Backroads and boat ramps

I usually try to start these posts with a sunrise. But I didn't want you to get the idea that every morning is perfect. Just for a change, here is a shot of one of those mornings when the sun just didn't quite make the pretty tropical photo because of squalls. We love squalls. Squalls mean rainwater in the cisterns. And rain also means the dust stays on the ground for a while.



At the end of the previous post I know I mentioned some planned festivities in Blue Hills. We got our wires crossed with Preacher. We showed up right after lunch where these things usually take place on the beach, only to find that the sloop races were over and nothing much else was going on. There was a tent awning set up, with a DJ playing extremely loud music with a lot of drum and rap vocals ('rap vocals' is kinda redundant, I realize) and a few people still hanging around. We don't typically spend even two minutes at festivities where sound levels push your eardrums together, so we were outta there. The next day we decided to go back to explore the rest of the inland areas around Frenchman's Creek. A mistake.

But we did take some photos of the day's outing and they are a little different than what we usually post here. I have written many times about some of the roads here, and how very 'basic' they are in many places. We have some photos for you.

The long road from the pavement back to Osprey Rock and the access to Frenchman's Creek is pretty typical of the roads in 'backcountry Provo':



We had noticed this little access area for the tidal waters around Frenchman's Creek on our last couple of trips out to Osprey Rock. Note the use of the term 'tidal' waters. This is important. I should have paid more attention to it.



This is like so many other out-of-the-way "boat ramps" in the TCI. Basically a place where the limestone slopes down to the water and it's possible to back a boat trailer. When we first moved here, I don't think we would have even considered anything that wasn't paved to be a boat ramp. Boat ramps have parking places. Signs. Trash cans. Some have docks to tie up to. Attendants. You know, BOAT RAMPS.

Our perceptions have changed. We now find ourselves backing our vehicles into places where we once would have feared to wade.

Well, except Dooley the Demented. He is not afraid to wade. Anywhere.



You can probably see the silt and muck he managed to stir up within thirty seconds of getting out of the truck. Great. Nothing like sharing a boat with a wet dog that smells like the bottom of a tidal area.

This is what the view from this particular boat ramp looks like. We are looking northwest, across the tidal areas that make up this waterway. At low tide.



If I had paid attention to the area where Dooley the Determined was exploring I would probably have seen signs of what this area is like at high tide. The mangroves are a pretty good indication of where the water would be.



Now, that little hill in the background is of some interest to us. We have learned that these little hills are prime locations for caves.



We were in shorts and boating clothes, which means that we were not about to go tramping around in the bush here. Even though the local flora looks like simple bushes, that is deceiving. These plants are tough, and the branches and roots will tear your clothing and skin if you are not really careful. I have dozens of new scars since coming here, with most of them from my inclination to go climbing around in bushy, rocky areas unprepared. This is long pants and lace up boot country.

We managed to get the kayak inflated and launched without punching any holes in it at the 'boat ramp'. Once we got out into deeper, cleaner water La Gringa announced that she had experienced quite enough of the aroma of Dooley the Dirty and she dunked him overboard like a squirming tea bag a few times to wash him off:



I was in the back fiddling with the camera, and caught part of that on video. Unfortunately, it was near the end of it, about the second or third dunking, and he was clean and resigned by that point.

We were able to kayak a couple hundred yards, and then we found ourselves aground at low tide. We tried heading in every different direction that we could find, and I had a handheld GPS with us so I knew where the channels were supposed to be. But we learned the hard way that this area needs to be boated at high tide, when we would have another foot and a half of water here. Finally, after an hour of frustration, I decided to just pull us back to the deeper water.

One solid step with the new knee..



and then step into a hole on the bad knee..



I was mumbling about sled dogs and harnesses at this point, I am sure. But Dooley claimed he was too short to be much help, and he stayed in the boat. A half hour or so of this and I had enough. We made our way back to the 'ramp' and packed up the boat. We figured this day was a washout kayak-wise, but that we might as well take a look around while we were here with all afternoon to kill. We started picking interesting looking roads and trails and just driving down them to see where they led. This is pretty typical:



and it wound its way round flats and marshes and eventually ended at a beach. When we got there, we could see just how exceptionally low the tide actually was on this day.



