2nd half of the Underwhelming Post.

I'm still playing catch-up here with yet another minuscule and underachieving post. I've had to leave out a lot of stuff due to the photos lost in the great computer crash of '11. But I do want you to understand that we haven't been just sitting around sipping Pina Coladas down here. Rum, yes definitely, but there's no coconut juice or paper umbrellas in it. Sheesh. We're serious RESIDENTS here by golly. Not vacationers out for a good time.

Kinda scary to realize that this little bitty island is the only place on earth where we are not the tourists now. I better mind my manners.

We haven't had any more of those spectacular sunrises in the past couple of days. Not that I'm complaining about ANY sunrise I am fortunate enough to witness. This one reminded me of something...



I couldn't figure out what. I looked around the yard and saw one of the diabolical Agave family sneering at me. Now, this might be a bit of a stretch, but perhaps this cactus was what was on my mind when I saw that sunrise.



They're not really diabolical. Well, unless you are bending over to pull some weeds and happen to forget that the tips of these leaves are easily sharp enough to sew leather with. And the backs of my legs are no where near as tough as leather, appearances to the contrary. These things will make you bleed. No fooling. You would NOT want to fall out of a tree into one. Good thing we ain't got any trees to speak of. Or it's a pretty safe bet that sooner or later I would fall out of one.

I got a little off topic there. I've got Agave and Aloe Vera on the brain lately. I've been reading about all the good stuff Aloe does, and it grows wild here. And I already knew a lot about Agave. They make the best tequila out of it, for example. It grows wild here, too. More on agave later.

Back to ocean stuff now. Last week I posted some photos of the first half of our second trip in the new skiff. I have now managed to locate the rest of the photos from that trip. This photo mislocation is somehow tied in with me scrambling my hard drive. But we're working through it.

When we left Dellis Cay we came back to Leeward over the Caicos Bank route. What a lot of people here call going 'inside' as opposed to going out between the islands and the near reef on the 'outside'. There are trade-offs to each route between the island of Providenciales and Pine Cay, Parrot Cay, Dellis Cay, and North Caicos. The deciding factor as to which way to go is usually the wind and waves. It's nice to have a choice with a small boat. Boats that draw more than about four feet of water have no choice, they have to go the outside route.

On the way back from Dellis we went by a long time "aid to navigation". This post, or one it replaced, has been here a long time. I think the dark spots in the water are the remnants of other 'markers' that have been here. A few feet on the other side of that post the water depth goes to about a foot. You can see a channel past the light colored shallow water.



When we got back into Leeward-Going-Through we were not ready to stop yet. After months of pedaling and sailing kayaks, it's a real treat to just push the throttle and go. We decided to make a quick pass through the original Leeward Canals to see if anything had changed. You can see that it was near low tide. I thought someone did a nice job here using natural stone to shore up his slip.



Dooley the Dutiful keeps a sharp eye on the surrounding shoreline. He well knows that the leading cause of boat problems is not water, but land.

At least I think he's given up on that canine haiku stuff he was spouting earlier.



These canals haven't changed much since we first came through here six or seven years ago. Some more homes have been completed, but in general there seem to be fewer large boats here than I remember. And I am noticing more local boats being kept in the canal than the seasonal boats with Florida registrations. Like the rest of the world, the Turks and Caicos economy is still slow to dig out of the financial upheavals of the past few years. Speaking of local boats, this is one of the typical local 'conch boats':



I am beginning to pay more attention to the benefits of simplicity in things. Mechanical things, especially. I point out this local boat, of which there are a couple hundred at least, because of the way boats have evolved here. This boat has a small console, motor, and steering. That's about it. Our own recent choice of a skiff has a lot in common with this design. Oh, the hulls are different shapes and we have a couple gadgets on the back, but basically, the concepts are similar. Small, light, shallow draft, simple systems to maintain. That seems to be what works for a lot of life long, experienced sons of sons of boatmen here. Must be some reasons.

