Hanging Out on North Caicos...

Once again we find ourselves smack dab in the middle of the worst part of hurricane season. If the climate scientists' dire predictions are correct going forward, and years like this become common, we may need to address this situation at some point. It won't be this year, obviously. After going through the 2008 season here with two storms in one week, we are admittedly a bit gun shy. Of course hurricane season brings rain and clouds, and clouds and sun can combine to make for some pretty photography. We have been getting some decent sunrises lately.



We monitor the weather situation a lot closer from July through October than we do the rest of the year. During this season we check several internet weather-oriented websites fairly often. Those are Accuweather, StormPulse, Weather Underground, the NOAA Satellite and Information images and I get emails with the latest updates from the National Weather Service at 02:00, 08:00, 14:00, and 20:00 hours. Seven days a week. Sometimes I check into Bear Paw weather, too.

When we first moved here we just watched the Weather Channel on television. But we've learned that by the time the US mainstream media is paying attention to a storm that threatens the USA, it may well be stomping around in our back yard already. That epitome of a bad house guest, Hurricane Rita, actually formed as a Tropical Storm right here, practically on top of us while we were out kayaking one very long windy day shortly after we moved here in 2005. This is the path that Rita took:



We had rented two kayaks to go from Providenciales to Pine Cay and back that day. It was a very difficult trip. We ended up leaving the boats beached on Pine Cay and 'thumbing' a ride back on something with an outboard. It's not documented because that was before we had this blog thing going. But boy we will never forget it. I swam the last 45 minutes towing a waterlogged plastic kayak that flooded between the hulls. Whew!

And we have seen what effect hurricanes that completely miss us but hit Florida can have on us. If the Port of Miami gets closed by storms, the T.C.I. starts running out of groceries and supplies shortly thereafter. Almost everything that we have here comes into the country in containers on ships. Without them, it doesn't take long for things to start going downhill.

So these days we watch those storms all the way from Africa. This is one area where we definitely do not like surprises.

Of course it's not all storms and rain in the summers here. Not at all. In fact we get the calmest seas in the periods between the ugly weathers. For example, this is one of the full time live-aboard dive boats anchored just off the shore here on a calm summer day, as they do every Friday.



When Hurricane Hermine (or maybe Gaston, I forget) was traipsing by a couple weeks ago we watched our weather station sensor package waving around like an unbalanced metronome on diet pills. Worried about it coming loose, we decided to replace the aluminum pipe that supported it with an 8 ft. length of inch-and-a-half diameter galvanized steel.

It was blowing about 35-40 kts. at the time. I suppose I could have picked a better day to be on the roof, messing around with that thing, wrestling that pipe against the wind, thinking unkind self-recriminations about my own procrastinations. The lightning displays didn't help instill much peace-of-mind , either. Dooley said he couldn't even watch.



That particular storm blew past us and headed up north to make somebody else's life miserable for awhile as the majority of the storms tend to do.

While we keep one eye on the weather forecast we still find time to go out and have some fun when we can. We haven't put our power boat back in the water just yet. Now I have to find the source of some electrical problems with it and that has been on page 2 of the priority list of 'things that need fixing right now' for some weeks. We still manage to patch up the "old" kayak and go for a picnic run from time to time. The inflatable is starting to become a bit unreliable, with leaks developing in seams, and attachment points popping off. Some of the hardware is showing signs of use. We have gotten a lot of fun out of that kayak and I am still patching the leaks but the phrase 'nothing lasts forever' has been coming to mind. Especially here.

A couple weeks back we decided to go back to the cliffs on Water Cay which we figured would be sheltered from the strong easterly winds and high seas that day. We launched at our usual spot at Heaving-Down-Rock in Leeward.

We had noticed that Jay Stubbs' damaged Macgregor 36 catamaran "Two Fingers" is sitting in Leeward just off of the former Chief Minister's home. It had been sitting in a shallow mangrove swamp dismasted since Hurricane Ike. We have read that this 11,000 sq. ft. beach house is for sale, by the way. In case anyone is interested.



We're not sure what is planned for the catamaran. Preacher has told us that someone is planning to modify it to use the hulls as some kind of survey or search platform. It's a shame, really. Those boats are one of the fastest production sailing catamarans in that size to ever be built. We did look at buying it ourselves at one time, but it's not exactly the kind of boat we were looking for. And I really don't need another big repair project at the moment, either. I get plenty of those in our day-to-day living.

Heading out of Leeward-Going-Through we could see that maybe we picked a less than optimal day for a kayaking picnic. The squalls were beginning to form outside the reef before we even cleared Little Water Cay. Looking to the NW:



At least we picked the location well, the water close to the islands on that side was smooth. But the sky didn't look much better back to the West over Grace Bay:



And then we looked behind us back to the East over the Caicos Bank, in the direction from which the weather was actually coming to find us. This is just after we turned the corner around Little Water Cay:



Well at that point we decided that it would not be very smart of us to try to take a patched together rubber inflatable boat the rest of the way to Water Cay. We started looking for the nearest shelter we could find, just in case this storm decided that today was our turn.

We'd often seen this little shelter from the water, on the northern edge of Little Water Cay. We had figured it was part of the Rock Iguana preserve located on that island. It was close by and we beelined straight to the beach and hauled the boat up above the tide line.



(yes, that is a raindrop on the lens)

This is the route of our shortened picnic trip:



If you look in the bottom left hand corner of that image, you might see that Google Earth has not updated the satellite imagery for this area since June 2003. There have been huge changes in Leeward-Going-Thru in the past 7 years, so it really doesn't look like this any more. The canals are different. The amount covered in concrete is different, the old Gilley's Restaurant and Leeward docks are long gone, and oh boy has Leeward channel changed. And none of it for the better.

Dooley the Destructive had gotten us thrown off the Iguana preserve some years ago. Dogs are definitely not welcome amongst the peaceful, herbivorous lizards of Iguana land. But the phrase 'any port in a storm' came to mind, and after severely lecturing Dooley the Disillusioned about behaving himself and with squalls closing in from all sides, we grabbed our cooler full of picnic goodies and went ashore.



We were a bit saddened to see the current state of the shelter and boardwalks through the Iguana refuge. This little country is just about flat broke financially at the moment and there is still a lot of unrepaired hurricane damage. It's difficult for the government to justify spending money on lizards when schools on Grand Turk have not yet been completely repaired. I don't think the lizards care one way or another.