High tide would bring the water up close to the vegetation line. No wonder we were gettng stranded in the marshes.



There is another trail that heads for the base of Osprey Rock and we drove that one to the end. It does not go out onto the rock itself. There is a semi-path that you can walk. Although we were not dressed for hiking, we did manage to make it out onto the top of Osprey Rock for a short distance. We had hoped to find the top entrance to that cave and see what it was like to climb down the ladder from above. This is the end of the drivable part of the trail:



With a little altitude it is easy to see the beautiful water here:



And what would a summer day hiking through the bushes unprepared be without at least the threat of some afternoon thundersqualls?



Looking back at it, I am not sure this could really be called a hiking trail. It's walkable, at least. But if you plan to go I would strongly suggest some boots and a walking stick. It's pretty rugged.



After a half hour or so of slowly making our way over rocks and through bushes we would have welcomed a little of that distant rain. When we started back, La Gringa asked me "where's the dog?" We looked around, and finally found him, off taking a dip in the ocean. See that little dark blip in the water?



That's Dooley the Deserter taking a leisurely swim. He was rolling over in the shallows and quite enjoying himself, apparently. I know it's hard to see on this blow-up, but that's his foot sticking up in the air.



And I really DO need to figure out how I am going to import a spare wheel for this vehicle if we are going to continue to do this..



We spent most of the rest of that Sunday exploring the area just looking for new roads to drive down. Or to drive up, as the case may be.



We got onto a newer "road' that goes out onto a peninsula surrounded by acres and acres of dry, desolate flats.



It's really strange looking from ground level, just flat, hot, flats with nothing growing on for miles:



At several places off in the distance we could catch glimpses of extremely white, glistening areas. We were not sure whether they were sand deposits, or salt. It was difficult to get to them. We tried several times but would get a hundred yards out onto the flats and suddenly start breaking through into the muck. Walking, of course. Not driving. Eventually we found an area of white that looked like it was reachable. I headed out barefooted for this patch:



This is easily two hundred yards out onto the flats. I had to turn back halfway and go get my shoes. It was just too uncomfortably hot to walk on. And my feet are not exactly tender.

When I got up close of course I could see that the white, reflective areas were just deposits of accumulated sea salt:



These areas have a layer of salt and minerals that vary from a thin coating to about a half an inch thick.



Not very exciting, but at least now we know firsthand what these flats are like in the mid day sun. Hot. Dry. Alien.

Back near the truck we suddenly caught a whiff of some really nice odor. It was vaguely familiar, and I know it is a commercial scent I have smelled at some time in my life in something like incense, candles, or fragrance. We zigzagged back and forth working our way upwind (who says we can't learn something from dogs?) until we pinpointed the source of it. It's this bush with these flowers on it, growing right at the very edge of that seemingly inhospitable stretch of barren moonscape.



It smelled so good we stuck a handful in the ashtray of the Land Rover to offset the Eau de Doolance, the wet dog.

We followed several of these roads until they came to a dead end. It was a part of Providenciales that the brochures seem not to mention.



Maybe they don't want the rental cars ending up out here, a long way from the nearest tow truck. It does help to have the right vehicle for this, and maybe explains part of why we drive what we do. Speaking of driving, La Gringa is getting the hang of this rough road stuff. She did all the driving, while I "relaxed" and looked for things to take photos of. It was kinda like this:

And that would be with good reason. La Gringa was driving when she suddenly stopped and asked if I saw a hole in the road. It took a minute for me to spot what she was concerned about. I mean, the road looks okay to me, right?



But see that area right in the middle, past the bushes in front of us?