Not that we don't like technology. In fact, I have long admired this kind of setup. It's not nearly as common here as it is up in the USA. There are probably reasons for that, too. But I think it sure looks slick:



Back to simplicity and local boats, this is the Beluga. She's a Wharram design catamaran, and from what we have observed this boat has logged more sailing hours than probably any other commercially operated sailboat in the Turks and Caicos. She's a wooden boat, with an outboard that lowers in the middle as auxiliary power. One of the cool things about these boats is that the cross braces are typically attached to the hulls (amas, remember?) with a flexible joint. This allows the two hulls to move over the waves somewhat independently of each other. Watching them from alongside, you can sometimes see them flexing as one hull rides over a swell and then another. I think it's a good idea. Some of the most common failures on rigid fiberglass catamarans are where the hulls attach to the bridgedeck. (The bridgedeck is the flat floor that connects everything.) Making the attachment flexible removes a lot of stresses.



Leaving the canal we immediately decided we had to scoot over and take a look at this beauty. For the record, this is not simplicity in mechanical design. I don't know if you can read the name in the photo, but it's the Perle Noire out of Georgetown, Caymans. That takes boating to a whole nuther level. Especially with diesel fuel presently at just under $ 6 a US gallon here at the moment.



We putt-putted over to the other side of the floating docks here in Leeward to get another view of the 'Black Pearl'. I was reminded of how under-utilized this entire complex has been since day one. It's all tied up in court now, as people figure out who did what with whom, but in the meantime this fantastic marina sits idle day after day. The Perle Noire was the only boat here.



Personally, I would like to see the government of the Turks and Caicos Islands take this marina over and open it to everyone. There are never going to be enough high end pleasure yachts here to fill all these floating obstructions. We could cut the size of the docks in half, open up the waterway, and still be able to accommodate the few big boats that want to come in. But that's just my 2 cents worth. Nobody ever listens to the...

....guy who lost three wheels off his boat trailer on a recent excursion. It's true. I admit it. I screwed up. Again.

Having admitted that, I thought this would be a good time to just enjoy a little zen moment, and unclench my teeth and watch one of La Gringa's short, relaxing videos. Something mellow, like a little jellyfish she spotted at the dock while we were moving the Contender:


(music is “Swept Away” by Armik)

I know I alluded to a rough day launching the Contender in the previous post. Well, this wheel bearing thing was just a part of that day. Pulling that boat with our little Land Rover has always been a white knuckle experience. Not nearly as much fun as it might sound. We had to hitch up and pull the boat down the driveway one more time, to get it over to the marina. We got down our hill without breaking anything. I was relaxing a bit, and we were just about a half mile from the house when La Gringa said "what's that horrible squealing noise?" Well, I couldn't hear it (too many years of diving, gunfire, and rock and roll music) but I figured out from her description that it was probably a wheel bearing about to go. At this point we were down the hill, and I didn't want to unhook, re-hook to the front of the truck, and shove two tons of boat back up the hill. Especially with wheels coming off. So I decided to just go on down to the ramp. Slowly.

Bad move. When we got to the ramp we noticed that our six wheels had turned to five. While at the ramp, five turned to four. We managed to launch the boat, and with the weight off the trailer we managed to get it home on three wheels. The third one fell off as I got it to the house. We found all the wheels, and over the next few days I replaced 12 wheel bearings. I don't want to dwell on this any more.

This is what we saw when we got to the ramp:



I had greased the hubs before parking the trailer some months back, but anything made of steel that sits still here for a few months is pretty much open game for corrosion. As I keep finding out. Oh well. Now I know a lot more about tapered spindles and wheel bearings than I knew a week ago.

Oops, I slipped into the DIY section without the usual warning. So for those who don't care about this aspect of life on a small island, be warned. Most of the rest of this post is about one of the recent little projects that have kept me away from the computer.

I mentioned some time back that I hacksawed the tongue off our brand new boat trailer. That's totally true:



We were leaving for Texas, and I wanted to store it inside the garage. There is a device called a Fulton swinging hitch that very slickly allows one to fold a trailer tongue over and make it all shorter. I tried for about a week to find someone who would ship me a Fulton Hinge, but ran into problems. So I decided to say 'to heck with it!' (gasp!) and make something happen. I ran out of time, anyhow. So I cut the tongue off, closed the garage door, and left it to deal with when we got back.