The shelter itself is still strong, although the screening and doors have long been blown away. It looked like a good place to rest for a while. At least until the weather cleared up or a park ranger caught us in possession of an obnoxious dog and kicked us out again.



The rains held off for the most part. We had a peaceful picnic, looking out over the ocean and looking around the mangroves just inland of the shelter.



We could tell that this place was intended to be used for educational purposes, and probably as a rest stop for people walking the boardwalks that traverse the little island.



It really is not in all that bad of a condition. Just needs some time, labor and materials. And money. That's always the determining factor in most things, isn't it.



In this direction (below) we are looking toward Water Cay. That was our intended destination before the weather made us run and hide under the nearest shelter. At one time Little Water Cay and Water Cay were separate islands. Now they are connected by a long sand bar that filled in the shallow channel between them. Local friends tell us this happened during Hurricane Donna, in 1960. That was a major hurricane and it changed this and many other landscapes in these islands significantly.




Dooley the Disappointed managed to behave himself, for the most part. He had to be satisfied with searching under the boardwalks for anything smaller than an iguana that he could annoy. He usually 'behaves', actually. It's just that sometimes he 'behaves' badly. But it is behavior.




We had hoped that the squalls would have blown through by the time we were ready to boat home. That was not the case.

This is the direction in which we have to peddle:



And this is just outside the reef, close by and growing:



So of course we got wet. Some of us shrug it off as part of the price of living like this. And some of us are opportunists who shiver and shake at every lightning bolt and beg to be cuddled and reassured.



I haven't completely decided which camp I am in, just yet.

Obviously we made it back okay, or you wouldn't be reading this right now. We did get into some sunny weather toward the end. We boated closer to "Two Fingers" to see what the hulls were sitting on. In the earlier photo it was high and dry at low tide. In this photo, taken a few hours later, the tide is about half way through flood. It should come up about another 6 inches. The weight will still be on the tires. (And that's spelled 'tyres' in some circles around here.)



Did you notice that I managed to post all those photos of that picnic trip without a single shot of La Gringa sitting in the bow of the kayak? Ha. Bet you thought I couldn't do it.

(Note: after this trip we read in the local newspaper that a million dollars has been set aside for improvements to several government funded sites around the islands. A visitor center on Little Water Cay is on the list. It looks like a pretty ambitious list, too. It also has improvements to let visitors see Bird Rock and some more work at two of the major Loyalist plantations here. That would be Cheshire Hall on Providenciales and Wade Green on North Caicos. Since the Iguana sanctuary is close to Provo it should see some attention. And Cheshire Hall is right here, too, so it might get a facelift, but let's face it, a million bucks gets eaten up pretty quickly by a government organization. But at least this spot should get repaired before the well runs dry again.)

Last weekend Preacher called us with an invitation to a small get-together over on North Caicos. It was our friend JR's birthday and he was having a cookout at his house in the Bottle Creek settlement. Of course we wouldn't miss that. Saturday started with another nice sunrise.



And we met up with Preacher, his brother Joe (Hammer) and a longtime friend of theirs named Johanna. I might have the spelling wrong. Preacher ran us all over to Bellefield Landing on North Caicos in his boat "Cay Lime".



You might notice that, unlike previous trips, this time we were all seated in the boat, including Preacher. We almost always stand up to ride in small boats around here. You can see a lot better, and standing keeps the shocks from the boat bouncing over waves from travelling up through your spine. But Saturday we sat down and held on. This is not because the water was rough, because as you can clearly see...... it wasn't.

No, we were seated because "Cay Lime's" outboard has recently developed a nasty habit of suddenly going from full speed to an abrupt and total stop. And 'full speed' with Preacher driving is eye-watering, hold-on-to-your-hat, frozen-clenched-teeth-grin and panic-stricken-eyes full speed. I am guessing that he normally runs around 45-50 mph. And when the propeller stops turning suddenly, it magically changes from a motor to a brake. Very quickly. And if you are standing up when that happens there is a high likelihood you will be suddenly get relocated forward. Also very quickly.

Now, I am telling you all this as explanation and as a cover for something I experienced a little later in the day. For now, I just ask you to notice the painted surface that Hammer is sitting on. It is a 'non-slip' type of paint, common on the decks of boats and diving boards. It has a very rough surface. On a small boat moving about 45 mph in a slight chop, it's kind of like sitting on 60 grit sandpaper. Maybe I should say, it's what I would imagine it would be like to sit on 60 grit sandpaper. (I almost wrote 'sitting naked', but caught myself in time.)



Okay, that's all I am going to say about that at the moment. Other than to point out that the boat part of the trip was just under 13 miles.



And this brought us into Bellefield Landing. This is another place to tie up a boat on North Caicos other than the new marina at Sandy Point. It's a little closer to where we want to be, and it's generally pretty deserted on weekends. Preacher just uses a "Mediterranean mooring" setup, since there are no docks or other facilities here. There is also nobody here with their hand out for 'dockage fees' if you want to leave your boat for a few hours. He just drops an anchor off the stern and ties the bow line ashore. We can then pull the slack out of the anchor line by pulling the bow up close enough to the rocks to hop ashore. When you let go of the bow line, the boat goes back to it's moored position. And hopefully stays there. It works well in protected waters.



Ashore at Bellefield, we were surprised to see that a large boneyard for construction equipment has been established here. Most of this pile came from the Caicos Marina and Boatyard, near our home. We had noticed it was steadily disappearing but didn't know why. Now we see that someone is assembling it in a place where people with cutting torches and barges can get to it. Another tribute to the environment here, several million dollars worth of corroded high end equipment. There are several dozen expensive construction machines in various stages of falling apart. Soon to be scrap iron. I could probably put together a bulldozer or front end loader just from parts here.



Now, from here we got a ride to Bottle Creek in JR's pickup truck. With six people and the dog we had a truck full and La Gringa, Dooley the Dehydrated and I sat in the bed of the truck. Which I usually do, anyhow. Because I like it.