Yep, it's a hole. And as far as potholes go, I would give this one at least a B+ for depth, and an A for concealment. I thought Dooley would be interested in going down into it to check it out (it is that deep) but he said "Spelunker" doesn't start with a 'D'...hard to argue with that.

Hitting this at 30 mph could actually ruin a big part of your day, I suspect:



We continued to explore, but drove a little more carefully after finding that.



By the time we headed back toward town the tide was starting to come in, and flooding part of the plain.



So, we didn't get to do much boating on that Sunday. We did manage to turn it into an exploration day, anyhow, and saw a part of the island we had not seen before. And then it was Monday, and time to turn back to something productive.

I am now working on building the second piece of La Gringa's new office shelves. I found out that after removing the center seat of the Defender 110 to install that cubby, I can now stack 8 foot lumber inside the vehicle.



This might not seem like a big deal to you, but it's a major thing to us. Getting lumber home with the little D-90 has been a problem in the past. Part of the reason it presently does not have a canvas top on it, in fact.

While working on greasy vehicles and troublesome boats is a bit of an ongoing chore, working with wood is a genuine pleasure for me. It's simple, clean. I can understand how the Shakers appreciated it, as well as woodworkers everywhere. Rip the planks down to the right width:



drill them for dowells and edge glue them up to make wider pieces:



Clamp them, shape them..



It's pretty relaxing as a hobby. And it allows me to cheaply build some sturdy, basic furniture that will definitely survive this climate. The stuff you buy these days, well, let's just say pressboard and veneers have absolutely NO place in a climate like this. Neither do metal fasteners, so I tend not to use nails or screws whenever I can avoid it.

In addition to the furniture building, of course I have been heavily involved in trying to figure out what's wrong with our high tech outboard motor for the past several weeks. Last week was even more intense than the week before. Now I am down to the point of removing the fuel rails and injectors from the motor. Two of the injectors are stuck in the head and I have not been able to remove them....yet. The ones I took out are fairly clean looking:



And we have been driving the boat around spraying atomized gasoline into the air intakes to try to figure out where the problem is. Boy, you could have fun with a cigarette lighter and one of these portable flame throwers, I bet:



But last week we decided that this had just gone too far. If you notice those photos, all this work on the motor is with it on the back of the boat, on the ocean. The logistics of working like this were really annoying and with an hour's round trip drive to even get to the boat. I had to reassemble everything at the end of a troubleshooting session because I could not leave the boat sitting in the slip with the motor in pieces. But worst of all was probably that I kept dropping the odd tool or part over the side and having to dive down and retrieve it. I am down into the motor now to the point where these are some expensive parts I am unbolting. So, we decided to do something about this whole situation. After a frustrating Thursday working on the boat, I made a couple calls to a local excavation contractor, and Friday afternoon Mr. DelRoy Williams came out to discuss our project.

Saturday morning at 08:00 a bulldozer showed up at the house. He started cutting a new path from the road to the ten foot wide overhead garage door:





Dump trucks started showing up with fill, and the dozer kept working all day Saturday. By late afternoon, we had a brand new driveway well on the way!



Then Monday morning, two days ago as I write this and three days after contacting DelRoy, a grader, a water truck and a big roller showed up to finish it:



After a year and a half of an unobstructed view out my workshop/garage door it was a little disconcerting and yet exciting to see some serious machinery at work here.



The languages were Creole, Spanish, and English. So I resorted to an engineering basic that has worked for a long time....drawings with smiley faces:



By Monday afternoon, the driveway was finished and ready to use. And I have to say here how totally impressed we were with Mr. DelRoy Williams and his crew from E&V Equipment Ltd. They did better work than we expected, in less time, and came in 10% UNDER budget!! If anyone reading this is ever looking for this type of work in the TCI, we highly recommend these guys. This experience has been a rarity in our building trials and tribulations. If we ever build another house we already have a mental list of the contractors we would use next time around, and E&V are definitely on it.