This is the section I cut off. It's pretty easy to see that either putting a pipe inside it, or another section of square tubing outside it, would sleeve it pretty well. One would think so, right? It wasn't that simple.



The closest to the right sized piece of square tubing I could find was 4x4", and it was about a half an inch too loose in both directions when I slid it over this piece of 3x3". I couldn't use it as it was. It was too 'sloppy' of a fit. Things would have gotten ugly towing a trailer like that. So, I decided to see if I could make it fit. I cut the piece of tubing in half lengthwise with my grinder.



Then I ground down the edges and made them straight. I chamfered the edges because a welding website I found online said to. I clamped them together and welded them. My welds may be ugly, but they are hideously strong. Well, strong enough, in this case. And I found out it's a whole lot easier to weld thicker steel after learning on really thin stuff.



You can see how this is going to work. I ground off my messy welds until they were smooth, it was starting to fit. I made the other two cuts and ground down those edges, too.



And then by careful application of an intensely precise and complicated system of splints and clamps, I got it all to hang together long enough for me to burn up several welding rods. A shirt. Some arm hair. Part of a Croc. The top of a toe, and a small patch of the underbrush. And no, I didn't document any of that. It gets real busy around here when sparks start flying.



I had figured it would have cost me about $300 to get the hinge I wanted down here and cleared in through customs. I have less than $40 into this one. And I suspect this splice is a lot stronger than the original tubing.



You know my assistant usually has some input on these projects. Dooley the Deep isn't much use on the mechanical side of things but he keeps a constant watch for things he thinks I might be interested in. Lizards, for example. And he's good at trying to translate what distant dogs are barking about. He especially likes the ocean breeze that blows through the garage when the doors are open. His nose starts wrinkling like crazy, and the wind lifts his ears as he faces into it. He gets this far away look in his eyes and sometimes I wonder how that furry little mind of his processes all those exotic smells that the trade winds must waft to that sensitive nose..



Oh, I got the little boat jack loosely installed, and the tire, and just about this time discovered that the winch handle hit the spare tire. This would never do. Winch handles need to be able to go all the way around to work right. I realized that it had all been set up for a driver getting out of his tow vehicle on the left side, and walking back to the cranking handles. I suspect most winches in the USA are like this when delivered. I had already figured out that it made more sense for me to put the jack on the right side here, since that's the driver's side in British countries. I never thought about the winch.



But now, after just a few hours of enriching the vocabulary of a certain small dog, I know a lot more about boat winches, too. All the hardware is reversible on this one. You just remove those three shafts and all that hardware and then try to remember what piece goes where after you turn it all around. There are more little pieces there than it appears. I've discovered that a handful of galvanized parts all look similar. If I ever do this again, I am going to remove and reverse the shafts one at a time.

Here's the completed sleeve, with the jack and spare mounted to the heavy wall tubing. It's stronger than before. And it's not difficult to make the change over. The manufacturer sets up the clamps to fit on either 3" or 4" tubing. I just had to buy some longer bolts.



That worked out fairly well. Now I can park the boat in the garage, remove one bolt, remove the tongue and close the garage door.



Next I plan to find a way to lift the Hobie kayak on its trailer, dangle it from the ceiling, and park the skiff underneath it. Then I want to lower the Hobie onto the skiff. I will build a couple of wooden cradles to distribute the weight. It's not much. About 300 lbs. So far I have come up with this simple approach:



This is self supporting wooden beams, so I don't have to make too many ugly holes in the concrete. It uses a standard boat winch and two pulleys. I have recently completed an associate degree in boat winch. I know I'm going to have some balancing issues with that hanging frame arrangement. The four hooks are for the ends of two crossbars on the Hobie trailer. You get the idea. Suggestions are welcome.

This will let me put both boats in one stall of the garage, and still have the workshop area and room for a vehicle on the other half. You know, just in case we ever get another hurricane. Do you think Hurricanes Hanna and Ike made me paranoid? Well, yes ma'am. A little bit, sure.

It looks different around here with the little skiff parked where the Contender has been for all those months. If I turned 90 degrees to my right, I could see the Contender sitting on it's trailer right next to a boat ramp. Things are getting better. This is allowing us to get back to boating as opposed to boat repairing.