Now I want to point out that after 13 miles of sitting on the equivalent of 60 grit sandpaper on Preacher's boat, I was now sitting on a steel pickup truck bed on bumpy roads for another 12 miles. This is the trip from Bellefield Landing to Bottle Creek:



Now, JR's pickup truck bed is not the equivalent of sitting on 60 grit sandpaper. Nope. It's more like sitting on a much finer grit than that. Maybe a 150 or 220 emory cloth. But it has an orbital motion to it. The boat motion is more like receiving a paddling.

I bet you've noticed my apparent preoccupation with the surfaces I was sitting on for a couple hours before we got to Froggy's house. (Froggy is JR's other nickname, by the way. It's not uncommon here. His radio handle is "Blue Demon", while we are on the subject. I just realized I have no idea what his original given name is.)

Okay here's the reason for all the 60 and 220 grit talk. I was wearing, for the very first time, a brand new pair of nice shorts I bought in the USA on our last trip north. I had been saving them for a special occasion. Froggy's birthday seemed like just the one. And I only bought them a couple weeks back, and they fit me just fine. A little on the loose side, in fact. Just the way I like them. Its a warm climate. We are active people. We get wet a lot. Loose clothing works for us.

Now, having said all that.... when we got to Froggy's I turned one of those ubiquitous five gallon white plastic drywall compound buckets (you know the ones) upside down and plunked myself down on it to get ready to enjoy the day and the excellent company....... and I heard that ominous, frightening, unmistakable sound of tearing cloth.

It wasn't just the audio, either. I felt the cloth tear. And I don't know quite how to delicately and inoffensively say this, but basically there is typically nothing between me and the cloth from which my shorts are cut . This has more to do with climate and the ability for clothing to dry quickly than it does some religious, political or other statement. It's not 'going commando' so much as really being about personal comfort and common sense. And in five years here, it has not been an issue. Until today. Froggy's birthday. Meeting a lot of people for the first time. A long way from home. You get the picture.

So I not only heard the cloth rip, but I actually shared the anguish of entire micro-neighborhoods of threads as they said their final goodbyes to each other forever..... once-adjacent plaid neighbors were now barely in shouting distance. This was no small rip.

Yep. Those dressy new thin fabric shorts of mine ripped from waistband to leg seam. All the way. Right down the middle of my left cheek. Gringo exposed, film at eleven. Oh my.

Fortunately, I suppose, this happened early in the party and there were only about a dozen people at the cookout so far. And I only knew four of them. Exposed in front of strangers. Uproarishly laughing strangers at that.What a panicky feeling of helpless mortification this was. With no way to hide the rift in these suddenly traitorous shorts, my first inclination was to remove myself to someplace out of sight and think my way through this. Miles out of sight. Maybe go wait back at the boat.... Cowering came to mind. But by this time I had everybody's attention and it just didn't seem right to 'turn tail' and run. And while I know they would appreciate the sentiment, 'turning the other cheek' didn't much 'seam' like the way to go either. My suddenly threadbare imagination was quickly becoming unravelled. I was just going to have to accept my sudden exposure as the butt of a great joke.

I managed to borrow a towel from my newest friend Henrietta, ('Henny') , who is actually Mrs. Froggy. I would say that I broke out in a cold sweat, but there was nothing cold about it.



The Stubbs brothers, being unreasonably insensitive to my plight, thought it was a real hoot, of course.



Oh, there's the bucket that started it all, too. I see that Preacher had relegated it to being a simple table after it proved itself totally untrustworthy for seating. I suppose that's not really true that the bucket started it. I'm personally convinced that the problem started with the Awl-Grip paint on Cay Lime's decks. Followed by Froggy's pickup truck bed. Those shorts were meant to spend a life in contact with soft upholstery and gentle lifestyles. That's not us. But the fabric was thin to begin with... and I sadly see that I grossly overestimated its capacity for mild abuse.

Henny was kind enough to bring out her sewing machine and attempt to repair the damage.



But the math is simple. Putting another seam there just tightened the already thin and freshly sanded and violated cloth even further. There was no hope. My brand new shorts became another casualty of our new environment. And they didn't even have any iron or aluminum in them to corrode. Sigh.

Fortunately for me, Henrietta maintains a small gift shop at her home and she just happened to have a very few pairs of mens' plaid shorts in stock. And in my size!! What are the chances of all this happening, ripping one's shorts a few feet from the nearest clothing store on a small, lightly populated island? I am sure glad I didn't need to go to Plan B in this case. Because I sure didn't have one.

Okay I am going to leave that unpleasant subject behind me, as it were, and get back to the party. Preacher, Froggy and Branford were keeping an eye on the cookout. One of those pots had a delicious Hawksbill turtle soup in it and we had grilled chicken and ribs, potato salad, macaroni and cheese.... and plenty of cold drinks. Froggy was in charge of the cooking. What a great meal.



We had found out that Froggy liked Bambarra Reserve rum, so we brought him a bottle. And so did several other people. No shortage of sugar cane products on this Saturday in Bottle Creek.



I didn't get everybody's name but the young man in the orange hat is named Cardinal. We took a walk up through Bottle Creek to visit with Cynthia, another friend who we first met on Pine Cay some years back and aunt to Cardinal.




I wish I had more photos to show you but the fact is that when it comes to taking pictures of people, I am terrible. I usually hand the camera to La Gringa if she hasn't brought her own. She does well with people. I manage to barely do okay with rocks and inanimate objects. The only thing with any personality that I feel comfortable photographing is the ocean.

We couldn't stay at Froggy's cookout as long as we would have liked. There was well more than a dozen people there by early afternoon, with more expected to show up after work and into the evening. The music was loud and so far the rum supply was holding up well. But the logistics of us getting home meant we either needed to leave by mid afternoon or arrange lodging for the night. We needed to get home. We were allowing some extra time in case Preacher's outboard motor gave us more problems so by 15:00 we were basically out of there. I suspect things continued just fine without us and I would be willing to bet my embarassing misadventure with the shorts was told and re-told a time or two after I was gone. It sure broke the ice, at least.

I have to stop buying cheap clothing at Target. I need to stick with canvas shorts, I think. Rather than sticking out of plaid cotton ones.

Back on Cay Lime, Preacher broke out a bag of 'sugar apples' for us to try. He had gotten them from a tree in Froggy and Henny's yard. We had never tasted, nor even heard of them before Saturday.