Monday afternoon we decided to make a 'dry run' with the boat trailer to make sure I could back it uphill around those curves and corners. We managed to find our trailer in the marina's yard and get it out just a few minutes before they closed for the day. We got about a hundred yards down the road with it, and something wasn't right. Too much clanking and clunking going on. Then I remembered that the last time we used this vehicle to pull a boat trailer it was Cay Lime. That trailer uses a 2" hitch ball. This trailer uses a 2 5/16" ball. Big difference. Fortunately I had the right hitch still in the Land Rover. Unfortunately, all I had for usable tools was an adjustable wrench and a pair of channel lock pliers. And the hitch was rusted up, of course. After straining and stressing and getting frustrated for about a half an hour, I finally had to either leave the trailer where it was and go home for tools (one hour round trip, remember?) or come up with a fix. Well, we had a section of line in the truck we use for a dog leash, and I discovered that if you wrap it really really tight on the pliers, you end up with a home-made vise grip. And it worked! It kept the ball from turning while I hammered at the frozen nut.



After that, backing the trailer uphill was almost easy. Looks like the drawing, sort of..

Then, yesterday, it was time to bring the boat home for the first time since it's been in the TCI. I drove the boat around while La Gringa drove the D-90 with the trailer, and we met at a local 'boat ramp' that we liked. And yeah, we paid attention to the tide this time. We're learning.

Dooley elected to stay onboard..



And I hopped ashore and backed the trailer down into the cut in the limestone. La Gringa had managed to get it turned around and lined up perfectly, but she was nervous about backing it into the ocean. It's a big trailer, and a small ramp. That's a pretty tight fit:



And I know it's difficult to see in this photo, but none of the six tires in this photo are touching the bottom. The trailer floats! Dangedest thing. There is a good six inches or more of water under every one of those. I should have put the camera underwater for this one.



This ramp worked out very well, since it is protected from the wind and current. We didn't even have to use the motor to put the boat on. This is the first time we have put the boat on the trailer. Went like clockwork.



The last bit was to drive the two miles to the house, and the new driveway. Backing a 35 foot boat and trailer combo up hill, around two 90 degree turns, while steering with my right hand and peering back over my left shoulder (both totally opposite of how I learned to back boats) was a minor excitement, to say the least. I had to disable the surge brakes on the trailer. But by late afternoon, we had done it.



We now can fix everything on the boat, work on the motor, pressure wash and paint the hull, without having to drive all the way to the boatyard. We are going to try keeping it at home for a while, as opposed to in a slip at the boatyard. Especially during hurricane season. One less thing for me to worry about, and of course we save the expense of the monthly slip fees and that miserable trip to and from the boatyard.

We were pretty amazed at how fast this developed. I got fed up with working on the boat in the water on Thursday, and by Tuesday it was parked by my workshop having been backed up a driveway that didn't exist three days earlier. Wonderful.

That pretty much catches the blog up-to-date since the boat ramp photos were taken yesterday afternoon.

Oh, and I can finish with a sunset this time. We have been trying to get a photo of a good one. Dooley the Determined was keeping his eye on this one til the last moment, waiting for something spectacular. Or maybe just waiting to howl at the moon:



(truth is, he was looking for a lizard to harass)

This one wasn't much better, but the reflection in the salina had some possibilities, or so I thought at the time:

Catching Up

Once again I find myself sitting here on a miserable late afternoon writing about another kayak trip. Here, doesn't this look miserable?



I had really, really, really hoped to be writing about more fishing and diving trips by now. Honestly, I would. But problems with the outboard motor continue to plague us, and once again we find our boating excursions limited to those powered soley by "shank's mare" (Noun, England, circa 1795 "one's own legs when used for transportation" - and this concludes the educational part of our program today)

Yep, the Kayak again. Now I shouldn't give the wrong impression. It's not that I don't like the kayak, because that is definitely not the case. We adore the kayak. Now that we have started deflating it and loading it into the back of the Land Rover, it's even easier to transport. We don't have to lift it up onto a roof and tie it down. Looking at it from an environmentally responsible standpoint, Al Gore has NOTHING on us. It doesn't suck down expensive fuel and belch out noxious gases (I am leaving Dooley the Destroyer out of this equation for the moment, as he does not begin to compare with Mr. Gore's private jet). And the kayak is a nice, quiet, leisurely way to travel. It gets us into places we could never go with the Contender's 18' draft. And for physical exercise and artificial knee rehab it's hard to beat. It's a different kind of fun than blasting over the waves at 50 mph with the roar of a fuel-injected two stroke behind you. Oh well, on with it.