Oh, you might notice there are several more of those sharp agaves growing here, too. We're actually encouraging them. They think it's because they grow well in these conditions and are a nice low maintenance plant. They don't yet realize that on this recent trip to the USA I discovered that they are good for something besides low maintenance yard decoration. Yep...... you can eat 'em.



That's going to be it for this catch-up post. Things should start getting a little more colorful again with the next one. Friday night we went to dinner at the (excellent) Las Brisas restaurant over on Chalk Sound. It reminded us that we never really finished our exploration of that area with the inflatable kayak. So on Saturday we spent the day sailing around Chalk sound and got some decent photos. And Sunday we took the skiff out to check out Taylor Bay and a section of Providenciales coastline that we had never seen before. Some more nice photos.

And we may have some interesting news (to us, at least) about one of our neighbors here that I want to verify before passing it on. It's a real hoot, if it's true. And finally, there are a bunch of cruising sailboats in town this week and I suspect that at some point we might be back down at the marina saying hello. Please, stay tuned. We're almost up-to-date.

"La Famille Express" revisted

Winter has been showing those signs of moving off to where Winter goes when it leaves here. Drifting South, on its ancient yearly mission to climatically re-polarize our friends in New Zealand, Brasil and South Africa. Isn't it fun to think of them pulling their favorite winter clothing out of storage, and stoking their fireplaces while we are kicking our shoes off and getting ready for summer? I have been lucky enough to have travelled extensively in the southern hemisphere and I always got a kick out of kids going surfing over the summer Christmas holiday. Our snowy Northern hemisphere Santa-and-snow Christmas cards just don't seem very appropriate to people who associate Christmas and New Years with sunburns. Just kinda gives one a perspective on how the rest of the planet sees things. At least a little bit. Sometimes.

But here, for now, days are getting longer, and warmer, and every sunrise seems to be full of the potential promise of good stuff yet to come. How's that for an optimistic outlook?



Enough of that, I'll get to the main subject of this little post. And compared to some of the wordy things I've been posting lately this one will be pretty short. I am not sure which way works better... to save up enough new photos over a few weeks for a long post or to put up a short one every week or whenever we have something new. It's only been a little over a week since the last one, so we'll see how this goes.

We've been pretty busy lately. A couple of our sons came down for a spring break visit, and one of them brought a friend along this time. This kind of situation usually generates some outside activities on our part since our visitors are always geared up for some 'fun stuff'. And around here 'fun stuff' usually involves boats and the ocean. At least it does where this family is involved. So, on a nice sunny day we loaded up the visitors, boated over to the boatyard to pick up our new friends Crystal and Mike, and headed out to just enjoy a boating day. We got sidetracked almost immediately with an unplanned detour but it resulted in some photos we thought some of you might enjoy.

Just a little over two miles south of Leeward Going Through, out on the Caicos Bank, sits a rusting hulk of a freighter. On our way from our home up to Pine Cay we pass right next to this local landmark. Which of course means we have seen it literally hundreds of times. We have even been known to duck behind it and let a squall blow by from time to time.



Doesn't look too bad from a distance, does it. I know we have posted photos of this boat from time to time over the past few years. We first got up close to it in 2005 and have also noticed how parts of it seem to be steadily disappearing as people salvage the bits they think they want. As we get closer the sorry state of the wreck becomes more apparent:



The painted name "La Famille Express" is still clearly visible on both the stern and the bow of the little freighter. What is also clearly visible from up close is the welded metal spelling out the original name in the Cyrillic script used in Russia and some other Slavic nations in Northern Europe. We have been told that this boat was originally named the "Fort Shevenko", and that it was originally a Soviet Navy vessel.



With the former Soviet Union's activities and presence in Cuba, just a few miles from us, this would make some sense. I did try some internet searches for both names of the boat. But I really was not very successful in getting any additional information on it, other than other people's vacation photos. I did read that it got run aground here at its present position during Hurricane Frances. Frances made a direct hit on the Turks and Caicos Islands as a category 4 hurricane on September 1, 2004. So this boat has been sitting here falling apart for five and a half years now. It has also managed to hold together, for the most part, through the other two hurricanes that came through here since then.