This is what they look like:



And you peel the sections apart to eat them. Each seed section is surrounded by some of the sweetest tasting pulp imaginable. Like with a lot of the 'bush food' we have experienced here, you end up spitting out a lot of seeds. But oh, it's worth it.



Preacher told us they were called 'sugar apples', but in the past we have found that sometimes the local names for things can be different from what something might be called elsewhere. But not in this case. These are, indeed, sugar apples.

My newest new shorts made it back to Provo without any further 'wardrobe malfunctions'. It was an uneventful trip. I did notice that the sand dredged up by the people who were developing Dellis Cay is now supporting some plant life. This sand was sea bottom just three years ago. And with no source of fresh water, or any kind of topsoil whatsoever, the Casuarinas trees have taken root and some of them are already 8-10 ft. tall. Amazing trees, actually. I would like to use the wood for some more projects, but I have found it to be unstable as it dries. It warps and twists badly.



I think that pretty much sums up most of our mentionable TCI-related adventures of the past few weeks. We did see an 'old friend' on the way home from one excursion. This is the Suzuki I had sold to a group of Filipino workers last year. I was about ready to junk it and thought they would be buying it for parts. I was wrong. They had it on the road and running within days and we see them frequently driving around the island. They always wave at us when they see us. We had noticed a new horn on it, (it went 'honkity honk' instead of 'beepity beep'). Later changes include a cardboard rear window, and a bench seat bolted (I hope) into the back. I can tell by looking that the exhaust pipe is new, too.

When these guys bought the suzuki from us, the headlights didn't work at all. The next time we spotted them in it, they had just installed a couple of offroad driving lights on the front bumper, wired to a toggle switch, and were happily driving around the island using those for illumination. What a country.



We are really glad to see them getting so much use from this vehicle. It went to a good home. And these guys really appreciate it.

Well, the rear end of that Samurai was supposed to be the end of this post. But then I thought I would stick in another update on the never ending DIY stuff that jumps up in my face and licks me on a daily basis. But first this...

Two days after our last trip to North Caicos for Froggy's cookout we noticed that one of the Defenders had gotten noticeably louder. I was pretty sure it was exhaust related, so I walked around to the rear of the truck and squatted down to take a look at the muffler and pipe. I was totally astonished to once again hear that dreaded cloth ripping sound! Yep, another pair of shorts bit the dust! Two in one week! And these are some of my canvas, tried and true, working shorts. You can easily see that they are not overly snug.

Why me, Lord?



At least this time it happened at home. It also happened to the other side, as this tear was on the right. I don't know what's happening here, but it's a disturbing trend. Maybe I really do need to stop shopping at Target. I've lost an appreciable percentage of my entire wardrobe in the past few days.

Okay, having brought up the DIY subject and realizing this has turned into a long post already, I will just touch lightly on some of the recent projects. I told you about the exhaust pipe rotting through again. So this is another welding job:



I managed to get it partially welded yesterday, but then it started raining. There is just something about arc welding in the rain that makes me nervous. Probably unfounded. I will finish this job this afternoon. Hopefully. If it doesn't rain.

La Gringa's bicycle was managing okay on the temporary fix I mentioned in the last post. But other parts of the drive train were starting to go. So while up in Colorado two weeks ago we picked up two new derailleurs and a new chain with at least some stainless steel in it.

Just my luck the bike shop in Ft. Collins did not have direct replacements for the derailleurs I was changing out, so I had to make some other changes to the cable and shifter setup in order to fit them on her bike. But she now a new front derailleur:



And a new rear derailleur too:



We've got a bunch of other stuff going on, especially since I fired the gardeners and took over those chores myself. Now trimming, weeding and maintaining irrigations systems is part of my day. Life goes on. Dodging hurricanes, ripping shorts.. noticing a banner year for lizards for some reason...



As well as other close neighbors that share this rocky little hilltop with us.



And now I can get back to work on that Land Rover. Hurricane Igor is way north of us, tropical storm Lisa isn't here yet, Tropical storm Matthew is to our south and it isn't raining at the moment.

And that will have to be good enough.

Playing 'catch-up' again

I have mixed feelings about writing another post right now. It's been recently and repeatedly pointed out to me that it's been several weeks since the last post. Okay, three weeks. Ok, okay... I realize that. But the situation is that once again we don't really have much that's new and exciting going on around here lately. Being in the Northern Hemisphere, we are still digging ourselves out from the last remnants of an unusually cold and bitter winter. I know for a fact that it got down to around 69 degrees F. one night, and it bottomed out at 70 or 71 on at least three other occasions. One doesn't recover from a harsh climate experience like that overnight, you know. We feel lucky to be alive.

So, although I have nothing exciting to report, after digging into our meager supply of new photos, and without further ado.. I can report that La Gringa Suprema's camera came back from the Pentax repair folks fixed as good as new , and she is taking sunrise and (sometimes) sunset photos again!



And she takes a lot of nice photos. She has the patience to work at it while I am more the offhand snapshot type. Sometimes it's difficult to figure out which of her sunrise photos to choose. I can't post all of them. She keeps striving for good, clean, dramatic images of the prettier sunrises for example,



While I tend to drift over toward the photos with other stuff in them. She would, for example, prefer this one out of a series she recently took:



While I (if left to my own devices) would have picked the one single photo with a lens reflection flaw:



Likewise, she would probably not choose one with early morning contrails in it..



and some might think that an exhaust trail like that basically ruins that particular sunrise for good. But I like it. It makes me wonder where that jet originated and how early those people had to leave their homes and hotels to be flying over us at that altitude at 05:30 in the morning. Are they going home to the USA after a vacation in the Lesser Antilles? Is it a military flight? Can they even see this speck of an island from up there? I think maybe I over complicate things sometimes.

We still are not getting a lot of decent sunset photos. I think it's tied to the season. There are either not enough clouds for a pretty one, or the clouds have been building all day and by sunset they obscure everything to the western horizon. But rest assured, La Gringa is keeping an eye on the sunset most days if we are home and she has a camera near. And it's just a matter of time before we have a few more good ones to post for the sunset aficionados out there.

And it's not easy, sitting here huddled against the cold, wearing all her winter clothing...watching and hoping for a decent sunset photo...



