Well, that was a productive day. I joined the Seafarers at 10:00 Saturday morning. After an organizational meeting we split into two groups. One bunch stayed to work on the canoe and the rest of us headed up to Pagat to look at a breadfruit log that had been blown down in Typhoon Pongsana last year. I expected it to be in the jungle.

We needed to determine if the wood was still good. A year on its side made it likely to be full of termites or other wood destroying pests or rot. We need a large log to build another canoe. I'd heard this one was large enough.

I have to describe my mental picture of what I expected. I figured we'd park off the road and trek in through the woods to the site. There we'd see a tree resting on its side and ready to be cut up. Nothing could be further from the reality of the situation.

To start with the tree was unidentifiable. It rested in a pile of culch, rocks, dirt, and other stuff piled haphazardly at one edge of an agricultural field. Vegetation had overgrown the whole thing. What we saw when we arrived was a ridge of vegetation at least 150 feet long and between 4 and 8 feet high. Somewhere in there was our log.

We started with climbing carefully into the vegetation and feeling for the thing with sweeping chops of a machete blade. Then Gordon climbed up on top and started to clear off the vegetation. He and his son finally figured out where the main trunk ended and they cut it off there with the chain saw. Then they worked back to the root ball.

The bark was a thin fragile skin with composted material under it. It was full of worms, beetles, centipedes and other tiny wildlife. At one point Gordon lifted off a piece of bark and found a worm ball, a seething mass of earthworms all wrapped up in a tangle of writhing bodies. We cleared a lot of it off and then started in on the buttresses that make up the bottom of the tree.

Unlike most trees in my experience this one grows wedges of trunk like buttresses to support the main body. These are narrow and we had to cut them away so we could saw through the trunk just above the root ball. It was awkward cutting. I could see that from where I stood, hands in pockets, doing my part as supervisor. I know, it's a dirty job but someone has to do it.

Once we had it cut through we attached a rope I'd brought to a protruding branch and tried to roll it out of there. With seven men hauling in time to a regular chant of "Pull!, Pull!, Pull!" we managed to make it move just the tiniest bit. It was time for some heavy duty action.

The farmer brought over his little tractor. We tied on to it and he took a strain. Now, the rope was a good piece of 5/8 inch braided nylon. Good solid stuff. I bought it a year or two ago figuring I could use it with Roll & Go to demonstrate pulling to a chanty but I never worked out how to do it. Now it was seeing some real work.

The tractor pulled the log over on its side and raised another big branch into the air. We tied on to that one and cut off the first one. The tractor took the strain and once more pulled the log over on its side. And that was as far as that log was going to move. We tried different angles but it was no go. The tractor just dug itself into the red clay.

We gave up on moving the log any further and were engaged in cutting out some smaller pieces from the big branches in the pile when a friend of Frank's showed up in his big 6 wheel Chevy 2500 pickup truck. He hooked on to that log and yanked it out of the pile and out into level ground like there was nothing there.

And there we were. We now have a log about 25 feet long, all solid wood. It isn't large enough to build an ocean canoe but we can build a small canoe from it. Everyone is excited.

And now I am home, sunburned and tired. It has been a good day. When I got home I was dirty, sweaty, sore, and ready for a shower. Now I am clean and feeling good about the day.