Our visiting cruisers were interested in a closer look at the wreck, and of course the younger members of the group had wanted a real close look at it, so in my capacity as Captain-for-the-day, and with the blessing of La-Gringa-Suprema-the-Mother-in-charge, we decided to let them go for it. We pulled "Off Cay" up to the section of cargo netting draped over the side and our Colorado rock climbers were up over the side of that thing like a couple of rescued sailors.



Or maybe they thought there was a men's room on there...

We let them take our cameras aboard for some photos, and I confess I had long been curious about what this boat looked like from topside. Our little Contender looks even smaller from up there, doesn't it.



And as the boys climbed up higher on the freighter it because obvious that the cargo hold was flooded with seawater. This is no surprise as the entire hull is almost rusted through completely around the waterline. There are a lot of floating timbers still in the hold:



Here's a better view looking down into the cargo hold from the main deck area:



I confess that I had often wondered what went through the Captain's mind as he tried to make it to Providenciales in this little ship during a Category 4 hurricane. I was sure there must have been a heck of a story to tell, if we could just find out what it was. Because there was absolutely no way a boat this big would ever make it into Leeward from this direction. Our little boat draws just under three feet of water and we barely have enough clearance to get through here. So I had basically assumed that the crew had intentionally grounded the freighter.

We had these heroic stories in mind, how this move into shallow water would have guaranteed the survival of the crew even though it was almost certain death for the vessel. Yes, my over-active imagination had all these heroic scenarios playing over the years... and then today I thought to myself "I'll ask our friend Preacher if he knows any more details about this, as I am sure he would have been here during that storm." And as luck would have it, Preacher was just here this morning. He brought another one of his model sloop project hulls by. (I have been cutting the keels and rudders for him in my little shop.) And his model boats seem to be getting bigger...



That's #1, which I have, and #2, which we just cut the keel for, and now # 3 is taking form and it's even bigger. But I digress.... I'll get back to "La Famille Express"...

Turns out, it was a locally-owned and operated freighter belonging to a Carl Been of Five Cays here on Provo. Preacher says Carl used the boat to haul crap and whatever cargo jobs he could get. It was normally anchored off South Dock where all the other commercial freighters anchor. There is really no other area near here with enough water for a boat this size. And during Hurricane Frances this boat broke free and lost its anchor. The storm washed it all the way from South Dock to where it now sits.

It started at the anchorage, and ended up where it has sat hard aground for the past six years.




There was nobody on board the boat during the storm, so it was driven around a number of little cays, and over the shoals. That's about 12 miles. The original anchor was lost and Preacher is not exactly sure when they put this one out, but at the time the owner had some plans and ideas about how to re float and salvage the boat. Of course, that obviously never happened. And now it never will.

So, that pretty much puts an end to a lot of my speculation... at least all the ideas of heroic captains fighting mountainous seas during howling hurricane winds and driving rain....

Nope. The boat was inadequately anchored and broke loose in a storm. And that's the story.

This is what the view of this end of the island of Providenciales looks like from this direction:



And yeah our intrepid explorers had to do some climbing to get that view:



This is the bow of the boat:



I notice the chain stopper was not tightened, but let's face it.....this boat wasn't going anywhere at that point.

This is looking down at the stern of the boat from up high:



Not a whole lot left there to salvage without bringing a cutting torch aboard.

We didn't want the boys to get down inside the boat on this trip. We wouldn't rule out further exploration at some future date if they were a little better equipped for climbing around lots of rusty iron steps and collapsing walkways. They did look down toward the engine room access:



You can see that the deck plating down near the water line is in pretty bad shape. Certainly not the best footing for tender bare feet.

Some of the control boxes and switches are still on the bridge deck, and still with the original labelling:



And although the vessel is most definitely totally dead, it's not totally lifeless:



So finally we managed to corral our crew back onto our own little freighter and headed out to enjoy the rest of the day.




I haven't told them yet the real story on this boat maybe I will let them wonder for awhile. I know their imaginations were going wild there for a while. It sure looks the part.