We have been systematically exploring the canals of Providenciales. The kayak is perfect for this. Yesterday we decided to check out the canal that runs alongside the Juba Salina and defines the western edge of the Long Bay Hills area:



This canal is that dark squiggly line running from the marina in the bottom center of the photo up about two miles to the north. We checked out every inch of it yesterday.

We found that this canal has a slightly different feel than the other canals on Provo. Whereas the Leeward canal areas are definitely upscale, and the Discovery Bay canals are more mainstream, I would say the Long Bay canal is slanted more toward the Bohemian style. For starters, it's not that easy to get to. We are accustomed to that adventuresome road from Leeward Highway to the marina as we make the trip every time we visit our boat. It is getting a little easier lately. The government (I assume) is improving the road by scooping up big truckloads of wet sand and piling it on top of the existing roads in the low spots...



nothing like a little salt-water mud for the old undercarriage...

They then grade it flat and compact it. They do one lane at a time, of course, which makes it tricky when you meet oncoming traffic. But it's an improvement.



Hey, we get to drive on the right side of the road, which of course is the wrong side of the road down here. Never mind. La Gringa spotted this modified Suzuki yesterday and being somewhat of a fan of these little trucks I had to take a photo of the new, five passenger version:



I bet that modification wouldn't fly far in the USA.

We launched the kayak at the marina and headed out for a peaceful four mile trip up and back. Immediately we could sense a totally different 'flavor' to the average homeowners along this stretch of navigable water. For example, how often do you see pyramids as an architectural style?



We didn't get close enough to see what was inside. Presumably, cases of razor blades slowly being mysteriously sharpened by pyramid power. Or probably not. A razor blade exposed to the air down here wouldn't last long enough to sharpen itself. Trust me.

The parcels here are two to four times larger than those on the other canals. This means that the houses here are somewhat isolated, and there is plenty of room between them. The area is sparsely populated, and very quiet. We loved it.

Every so often along the canal there is a dock area scooped out of the shore. These are, for the most part, carved into the limestone. Some of them belong to residents who have built a home along with the boat slips...



And some people obviously build the slips first and add a house later.



Some of the docks are quite nice, sort of a private marina like the two above photos. And some are just big enough for one boat to be tucked away out of the stream.



As you can see from those last two boats, the canal is deep enough to handle several feet of draft. The blue boat is probably the largest one we spotted on this trip..



I imagine the owners have to watch the tides pretty carefully to get in and out of here.

I have to admit that some of the boats here made me feel a little better about my temporary Yamaha problems. It could be worse. This guy is gonna need more than a compression check:



Some of these boats must have a heck of a story associated with them. For example, the "Pilgrim" here hails from Cleveland, Ohio.



And the container next to it has an outside shower.....I'm just saying...

I don't know that I have seen many more perfect locations for a boat ramp than this one:



Even I could back a boat down that baby without too much trouble. Plenty of room to straighten the wheels.

The entire west side of the canal runs along the edge of Juba Salina, which is the same huge salina we see from our front door. It's a big area of undisturbed, natural marsh, rocks, and mangrove swamps. We were on the canal at high tide yesterday, and it seemed almost like one could take a small boat out of the canal and strike off across the salina.



Since we were spotting various interesting looking bits of boats and wreckage off in the distance from time to time, it was a temptation to go explore the salina. But high tide makes it look better than it is for boats. The area is filled with a moonscape of jagged sharp limestone.