And Dooley the Destroyer...well in the last post we showed y'all what he was doing to the nice new squeaky-duck toy that Todd brought him from Texas. He was systematically working on destroying it. We didn't know what to do to stop him from destroying it. It was, after all as he pointed out, HIS squeaky-duck toy. He didn't seem too keen on the idea of a guardianship arrangement. I thought perhaps he needed to understand it was like a fetch toy. He loves to fetch tennis balls. And they seem to survive. For months in some cases. This duck wasn't looking to make a month at that rate. So I tried throwing the duck, and telling him to go get it and yeah, he would go and fetch it. Catch it in the air, actually. And shake it violently and crunch it, producing a 'squawk' noise. And then he would really crunch on it..and pin it down...and treat it harshly.

Finally, of course, the time came when he crunched it....and it didn't squawk. Because the last violent shake had pretty much de-squawked old Daffy for good. And then, suddenly, he totally lost interest in it. Even when I gathered the evidence into a pile and confronted him with it.



And I think it is his breeding. As long as that bird squawked, he figured he had NOT done his job. And as a Terrier, his job is to locate and permanently neutralize animals that he considers useless pests and undesirable varmints. (A shame we can't turn him loose in the US Senate for a few hours. Maybe if he brought a few spare backbones with him...)

I do have a few new boating-related photos to upload, but not many. And I have a lot of DIY and semi-DIY stuff, much more than boating photos. But the happy news is that we do have some boat-related DIY photos, sort of. I'll let you decide.

As many of you know, every Valentine's Day weekend there is a model sailboat regatta over on Middle Caicos. We have been going over for four years now. It is a bit of an ordeal to get over to Bambarra Beach for the day, but well worth it.

Starting last year our friend Preacher started going with us to the regatta. Last year I remarked that the boats seemed to be having some problems travelling in a straight line. Preacher told me it was because nobody knows how to rig the boats these days...while in his youth they perfected the racing of these boats and making them sail right. So I asked what would be involved in us building a couple boats and competing with them in the next regatta. Preacher explained that we would need to find a 'gum-elemi' tree, shape it while it was still green, and that it was a lot of work. I remember telling him we had a whole year to do it and that I had a shop and tools, and he agreed it was a great idea.

Time rolls around, and a year later we find ourselves once again at the Valentine Day Sloop Regatta at Bambarra Beach. And once again I comment on how I think the boats could be improved and Preacher walked right into the trap. I let him explain how they built model sloops back when he was a boy...and then at the appropriate point I interrupted to remind him that the two of us had the same exact conversation, standing in the same spot on the same beach at the same event a year earlier. I really laid it on thick.

Well about a week ago Preacher called and said he was on his way over with something to show us. That in itself was a surprise because Preacher had not driven out here since the last time one of the front wheels fell off his car and headed out into the bush. (This is not that uncommon around here, by the way. Rough roads, oxidation, and minimal inspection requirements let a lot of marginal tie rods slip into the mix.) So I was expecting him to show up in a new vehicle, probably something suited to towing his boat "Cay Lime" around with. And he did have another vehicle, a Jeep Cherokee. But that was only part of what he wanted to show us. Here just a month after the last Middle-Caicos model sloop races, Preacher had secured a length of gum-elemi wood, and had already shaped the hull!



He was bringing it over to my shop to build and rig the rest of the boat. I was very surprised. I mean, the next race is not until February of 2011. But when Preacher gets a burr under his blanket...well you see how he can move when he needs to. ( speaking of Preacher moving...I have a little video I am debating whether to post here or not. I need to think about it for a few minutes...)

So 'yours truly' benefited from some one-on-one instruction from the supposed master of Providenciales Model Sloop design. First I used my table saw to rip a piece of wood which I then shaped with a jig saw...



The pressure treated spruce is heavier than the gum-elemi wood so this becomes the keel. It is also a lot tougher than the light gum-elemi wood. This wood resembles a kind of brittle balsa. It doesn't compress like balsa, nor is it as soft. When it's green and damp it's fairly easy to shape. As it dries it becomes brittle.

Preacher sketched out a rudder and I cut that out of another piece of wood.



That pretty much ate up the rest of that morning. A couple days later Preacher came back to start on the standing rigging. Starting to look like a sloop:



Another few hours to finish the rigging, build a weatherboard (or lee board) and Preacher took the boat home to finish the fine points and cut the sails. And within about a week and a half after starting she was ready for some sea trials.



And does it sail? Oh yeah.



I am pretty sure this boat, with the paint still fresh, would have out-sailed any of the boats we have seen competing in the Middle Caicos regatta. We have a few little 'secret weapons' and tricks from Preacher's experience to incorporate but basically I think that the previous champions in the Forbes family on North and Middle Caicos better enjoy their last year as reigning champions of the Valentine's Day Regatta. There's a new kid in town.

(there. think that will pull Danny Forbes out of retirement?)

Okay, on the video, I decided to post it. This is Preacher trying to keep up with this boat to change the heading. This is how these boats are sailed, with the captain following along behind to tweak the tiller as needed. Well, in this case, the boat accelerated so fast that Preacher was in danger of letting it get beyond him. Even he didn't allow for the speed he had told me about in his 50 year old design. If he had not caught the boat in his one-last-chance lunge... it would have been headed for French Cay and I am not sure what we could have done to stop it.




I can hardly wait til next Valentine's Day. We're gonna be a contender..

Now that was a DIY that is boating-related, after a fashion. And as far as real boating goes we basically have not done any. I met up with Robert Van Kampen of Nantucket at the hardware store recently. Robert comes down to Provo about this time most years and reads this blog to keep up with some of the going's-on around the island. Robert says we have been lazy! Not enough boating and not enough fishing. Well, dang. I am going to have to see what we can do about that, Robert. But as I told him, La Gringa and I are really starting to move away from power boats in our hearts. We KNOW we were born to be sailors. And our luck fishing has been abysmal the last several times we were out. And at $ 4.50 a gallon for fuel, it's fairly expensive to run a boat all day. So our boating tends to be of the rubber kayak variety. Including this past week. We like being able to just throw the boat in the back of a Land Rover and be where we want to launch in a few minutes. Like here, at Heaving-Down-Rock:



This rock, at the Caicos Bank end of Leeward-Going-Through , should be a national landmark or historic site for Providenciales. People have been landing boats here for hundreds of years. Before the modern marinas and canals were cut into the island this was one of the few places where you could even get a boat close to the land without having to worry about the waves smashing you against the shore. The very first vehicle (a jeep) was landed here in 1966.



Preacher was a teenager himself back then and remembers it well. Back in 1966 the population of Providenciales was estimated at around 400 people. This was also about the time that the people here saw their first outboard motor. Boy, has this place changed.

Dooley the Disinterested doesn't care about the history of the place, though. He has his own priorities..



This time of year we try to stay as far to the edge of the channel as we can squeeze. There are a lot of boats using Leeward-Going-Through during this busy part of the season. Fortunately, we can fit into very shallow water. Unlike the boats that left their rudder marks on the suddenly shallow bottom.



In this photo of the local day-charter boat "Atabeyra", please look at the little white lines on the distant horizon ahead of the schooner.



Those are ocean swells breaking on the reef outside the protected waters of Leeward. I mention this because after we left the deceptively calm waters in this photo we found ourselves in a good honest 3-5 ft. swell outside between the island and the reef. With our sail up, and a combination of the sometimes breaking swells and the wake of large power boats, things got real busy for us for the next hour while we made our way up to Pine Cay. Bottom line, I didn't take many photos. I was too busy with the rudder control in one hand, the main sheet in the other, and both feet pushing pedals. We did notice an unusual amount of seaweed floating on the ocean on this trip. More than we have ever seen here before.



Still photos never seem to capture the perspective of waves coming at you in a small boat. It always looks calm in the pictures. There were a few exciting moments on this trip, like when we looked to seaward and spotted a good 5-6 footer starting to break about thirty feet from us. We barely had time to turn the kayak down and let the wave pass under us from astern. It was exciting.

Finally, a stretch of calm water and a good run to Pine Cay:



It was also exciting when we 'surfed' the boat onto the beach. Neither of us was of a mind to be the designated photographer, with things getting real busy. In fact it wasn't until later that we wished we had a video of that landing. But that's the way it goes... we only pull the camera out when things are calm and we think of it. And of course we had Dooley the Debauched grabbing the calm periods for his catnaps. (Don't tell him I said he 'cat'napped. He doesn't think cats should even be allowed to nap.)



When we saw the weed patches we realized that we should have been fishing offshore around some of the larger ones. Rainbow Dolphin love to congregate under floating mats of cover. But alas, we didn't have what we needed for offshore trolling on this day.



We spent several hours visiting on Pine Cay and then boated back to Provo. The wind and the waves had died down considerably by the time we headed back. And of course since the sea was calmer it was easier to remember to take some photos. But they just don't convey the movement of the boat and the water, although video looks a little better.

This is riding over a smaller, 2 ft. wave on the way back to Leeward:



Even though the ocean was a lot more mellow on the way home we still had to deal with the wakes of large boats zooming by us. I think people tend to swerve out of their path toward us just to check out the funny looking kayak with a sail. When we get a large wake coming at us we either turn into it, or if we have enough room sometimes we turn away from it and ride it in toward the shore a little. This is what it looks like when we turn into a wake:



So, if you will, imagine a wake like that on top of a 3-5 foot swell from the same direction and you might get an idea for what our trip over was like earlier in the day.

Next time we'll try to remember to pull the camera out of the waterproof bag and take some more dramatic photos during the fun parts. I promise.

We tried boating without Dooley one afternoon. We didn't have much time and just wanted a quick little workout in the kayak. We realized we had never been in the boat without the dog and wanted to try it out. So we did a quick trip up the local canal. It was very strange not to have him there. We had nobody to yell at except each other and the neighborhood dogs didn't know what to make of this boat coming up their canal... without Dooley. They didn't even work up the energy or enthusiasm to run down to the water without Dooley shooting his mouth off about their heritage and immediate family members.



Now I am at the last part of this post that involves boats in any way. Last week we received an email from some cruisers who are passing through here on their way South. They had decided to stop at the boatyard here to get some repairs done to the keel of their catamaran. Crystal and Mike found this blog online and dropped us a note inviting us to stop by and meet them and see their boat. Of course since we are salivating for our own little cruising sailboat we lept at the chance. Well, perhaps 'lept' is too strong a word. We are too old for leaping. It might be more accurate to say we 'moseyed' over to the boatyard and found them.

Here is the "Dancing Dolphin" on the blocks while the boatyard is doing some fiberglass work on the hull.



"Dancing Dolphin" is a 35 ft. Victory catamaran. This is a different boat than the one we are interested in but it also has a lot in common. It is only slightly longer than a Gemini, and has a totally different hull design. The Victory draws a little over 3 ft. of water and has fixed keels. There are some advantages to this design. Gemini's draw half that much but we will have to constantly deal with pivoting centerboards while sailing. In our case, living where we are living and considering where we want to cruise, we are willing to put up with the extra hardware hassles to be able to get over shallows and to anchor close in to the lee of small islands. Sometimes that is the only place to get out of the wind in remote areas without harbours or marinas and boats with deeper drafts are not able to get close enough to a really, really small island's wind footprint to utilize the shelter. There is sometimes only a small cone of calm water behind a small rock or island. We want to be able to duck into those places when we need shelter.

"Dancing Dolphin" also has the same drive leg that our chosen boat would use so of course I was very interested to talk to Mike and Crystal about how they liked the single diesel setup. Many small catamarans this size have either a diesel in each hull, an outboard on each transom, or in some cases a single outboard instead of a diesel and swivelling drive leg. We had a lot to talk about.

That's Mike up in the cockpit, and you can see the drive leg in this photo as well:



One of the things we have found out about boatyards is that they typically take many times longer to finish a job than they tell you they will take to finish a job. As of this writing, Crystal, Mike and the Dancing Dolphin are entering their third week here waiting for what they were assured was a five-day job. So we hope to be able to enjoy their company for a few more visits before they sail off into the sunrise heading for some newer adventures.



And this whole visit really whets our appetite for a small sailboat of our own. And we are happy to report that we expect to be buying a brand new, sumptious, colossal, luxurious sailing yacht any day now. Just as soon as we can find a yacht dealer that accepts Zimbabwe Dollars as payment...



yes, it's real. Near worthless, but real. Gets your attention for a second there though, doesn't it?

Hey! Maybe we can use it to scam the widow of a former Nigerian government minister on the internet!!

Warning: DIY about to start.

Okay that's about all I have for this post about boating. Everything from here on is about a couple little DIY things going on. This notice is to serve as a warning to those who are not interested in the nuts and bolts of living in a place like this. You can go back to your own more productive life now. The pretty tropical water photos are finished in this particular post. More to come later in the week, hopefully.

One of the aspects of living in a fairly remote island location that we never really considered was the simple matter of warranty repairs. Back in the USA, for example, if one were to plunk down their cash for a new gadget or doodad they typically get some kind of warranty as part of the deal. In most cases if you have a problem with a new purchase, you return it to the store for a refund or replacement. In some cases you have to mail the misbehaving device back to the manufacturer to be fixed and returned. Some companies, such as Dell Computer, will even dispatch a local repairman to your home to fix one of their products. Well, this whole warranty thing changes when you move to a place like the Turks and Caicos.

Since we purchase a lot of our supplies and equipment via the internet, when it goes bad things get complicated. In most cases sending an item back to where we purchased it just doesn't work. Internet catalog companies don't seem to typically have repair facilities. They refer us to the manufacturer. In the case of a malfunctioning Pentax camera, we had to send it to the Pentax repair facility in Nevada. Or was it New Mexico? Someplace far away from here, that is what I remember. And it gets more complicated in that we quite often cannot just order something from a company in the USA and have them send it to us here. Many, many companies in the US are unable to figure out how to ship things internationally. Or for some reason they have a policy that they only ship to other US states. Try filling out one of those online "Add to my Cart" forms without a US state to put into the "checkout" boxes in the billing/shipping section. And even the companies that do ship internationally frequently do not have "Turks and Caicos Islands" on the pre-approved list. "Turkey"? yep, they will ship to Turkey. Or "Turkministan". Oh yeah, I could order a laptop and have it shipped to Turkministan (wherever that is) but in most cases not to the Turks and Caicos. So we have to do a little thing where we have it shipped to someone in the US who then ships it to us. This works fine, as long as there are no repair or return issues. Then it gets complicated. And expensive. Just sending something small from here to Pennsylvania will cost us around $ 60 each way. And it still has to get from Pennsylvania to the repair depot and back. So a camera like the Pentax will take three weeks or so to get repaired and returned to us, and it will cost us well over $ 150 in shipping costs before it's all over. And the shipping and return customs paperwork? It's a real pain. I'm sure you can imagine where.

Now, Dell Computer is a good company. We have found their customer service to be first rate. But we have this shipping foreign thing going on. So when La Gringa's new, ruggedized laptop started misbehaving I had to get online with Dell's customer service people and come up with a solution. Her mouse cursor developed a mind of it's own, and started deciding what to highlight, what to delete, and it was maniacally double clicking like a bad set of false teeth. This would never do.

Dell's first response was to just send it back. Well, we didn't want to do that. We knew the problem had something to do with the pointing device (the touch-pad) and Dell agreed. Their second choice was to send a repair technician to fix the computer. "Well, that's great!" I replied...."tell him to pack plenty of sunscreen and his flip flops.. and we'll try to have him back in a week..."

By the time we sorted that out, obviously the Dell Technician was NOT going to get a round trip flight to the tropics out of this. So we finally agreed on the solution that they would send the parts and I would install them on the computer. Sounds simple, doesn't it?

Dell sent us an entire 'palm rest' assembly, that includes the touch-pad circuit board, fingerprint reader, and some other stuff. This is basically the entire top surface of the computer that is not keyboard. And some instructions on how to replace it. Well, I have replaced three or four laptop keyboards by now, and fixed a couple of misbehaving LCD screens, and even the odd cooling fan. But this was a new one.

So, for those who might be interested in doing some of their own laptop repair, here is a little primer on what this particular DIY repair-in-the-field-by-a-totally-unqualified-dummy involved.

After removing batteries, external devices, and grounding the system board, you flip the laptop over and remove 21 (!) screws to start removing the bottom cover.



A dozen "gosh darns" later, this is what it looks like.



And I started thinking "hmm.. this is going to be a little more involved that just replacing another keyboard.." Then I got to remove the display. Then I got to remove the keyboard. I was removing stuff like an unsupervised Republican editing one of Obama's health care bills. Now at this point I had already exceeded my previous record for how far I ventured into a laptop computer. But this one calls for further exploration and the language even started changing. It had been simple English phrases up til now. Stuff like "remove the 16 M2.5x8mm screws attaching..." and "While still applying pressure to the left, use a plastic scribe to pry up the left corner of the LED cover". Use a plastic scribe? Do you know how hard it is to find even a decent amateur journalist in a place like this?

But now the language changed to something Dell must assume people who do things like this must speak. They mistook me for somebody competent! But I had to slog on. I now had to carefully disconnect such things as the LVDS connector, the WPAN cable, the WLAN cable, and of course that pesky WWAN cable. Hey... I don't have a clue what these are, other than the internal vital organs of La Gringa's very expensive and vital new computer. And we are talking about these little bitty delicate connectors in the hands of a real klutz... I didn't have a lot of hope from this point onward.



Then it got worse. I found myself rolling up wiring harnesses and pulling them completely out through hinge connectors. And yes, I DID have to use the tweezers from a Swiss Army knife..



By this point I was starting to wonder what I had gotten myself into here. When I removed a couple more assemblies and the handle fell off I thought "NOW I've really messed it up.." but no, the handle does fall off at this point. I just wish Dell had warned me in the first place that this was going to happen. NOT "Lift the Palm Rest from the Computer". (GASP! Oh Jesus it's falling apart! Turn the page, quick!) and then finding on the next page "Note: The handle will fall off when the palm rest is removed." They could have warned me. I was nervous enough at this point that some soothing assurance that I would not screw up the handle assembly would have been appreciated. I don't know diddly about WWAN cables, but screwed up handle assemblies.... now THAT I can comprehend.

I think they tend to forget that I am not one of their factory trained and highly competent Dell technicians who is accustomed to removing zillions of tiny screws and having major subassemblies fall into his lap as an everyday occurance. Oh well. Onward.