Meantime, I am wondering how this boat from the U.S.S.R. even ended up in the Turks and Caicos Islands.... now there must be a story in THAT somehow, at least... did it all start with a renegade Russian Cossack and a shipment of Soviet vodka and Cuban Rum... during the Cuban Missile Crisis and the US blockade??

I really gotta do something about this runaway imagination. One of these days maybe I will.

And we also have heard rumor of a sunken airplane out on the Bank that we have not seen yet..... we'll try to track that one down if we can get Preacher focused on something besides his model sloop project for a few hours one of these fine days.

Still on the subject of presently non-functioning boats, last week when we were over at the boatyard picking up the crew of the "Dancing Dolphin" we took a look at the fishing boat from the Dominican Republic that I wrote about a few weeks back.



This boat was apprehended off of Ambergris Cay, well within the TCI's territorial waters, and illegally fishing. We posted some photos of it sitting outside the entrance to the boatyard waiting for high tide.

Well the story is that it was definitely seized by the TCI government and the catch was sold at public auction. The captain and mate were heavily fined and the crew were deported back to the D.R. This boat, and six or seven smaller fishing pangas, and all their equipment, remains here.



Can you believe there were over 40 fishermen living and working on this little boat? Talk about your basic 'tight-knit crew'.

And while I am sure this boat has its own stories to tell, I am going to limit my imagination to what I read in the papers on this one. Except that now we know where it was fishing five years ago...





(Hmm... did I do the welding on that boat? Or the painting?)

Oh, before I forget, I wanted to mention one more tidbit on the subject of non-functioning boats. People who follow this blog might remember that we had a heck of a time sorting out fuel issues this past summer. This outboard motor is very susceptible to dirty fuel. After a lot of work getting the system cleaned out and working correctly I installed a couple of filter/separators to catch water and debris in the fuel, before it gets to the motor. And I have been buying gasoline at an automotive service station, transporting it to the boat, and siphoning it from jerry cans into Off Cay's tank. I run it through a filtering funnel to make sure I don't introduce water or dirt into the tank.

Well, last week for the first time since last July we decided to buy fuel at the local marina instead of ferrying gas in plastic jugs. I thought that surely by now any fuel issues with the marina gas would have been worked out and they would have had several new batches of gasoline by now. It should be safe. And I am basically lazy. It's a real pain to drive down to a gas station, fill two jugs, drive them back, climb up onto the boat, on the trailer, and siphon fuel through a filter. I was hoping not to have to do that, forever. So I trusted the marina gas.

Yesterday we took "Off Cay" for another excursion (2nd one this week!) and right after launching it we drained off some fuel from the Racor filter. Just to be sure everything was still good. After all, we had bought our last 20 gallons from the marina. It was worth checking.... and I am glad I did. This is what was in those 20 gallons other than gasoline:



The cloudy stuff on top is gasoline with particles, that the filter trapped. The thick stuff on the bottom is something other than gasoline. I suspect water, and dirty water at that. I also checked the second Racor, and lo and behold the fuel in that one was clear as.... well..... as clean gasoline. I am SO glad this gunk didn't get into the Yamaha fuel system on this fuel injected motor. We would have been shut down again, until I got it all cleaned out once more. Five internal fuel pumps. Seven internal fuel filters.

And people actually wonder why we are moving to sail...

And kayaks. We really like our sail and people-powered kayak. We only have fuel issues when we forget to bring lunch. We did take the little Hobie (which we informally call "Low Cay") up the Long Bay canal to look around a couple weeks ago. We didn't see much that we haven't seen before except that this time we were there on a falling tide. When the tide runs out the canal empties much quicker than the salina behind it. So all along the canal there are these miniature waterfalls as the sea water continues to drain slowly into the dropping sea level of the canal.



And it seems that anytime flowing water gets restricted like this, something shows up to do some fishing:



And we have our own little 'something' who is only too happy to jump into the water
and scare the fish away...Dooley the Diverter:



Now for some minor DIY stuff:

As reported last week, I bought a DC welding machine and have been trying to teach myself to arc weld. I have managed to stick together all the loose metal scraps I could find in my garage. I even hacksawed some perfectly good metal bits apart just to have pieces to weld. Well, I've finally gotten to the point where I think I am just about ready to tackle the Land Rover exhaust pipe. But first I wanted to try a small project of some kind, just to see if I could make it all work. But what to practice on...hmmm

Last week while our young guests were here we put them to work jackhammering rock in the driveway.