And the canal is man-made, meaning it is cut down into the rock. And the edges of that cut are unforgiving. No sandy bottoms here to beach a boat on:



So all the homes and construction are on the eastern side. Some of them have obviously been here for a long time.



This is a very relaxed area of the island, which is saying quite a bit. I almost with we had explored a lot on this canal a bit more when we were shopping for land to build on. I think I could get into this.

Of course Dooley the Diligent started out the trip on full alert for high adventure, never knowing what the next few minutes might bring...



But after awhile with nothing resembling what he would call excitement, drifting along silently on a warm summer day he began to lose a little of his concentration and I noticed he was having some problems keeping his eyes open..



Until eventually he decided that he could probably fit the odd nap into the program without any major issues, but not while standing up...



"Hey DOOLEY!!!"



"Huh? What? Where? What did I miss?"

By the time we finally made our way back to the marina almost two hours later our resident security system was well rested and ready for some shore leave...



That pretty much was the end of yesterday's exploration. We did manage to snag a couple valuable artifacts while cruising the canal. I picked up a nice five gallon plastic bucket, and we found this washed up on the rocks:



No, no...not the truck. The life ring. I guess it probably has some tales to tell, too. I thought it looked good there where our spare should be. Oh, we don't have a spare. I have given up trying to obtain one locally. The Land Rovers use 16" rims, and I cannot find one on the island. I tried the local Land Rover dealer. In fact, over the course of about six weeks I contacted them no less than three times, begging for a price and delivery on one steel Land Rover Defender wheel. No luck. No response. Nothing. I keep meaning to find someone in the USA and have one sent down UPS. A shame, and expensive, but hey, there you are. Life in de islands, mon.

Now when we are not out looking for adventure on high seas or Low Cay, life seems to go on at its usual pace here. We have had a lot of wind this summer, more than usual. For example it's been blowing around 20 mph now for days. That's one of the reasons we put the kayak in the canals on those days, because they are protected. We had a few days of winds approaching 30-35 mph just a couple weeks back, and that gets pretty gnarly even here on the normally placid Caicos Bank. We wouldn't have gone out diving or fishing on these days even if the Yamaha DID run worth a dang:



And it doesn't. Over the past month I have been into that motor way more than I ever wanted to on three occasions already. Once to find the broken water valve problem (which I have already detailed here), once two weeks later to replace the broken parts..






And the third time to find a loose connector that prevented the electric fuel pump from working after I replaced the broken parts and put it all back together. Now, I don't mind getting into these modern outboards to this level:



(the wire is a clip lead I made to allow me to monitor fuel pump voltage while turning the ignition key on. Yes, I had to make my own cable.)

But I really start getting nervous when I have to dig into these things to the point where I am removing the computers and electronics to get at them. The disconnected connector was about two inches further in, and under the "X" in this photo:



With a lot of help and advice from online buddies in the US I did manage to get it together and running again. But it's running lousy. Here's the short version of that:

Throttle all the way to the wall, and maximum RPMs of 3200:



I SHOULD be seeing around 5500 RPM at full throttle, give or take a couple hundred.

And it's fun going out on lumpy days and running around trying to figure out what's wrong. We were out yesterday morning, in about 2-3 ft. of chop doing this. We have to remind ourselves to pay attention to the water, not because there are a lot of other boats because there aren't. But because of things like that coral head just visible to the left there off the bow..



General consensus on the outboard is that the broken water valve cover allowed water to splash around inside the cowling and get into the cylinders, and now I have some kind of damage. Several people have also told me that the motor is mounted several inches too low on the boat, and that water has probably been splashing around inside the cover anyhow, and the increased amount of water from the busted cover just pushed it over the edge. Well, the boat was rigged like this for quite while before we got it, without any issues, so I don't know what all the causes are. It IS mounted pretty low and does get wet ..



And we will be raising it up, just as soon as I figure out how to fix it. Next step is a compression check. That will have to wait until I can find a compression meter. Meanwhile, no boat.

