturers when they entered the marine diesel engine business he had to admit that they had brought a new standard of reliability previously unknown in the industry. Not long after that, the other manufacturers who stayed in the business had to improve their reliability to match Yamaha.