And No of course it's not all shipwreck adventure and drinking beer! The little story here behind that photo is that these two had been out late the night before cruising the bar scene on Grace Bay. I still don't know how they made it home, but they did. They were not driving, that's all I know about that. And the next morning, I just knew they would be all refreshed and rested after a late night of sampling various libations from the rum family. You know, those deceptively sweet tasting things with little paper umbrellas stuck through bits of embalmed fruit and cute names like "Bahama Mama" and "Goombay Smash".... The usual pyrites of the Caribbean. Being the thoughtful stepdad and host that I am, I thought I might liven things up by coming up with a new way of welcoming the day. So I went out soon as the jackhammer rental store opened....and I rented the biggest jackhammer I could find. I got it started up bright and early. Man them suckers are noisy, aren't they? Sure enough, after about half an hour of me running this bad boy full bore, they stumbled out and took over...heh heh heh... Still here to help..

To haul some of the loose dirt away we borrowed a wheelbarrow from our friends down the road, M&M. The front piece of their wheelbarrow, the metal strip that holds these two wooden pieces together....



...was bent into a contorted shape. I warned the guys to keep an eye on it, as it was bent like a pretzel. This little metal piece acts like a fulcrum when you tip the wheelbarrow forward to dump the contents out. After we were finished with it I thought I would be a good 'tool-borrower' ( if there IS such a thing) and return it in better condition than it was in when I borrowed it. So I removed the metal piece and hammered it back into it's intended original condition. I wish I had thought to take a photo of it when it was bent, but at the time I only intended to hammer it straight, repair the wheelbarrow, and return it. This is what it looked like hammered straight again:



And it was at this point that I thought..."Oh HO! I bet I could improve upon this piece of metal strapping!" Well, actually what I thought was more along the lines of " I bet I could use a welder on this little project". And so I did.

I still have quite a bit of curved metal pieces that were the frame of our expensive HD satellite dish right up until Hurricane Hanna made landfall. So I hacksawed one of those off to fit..



And after adding yet another hammer to my collection... I welded this to the flimsy metal strap. And after grinding down the ugly part of the weld...it looked like this:





And although it's never going to be exhibited in the Welder's Museum or Hall of Fame.... I judged it suitable for the underside of a wheelbarrow. Especially after a few coats of paint.



I just put another coat of paint on it, and then reassembled M&M's now-improved wheelbarrow. I have to believe that beefing up this part is an improvement. Of course what I really needed was an excuse and opportunity to try my hand at an actual welding project. Hey, it's a start. I wonder if they will notice any difference in it..



As an aside, I showed my welding practice piece to Preacher when he stopped by this morning. He laughed, and told me that back when the first arc welding machine came to Provo ( some time after they brought electricity to Provo) all the first welds on the entire island looked like that until people had time to practice. I bet a whole lot of loose scrap metal got cleaned up in those days. I know it's getting hard to find a loose piece of steel in my garage. My 'practice piece' just keeps getting bigger. Starting in the middle, (which is where I started) my earliest welding efforts are to the left.



And after I totally ruined a lot of perfectly good, collectable, scrap steel pieces that I had been saving for years in some cases, the stuff to the right side shows some slight improvement. I started practicing on thinner metal, as my next project was to weld two places on the Land Rover exhaust system. I found out that buy using thinner welding rods ( 3/32" 6013 for you experts out there) and less amperage, it worked okay. Still not pretty, but I can't break it with a hammer. And you KNOW how I am about my hammers...



Okay, that's it for this week's installment. Except I wanted to mention that this blog is now linked to a nice online travel service called Trip Advisor. Check it out next time you are planning a vacation!

We have a link to them there on the right side of this blog along with the other links we think you guys might be interested in.

And thank goodness La Gringa is finally getting some good sunsets to photograph again!