We continue to be totally immersed in island life. We watch the Marine Police come and go on a daily basis, doing things like hauling in a confiscated boat full of lobster traps..



It's not good to be fishing lobster out of season, you know. They take that really seriously here. A $ 50,000. fine, and you lose the boat.

And this week we had another Haitian sloop tragedy. Two hundred people on a small one that broke up on a reef just off West Caicos. Something around 80 people did not make it. The Marine Police and USCG were very busy on that rescue, and they did manage to save the majority of them. We listened to the search and rescue efforts on the marine VHF radio I installed at the house. This latest tragedy happened right where we posted photos last February 19 ( see blog post Into Every Life). The sloop hit the small reef to the SE of West Caicos, visible in this sat image:



It's amazing how much you can learn on the radio in an island nation. The rescuers were picking people off the reef who were standing in waist deep water getting battered by the waves. The coordinates were from a USCG helicopter that was picking up drowned victims that had drifted toward the island. And next week, as one of the Marine Police told us yesterday, there will be another boat load of them trying again. With some of the same people who survived this one. Scary.

And in our own little neighborhood we have the scaled down dramas of daily life. Thing like someone seriously missing one of the curves on the road to our house:



And the crime here has been increasing, no matter what the tourism people tell you. Hard economic times means more theft. That simple. Preacher's brother had a boat stolen this week. We know of several home break-ins over the past few months, and some robberies in town. It's pretty scary stuff for a place that essentially was crime free for many years, but it's still very low level crime compared to other islands and certainly compared to any average town of 35,000 people in the USA.

On the home front, I managed to finally finish and install the first piece of furniture I am building for La Gringa's office. It was a three star booger to get this up the sherpa path that we call a driveway using this little two wheel dolly and some rope. But with La Gringa's help we did it.



How do you like that color? That should 'tropical up' the place a little. Now I have to build one more identical to that, and then a desk surface to go between them. And I would dearly love to get to it, if other stuff would just stop breaking faster than I can fix it.

I am working on the maintenance aspects of all this, having had some time to really experience it now. I have ordered a compressor and small sandblasting cabinet to help me clean up rusty metal parts. The compressor will help me spray primer and good paint on steel and aluminum auto parts, etc. and prolong the life of them. I am planning to look into replacing my electric tools with air-powered tools as the originals fail. I don't really know much about air tools, but can learn.

I think next I will be looking for some welding equipment, probably gas instead of arc, and learning to use a cutting torch and to gas weld and braze. Any advice on all this greatly appreciated. Fun stuff, huh?

Things have been pretty quiet at the house. Oh, we do get the odd scorpion from time to time. Or a land crab decides to climb up the screen under the window louvers and drive the dog bonkers..



All part of a life on a tropical island, I suppose.

After waiting for weeks, we finally received a new "cubby" I ordered from one of the major Land Rover parts houses in the UK. I removed the useless little middle seat in the front of the latest Land Rover and installed this little console.



I have to admit that after all the anticipation I was a little disgruntled to take a close look at the construction of this fairly expensive piece of automotive engineering. Where else do you see steel staples and framing lumber used in modern automobiles?



I ripped off the UK lumber and replaced it with beefier strips of pressure treated wood. Can't have termites taking up residence in the family car, now can we. I also junked their mounting hardware and went to stainless steel for that. I realize the staples will go away shortly in this climate, but I have some time to come up with a replacement for those. I am sure Arrow or someone makes some non-corroding staples. But frankly, I expected more from the supplier. They charge top dollar, or pounds sterling as the case may be. I'm just thankful that I didn't order the replacement convertible top from them, as well.

Well that's it for this post. I wanted to get some of this out for our family and friends who follow our life down here, because our buddy Preacher called me last night and told us there is some festival going on at Blue Hills this weekend. We plan to head down there with a camera and get some material for a nice island life post next.

I don't even know what the festival is about yet, but I bet it includes something to do with the ocean. Everything here does, you know. Even the sunsets: