Heaving Down Rock

I've written about this time of year before. It's a transition zone between seasons. There's something almost magic about a lot of the days in late September and early October.  We get most of our rain this time of year with frequent  squalls blowing through. We also get periods when there's not much wind for several days in a row.  The ocean smooths out into slow, lazy, glassy swells.  And we get some spectacular, Dooley rattling squalls, too.   He slept in his 'thundershirt' last night.  Well, "slept" is not very accurate.  I doubt you could have closed his eyes with a three pound hammer.   So I'll correct myself.  Dooley hid under the bed shivering and shaking  in his thundershirt during an impressive electrical storm  last night.  All night. 

 And it took the power company until noon today to restore power.  Now that's a squall.   Why do these things always seem to happen at night, and on weekends?   Oh well.  Price of admission, I guess.

 Here's a recent sunrise from La Gringa..

  Rain is welcome here, within reason.  We heard parts of downtown were flooded this morning. These next couple of photos are from another morning rainstorm last week when I was trying to get a good photo of a sunrise through a local squall.  It didn't come out the way I hoped, but hey you never know unless you try, right?  Can you see the raindrops in the photo?   Little dark smears in the open part between the sun and the clouds.

You might just be able to see the line across the surface of the ocean where the edge of the squall is fingerpainting the top of it. The sheets of rain looked like transparent curtains drifting across the ocean. Of course I wasn't actually in the rain taking the photo.  Nah, I was up under the roof overhang with my morning coffee, fat dumb and happy. And dry.  My momma didn't raise no fools.   Well, maybe one.

That PVC pipe you see coming under the roof is part of our rainwater collection system.  The rain runs into the gutters, and then into these pipes, which connect to  two 9,000 gallon cisterns built into the house foundation.  We  usually get enough rain to cover almost all of our water needs throughout the year. We sized the roof with a four foot overhang all the way around.  This collects more rainwater and also provides shade when the sun is high.  We typically do have to buy about two water-truck loads of water a year, or 5,000 gallons, at six cents US per gallon.  US gallon.    And that usually happens early in the year, during the start of the 'dry' season.  Which also typically corresponds to when we have a number of house guests still left over from the holidays.  Once the guests go home, the rain alone is enough for the rest of the time. I should mention that this is also one of the last parts of Providenciales to get town water, so eventually we won't be relying on rain water.   I didn't say we won't use it,  because even with town water available.We prefer the soft rain water to the hard RO (reverse osmosis) desalinated water.  It's okay to mix it.

We went down to Leeward-Going-Through last Sunday to see if anything of interest was going on.    We miss hanging out at Leeward.  We were there quite often in our first two years here.  It was a different place in those days. It was quiet for a Sunday afternoon. This is typical for the season.  The overall population of Providenciales is at its lowest this time of year. A lot of local people take their yearly vacations during September and October.  Many of the people we know here are 'off island' right now.  And  the number of visitors from the USA, Canada, and the rest of the world is way down this time of year. They have their own autumns to enjoy, and kids  in school, and let's face it, this is the smack dab middle of hurricane season here. And I am not going to say anything else about that at this point because I'd have to go touch wood if I did.  I don't want to  jinx anything. We do get a lot of divers this time of year.   The diving and snorkeling is about as good as it gets. The calm water lets all the little particles of sand settle out, and the clarity is astonishing.  Some of the best underwater visibility on the planet, in my experience.  Thirty meters would be average, with more not uncommon.

This is a Google Earth satellite view of where we took our kite and camera setup last Sunday:

This is a photo looking down at a local point called Heaving Down Rock, which is at the tip of that big yellow arrow in the above photo. This is right at the very end of the Leeward Highway, with Leeward-Going-Through there between it and Mangrove Cay across the channel.  Don't you just love the names here? So descriptive.

Leeward-Going-Through is self descriptive, I think.  It's a channel that lets boats through between the islands. I sometimes tend to forget that not everyone who reads this blog is up on their nautical terms, so Heaving Down Rock might be a bit of a puzzle for some.  It's not the seasick sailor  kind of heaving.  Here's the simple definition from one of the online dictionaries:

heave down

vb

(Transport / Nautical Terms) (intr, adverb) Nautical to turn a vessel on its side for cleaning.

We don't know  what this area looked like back in the "heaving down" days.   I think you can see how this area would have lent itself to pulling a wooden boat over on its side to clean the hull.   That's no longer done this way, here.  These days we pay for a travel lift to pick the boats up out of the water and they use pressure washers  to clean   hulls. I know my own imagination can easily erase the man made marina, and picture a wooden boat snugged up alongside the rocks here  200 years ago.
"Pressure Washer Rock" just doesn't have the same cachet, does it.

This area has a lot of significance for us.  Finally, for the first time, we can see the bottom over which our former boat Cay Lime got swept along with the floating docks that got torn away from their moorings during Hurricane Hanna in '08.  The boat was upside down right there where I am standing at the bottom end of  that kite string. By the way, the pickup truck in that photo contains two of the notorious Stubbs boys, Preacher and Joe. They had come over to say hello  after coming in from a fishing trip.  The back of that truck is half full of live conch.  And one barracuda.  These guys love barracuda.   And we've tasted it.  Not bad.   We've just got an irrational and ingrained worry about ciguatera.  It's irrational because we don't seem to mind eating grouper, and they eat the same small reef fishes the barracuda do. 

This is actually a better photo.  I had walked out onto the end of the rock itself.  This photo shows it all, Heaving Down Rock, Sherlock Walkin's Leeward Marina, and in the distance, the Conch Farm.  And that's Leeward Highway taking off to the right, up island.   Or is it down island? I'm still confused about which way is up when talking about islands and beaches.  Thought I had it almost figured out for a while, but then I gave up.  Or gave down, as the case may be.

That sandy spot between the floating dock and beached boats in the bottom right corner also serves as a local boat ramp for those who don't want to pay the $5 Mr. Walkin charges to use his boat ramp.  La Gringa thinks that this side of heaving down rock makes more sense as a place to  haul boats over.   There have been so many modifications over the years, I'm not seeing much evidence of where the original "marina" would have been 250 years ago.  I guess we need to mentally subtract all the man made stuff and try to visualize what the natural shoreline would have been.   I suspect the basin in front of today's marina has been dredged in modern times.

I find it interesting that such a simple thing as a well placed rock outcropping could have so much impact on the local history here.  I can't find much information from the early years.  I know there must be ships logs and personal journals somewhere.  Maybe in the museum on Grand Turk.   I'll have to look into that, because it interests me. For example, in modern times, this is where the very first motor vehicle on Providenciales was offloaded onto the island.  It was in 1966, and the vehicle was a jeep.   What an experience that must have been for the several hundred people then living on Provo.  That was the year I started driving in Texas. Legally.  There were sure a lot of cars on the roads in Houston back then. And one beat up jeep on Providenciales, with no roads at all. Cart and foot paths.

Discussing this with La Gringa, she had just recently read a story about that jeep, and how it influenced driving in the Turks and Caicos Islands.  We naturally assumed that we drive on the left here because this is a British territory.  I was somewhat surprised to find out that this isn't the case.    The 28,000 inhabitants of the Turks and Caicos islands drive on the left because of that first jeep.   No kidding.

According to a correspondent on the Turks and Caicos Islands Historical Society's Facebook page:

"The story behind why we started driving on the left. According to Mr. Bengt Soderqvist, the first vehicle which came here in 1966, which was a jeep had an accident, the tie-rod was bent and began to favour the left, hence the driver found it more comfortable to drive on the left, "and we started to drive left from that day". That puts paid to the belief of those who insist that driving on the left on the island is due to the fact that the traffic rules are patterned after the British."

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Turks-and-Caicos-Islands-Historical-Society/463878000377601

   

So the driving laws in the Turks and Caicos Islands are based upon steering damage to a US built vehicle, and are totally unrelated to England.  Still doesn't explain why someone thought badly designed roundabouts would be a great idea at intersections, though. 

This next photo is not totally unrelated to England at all. The rather nice little home there in the middle of the photo is the former residence of the former Chief Minister of the Turks and Caicos Islands.  He's been on an extended vacation in Brazil awaiting extradition by the Brits for quite some time now.  Nice house.  But I bet he has some 'splaining to do.  Eventually.  This is going to be one of the most expensive Portuguese language courses in modern times.

This next one is another view more to the north west looking up Leeward Going Through.  We had noticed a "new' catamaran anchored out in the channel,which you can see in this photo.   We found out that another of the notorious Stubbs boys, Jay, had just bought that boat and sailed it down from Florida the week before.  We spoke for quite a while with Jay about his trip down. It took him a week.  He told us about some of the troubles he had, and why it took him an entire week.  We heard tales of having to wait a day for wind while anchored in the Exumas.   

That same trip took us 40 days.  Lack of wind was never an issue. I'm not going back into all that here. We all have our sea stories, don't we?  

As you can tell, the ratcheting camera-turning gear is still working fine on the kite setup.  We get photos in all directions just by tugging the kite string. This view is out over the Caicos Bank.   I  walked out to the end of the   remaining floating dock at the marina  for these next few images. Before Hanna in 08, there were three.

This is the view  looking back up the dock.

It's not  too difficult to take a look at the water on each side of that dock and tell which way the wind and current are running.


And I thought you'd appreciate what might be considered a somewhat rustic approach to ferry boats or water taxis. Yes, this started out as a home built conch boat. One of many here, of identical design, from the same pirated hull mold.  And now here it is a commercial ferry, tied up in the Pine Cay slip at Leeward Marina.  

A view from the end of the dock in x and y, with an additional z component of a couple hundred feet of altitude....

The camera just keeps rotating, so we get hundreds of photos to choose from on these excursions.  Don't worry, I'm not going to post hundreds of photos.  But I mention it because if anyone has any good use for an aerial image of anything in this area, there's a good chance we have it.

For example, I think this is a decent photo of the layout of the Conch Farm.   You can see the circular pens where the conch are allowed to grow until they are big enough change from looking for sea food to becoming it.  I know you probably won't be able to make it out, but on the horizon just to the right of center is a black dot.   That's the wreck of the old freighter La Familia Express.    You've sure seen plenty of images of that on this blog.

If you ever find yourself on Providenciales looking for something unusual to do, try taking the tour of the Conch Farm if you can. It's been going through some legal hassles lately, which is understandable. That's some prime real estate right there. Only a matter of time before someone figures out that a whole lot more money could be made than is justified by raising conch.  So, you might not want to put that tour off for too long.

Speaking of land issues, we just spent almost three weeks away from home during the growing season here. That creates issues of its own. I found a good use for the stainless tank we salvaged on West Caicos.  It makes a great little portable incinerator for sand spurs.  Or grass burrs.  Or stickers.  Whatever you call those things that puncture the bottom of bare feet and stick to your clothing if you let them get out of hand.  And  three weeks is definitely long enough for them to get out of hand.  I rip up the thorny little boogers and burn them.  Then I spray the area with herbicide.  Buys me about a month before I have to do it again.

And when I mixed up my herbicide, it necessitated another little DIY thing.  I discovered that particles in the stuff were clogging up the screen on my little hand pump sprayer.  So I balled up a piece of cotton fabric to use as a filter,  and siphoned the mix down through it. I can see four different projects going on at my work bench.  It doesn't always look this bad. The siphoning and filtering worked like a charm, by the way.  This is good info to have here.   Bugs and weeds grow year round, and the regular application of  'cides of various denominations has become a way of life for us. It's  definitely a case of better living through chemistry.

 
One more little DIY photo and then I'll end this. Several people have expressed an interest in the 3D printer.  I've continued to improve and tune it, and now have it printing surprisingly well for a home-built kit of plywood and cable ties.  It's to the point now where I can actually print projects taller than a few inches. The precision of the various carriages has to be pretty tight in order to stack this many layers and have it come out well. I've also learned more about printing things with  supporting
columns to hold up overhangs.  That all gets broken and cut away when the print is finished, leaving the supported part. It's still very much an old dog/new trick scenario with this thing, but I'm learning.

We're getting a fair bit of use from this Printrbot.  It's fascinating to watch it. I'm convinced that 3-D printing is going to be making some big changes in the world of manufacturing and home hobby projects. Do you remember that line in the movie "The Graduate" about plastics being the way of the future?  These days, I think it's 3-D printing.  And graphene, of course.  That's going to be even bigger.

Well, that's it for this post.  We should be able to get back out on the water in the  next few days as life gets back to normal after being away.     In the meantime..... keep smiling.

March Mutterings

We get a number of identifiable seasons here.  Tourist season, whale season, hurricane season, dry season, lobster season.  I guess we can say we're well-seasoned? Anyhow, right now it's The Season when a lot of the local businesses are at their busiest.  We've been doing a lot of driving around the island recently, and have noticed everything seems to be in full swing. As remote as we are, the increased seasonal population of Provo only touches  us when we're out for groceries or running errands. We hit restaurants early and are usually settling up about the time the last table fills. We know to do our grocery shopping on sunny days when the temporary population bloom in Grace Bay is concentrating on the beach and water sports. The lines at the registers are directly proportional to cloud cover. This has been mathematically described as Cr > Cl in the presence of Co (coconut oil). And it's true.   Compare the smell of coconut oil in the aisles of the grocery store on cloudy vs sunny days...  Well, okay, I admit it's not very scientific.  Nor peer reviewed.  I withdraw it.  Tell the Nobel people it was a false alarm again.

Other than those exciting times when we step away from our dreary existence to entertain temporary seasonal visitors from up north, life out here pretty much follows the same general paths through the winter days. We get storms, and we get good days. Often at the same time.

We didn't fully understand the geographical ramifications of this piece of property when we bought it.  We loved the view, of course. We anticipated the wind.  We  underestimated the effect of it, but we are learning.  Reading "20 kts." during an internet search is not quite the same experience as living in 20 knots.  The wind holds flies against the screens until they become flews. (Flews is the past tense of flies.... right?) And we knew when we bought this place that with the view of the boatyard and the Caicos Bank to the south we would quite often have something interesting to look at. And we do. We get to watch a lot of different boats come and go. We are also close enough to the departure path of the airport that we get to see a lot of air traffic. We like that.  Ospreys and kestrels are constant visitors. And sometimes we spot sea life. Here's an example of that for you:

See that dark blob just off the beach, where I drew the arrow?  It's not unusual  to look out over the Caicos Bank and see something large moving.  We've seen bottle nose dolphins, sharks,  a few big fish we haven't identified, and a lot of rays swimming along these south facing shores.  We've seen turtles on the banks, but not usually near the rocks here. They are very common in the passages between islands in places like Leeward and Pine Cay.  It's not always glaringly apparent what we're looking at if it doesn't surface for air, but that in itself is a good clue.  There are other clues. Sharks swim by flexing back and forth. Dolphins and other aquatic mammals swim by wiggling up and down, when you think about it.  Even us human aquatic mammal wanna-be types don't have a swim stroke that mimics any side to side spinal flex motions like fish do.  Turtles stop and stick their heads up. Rays swoop along the bottom like a stealth fighter flying low in terrain following mode.  It looks to be a little on the large side for a typical local stingray but I just read that they get up to 150 cm across.  So it's possible.  That's easily a hundred meters away. We've got sting rays, manta rays, and eagle rays here.  We've seen them leaping completely out of the water.  Local boatmen have told us that they do that a lot when storms are coming.  I think we've been too busy to go look, when we've been under those circumstances.

We've been back to Sherlock Walkin's marina at Leeward Going Through several times recently.  It hasn't changed much lately.  "Hasn't changed much lately" could be a mantra for a lot of places in the southern Bahamas and vicinity.  Sometimes that's a comfortable thing.  It hasn't been a stable thing on this part of Providenciales for some years now.   We  stopped for a few moments while passing through.  We wanted to  visit the former location of our slip here.  Dooley seemed to think there was something familiar about it.