Mopping the nervous sweat from my (considerable) brow I was starting to feel like a bomb technician with the shakes.. but since I was in this far I pretty much had to continue. Like the pig compared to the chicken in the old ham and eggs joke, I was committed.

And I admit that at this point I was already mentally composing some strategy for my likely explanation to Dell. I figured they were going to have some questions about a box of loose and somehow familiar parts showing up at their door in a battered cardboard box covered with colorful tropical postage stamps and multiple postmarks.. but I continued. Just in case it all started to make sense at some point. I mean, I would hate to have sent it all off admitting defeat only to find I was one more connector shy of finishing what I started.

And you are never going to guess what happened at this point. Never. So I will tell you. I discovered the problem with the computer. And it was not the touch-pad sensors and electronics. Nope. I got all the way into the very middle of this $ 4,000 laptop while disconnecting subassemblies, and when I gave a very, very slight tug at a little ribbon connector it almost fell away from the circuit board. This stuff is so small compared to the tie-rods and outboard motor parts I am used to dealing with that it's hard to get a decent photo of it. But it looks like this:



How small, you might ask? Well, see that screw hole to the left? that's for a M2.5 mm screw. Which is so small a mosquito would have trouble crawling into that hole. I can't even see these screws without reading glasses. And see that little plastic thingum sitting on the flat spot? That is supposed to be a little latch that flips down and holds the ribbon cable into the connector, and the little pin that should secure it as a pivot point is gone. Long gone. Broken off and unrepairable. Shoot.

The cable in question is not the multicolored one on the left by the way. It is the dark one that goes straight down from that white connector and makes a 90 degree turn to the left, with the camera flash glare on it. It doesn't show up well in this photo. All of this hassle because of a connector latch that costs next to nothing. I do have to question Dell's choice of connectors for a 'ruggedized' laptop. (This thing has not been in a war zone. The only abuse it has ever suffered was verbal.)

Well, this left me in a bit of a quandry. I am sure Dell would be glad to know the problem was not this obviously very expensive palm rest assembly with touch-pad. Nope. Nothing wrong with the touch pad. But I also knew they were NOT going to send me a new motherboard (that complicated big circuit board you can see two photos back) to replace this one with. So I was faced with giving up and sending the whole mess back to them after all, even after waiting almost three weeks to get these parts down here and get their permission to repair it myself, under warranty.

All I could think of was to fall back on a tried and true repair strategy that many of you will appreciate.

Yep. I used duct tape.



That seemingly massive repair is actually a little piece of the stickiest duct tape in the garage, about a quarter inch square. (The multi-colored ribbon cable goes into the white connector on the right. It's not the problem. Not that anyone cares, come to think of it.)

Did y'all know the thin black duct tape works a lot better than the thicker gray duct tape when it comes to home computer repairs? It does. It's more flexible and sticker. Try it out next time you are in a hardware store. The gray duct tape is more for....well....taping ducts. Use the black stuff for your computer repairs. It's more expensive. That outta tell you something right there.

I pressed the new ribbon cable into the busted connector, fitted the broken hold-down clamp in place, glared at it in admonishment one last time, and taped it all down. Then I put the whole thing back together, back-tracking through sixteen typed pages of instructions. I got it all reassembled some hours later using the new touch pad even though it didn't need it. I figured that it might hurt Dell's feelings if I never used the expensive new parts they sent me.

And bottom line? It's now two weeks later. This computer has not missed a beat since I reassembled it. So now what do I do about Dell and the warranty? All I know is that right now that computer is working fine, and the only unplanned double clicking I hear from that side of the room has to do with ice cubes.

Duct tape. Nature's answer to busted anything.

Okay, that whole explanation got kind of longer than I anticipated. But still shorter than the four hours this particular repair took.

On another front, I have decided that our second automotive muffler repair justified buying, and learning to use, a DC arc welder. I have wanted to learn to weld for some time, and the first project I complete down here (re-attaching a tail pipe) will pay for the welder.

I bought the only one in stock at the local Do-It Center and yes, it was made in the People's Republic of China. I won't go any further into that, now. I have said way too much about P.R.C. quality control in the past. Let's just say that I am giving them another chance since they are so much bigger than I am anyway.

The operation manual, in English, for this arc-welder is an absolute collectors item. I am learning English words that I never knew existed. Unfortunately, I am not learning much about arc welding from their manual. I am going to keep it for chuckles, anyhow. Maybe if things get a little slower in the blog post department I will quote some passages from Chairman How.

So, I am learning welding totally on my own and it's pretty interesting. I started sticking together odd bits of steel I found laying around the shop, trying different things until I can get to the point where my welds look okay and hold with some strength.

Here are my first couple dozen practice arc welds:



There are nine seperate pieces of steel involved in that monstrosity. And the welds are getting slightly better with practice. Not prettier, but they don't break apart. I judge this good enough for mufflers that cannot be seen from the street by anyone not lying on their back under the vehicle. And those are not the kind of pedestrian observations I expect to be soliciting. I will keep at welding practice until I can produce something that I will not be ashamed of. I am obviously not there, yet.

It was painful to even show you this photo. But at least I am trying.

Oh, and I learned something else about arc welding, and this is a valuable lesson I hope to pass on to any other DIY practicioners who want to learn to weld:

You will need to wear shoes while welding. Gloves are a given, since the steel gets hot, but who would have thought you would run into complications welding while barefoot? This process puts a lot of white hot, molten sparks all over the place and they start small fires on nearby wooden benches, cardboard boxes, in the fur of small, suddenly yipping dogs, and on the tops and bottoms of unprotected feet. In fact I think some of the erratic welds I was producing on my first few attempts might have been due to my inability to keep my hand steady while my feet were on fire.

So learn from my mistakes, future welders! Cover the holes in your welding boots!

I have found that duct tape works. I suspect the gray duct tape would work even better.



Okay, okay.. this post got a little out of hand. This is what happens when I let a lot of dull photos accumulate for too long. We have several of our offspring down this week, and Mike and Crystal are still here with their catamaran and we were out on the Contender yesterday taking photos. So within a few days I hope to have another post that is more appropriate, not as wordy, and hopefully, more interesting.

In the meantime, here's another one of La Gringa's sunrise photos to close this one out. And remember, every silver lining has a dark cloud somewhere in it's heart...