Heavy rain in Kagoshima; 24th March

March 24, 2024

No cycling today as we were getting the ferry to Amami on the evening.

The previous day, we’d gone straight to Blue Lug Kagoshima as the tailight of the lighting system had stopped working.

I’d assumed it was the faulty connection of the Dyna-Snap connection. When I crimped the wire to the magnet back in the UK, the first time, the solder between the magnet and crimp broke. I bought another one and re-did the connection before leaving, but it again didn’t work well. It meant that whenever the magnets were disconnected, I had to wriggle the magnet and the spade together to try and get a connection.

I asked the guy at BlueLug to remove the Dyna-Snaps and re-do the connection with a non separable one. Slightly less convenient when we need to split the frame, but should be more robust.

We then went to a chain Italian restaurant and had quite a few pizzas.

When we went back to the shop, the guy had connected the bare wire ends from the front light to the back, and the rear still wasn’t lighting up. So the issue wasn’t the connection.

I took the bare wire from the rear light and directly touched the spade end of the rotating dynamo and it lit up. So the problem was the front light — for some reason, it had stopped sending a current to the rear light.

A friend is visiting Japan in a couple of weeks time, so I decided the most convenient solution was to buy a new front and rear light from SJS cycles on the UK, do the connection, and post it to said friend to hand over to us in Japan rather than run around looking for compatible lights and finding somewhere that could do the connections.

The Blue Lug owner gave us a free bandana too!

The ride to the ferry was torrential rain. We arrived at the port completely soaked through, looking like drowned rats.

Fortunately there were showers and even an onsen style communal bath tub on the boat. The bath wasn’t full when I arrived so I just took a shower to freshen up and change into drier clothes.

We were sleeping in the communal form style rooms which were very comfortable. The neighbouring couple gave us couple of Japanese sweet desserts from the bakery their daughter works at in Fukuoka.

The ferry was comfortable. Slept very well and got off at Amami around 5am. As we were cycling away from the ferry, the couple beeped their horn as they drove past, with the guy waving at us frantically! We waved back enthusiastically, broad grins on our faces.

It was then to the 24 hour Family Mart for some coffee and baked goods.

Boarding the ferry from Kagoshima. Mixing in with the heavy machinery felt like I was walked through a scene from the Alien franchise

Hipster bike magazine from the hip Blue Lug bike store

Communal style sleeping. Quite comfortable.

The sweet the lady gifted us. Her daughter works at the bakery.

Family Mart in Naze port. We arrived at 5am, and enjoyed their baked goods and coffee while making us of their power points.

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