This is a very familiar view, in some ways.  We kept our first boat, Cay Lime, here right up until early September '08.  If you've read some of the old archives from that period in this blog, you'll recognize this next view.  You have to imagine a floating dock extending out to where the boat is anchored, with power boats tied up to both sides between small floating spurs.  Our boat was in the second slip on the left.  Nice spot although a little tricky getting into  during max flood or ebb with a strong east wind.

Here's a link to what this very spot looked like the afternoon Tropical Storm Hanna decided to stop, turn hard to the south, and become Hurricane Hanna, the deadliest storm of the 2008 Hurricane Season. Sure thumped us pretty good, that one did.  There were a dozen boats on this dock.  They all got smashed when it let go.  I still feel like falling to the floor sobbing and rending my garments in anguish when I think about it.  Well not really.  I thought about doing that but the whole sackcloth, gnashing  and ashes thing turned La Gringa totally off.

I took this photo only because we do get emails from time to time asking us about the status of the restaurant in Leeward.  Not as often these days, as people become accustomed to these kinds of unfinished projects.  And other small business men have stepped into the gap to fill some of the economic opportunity. There are a couple of small food and beverage vendors nearby.  It will be a great spot for a restaurant and bar. There is no doubt about that whatsoever. Any bank with any cents whatsoever would finance it.  So why has it sat uncompleted for several years now?  I'm sure there's a good reason.  But we don't know what it is.  Insane projects nearby seemed to take no time at all.

While we were looking around the marina we noticed that there have in fact been some changes. The entrance way looks spiffier than I remember it.  And there are some new planters defining what was a confusing open parking area.  This helps organize it into rows. Gives an aiming point to those drivers who seem to always park wherever their vehicle first comes to a stop.

We were driving a rented Jeep around for a few days.   The two door model.  We parked it next to a Defender 90 down at Leeward.  Interesting to see the differences between the type we've been driving and the new Jeeps.   They do have some things in common.  Solid front axle assemblies, coil springs.  I guess maybe form follows function in automotive evolution.

There are some more new planters along the front of the office building at Leeward.  This is where the marina and several of the fishing and sailing charter companies maintain offices. Sail Provo, Catch the Wave, and Leeward Marina all have offices here. I think the planters add a nice touch.

Looking out toward Bird Rock, there's a good view of the Conch Farm facility. There's still some hurricane remnants lying about.  Parts of these structures were in the parking lot next door after the last one. Rebuilding and cleaning up is a slow process.

The circular pens are for raising conch.

We were happy to see Cay Lime temporarily tied up at the marina. This is one of the  sections of floating dock that was rebuilt after the storms.  We noticed that Preacher has added a bimini top to the boat.   Good idea around here.  This sun will eat you alive, especially out on the water.  Having even a little shade to sit under makes a huge amount of difference.  With shade and the breeze, it never really feels uncomfortably hot here.

 I haven't been writing much about Preacher lately.  That's not by design.   We just haven't been spending much time in the Leeward Going Through area lately, and that's his main hangout. We haven't been pulling our boat down to that end of the island in recent times, because of our vehicle tow situation. Thus the bus is a bust with my hearty distrust of fatal sheet metal with deep cuss-ed rust.

In early March we made two trips out to Pine Cay with Preacher and  his boat.  Skipping along at 45 miles per hour in about eight inches of water is still pretty exhilarating.  I took several photos on the first trip over,  but most of them were too blurry to use here. There was just the three of us and I think Preacher was showing off.  I was holding on with both hands. It was windy.  Cloudy.  We got drenched in a squall that day.  Not very photogenic. On the second trip we had better weather. There were also five of us in the boat so it wasn't quite as lightly loaded, but still a thrilling ride.  I think Andros Boatworks should send their prospective flats boat customers down here for a ride in one of their boats.  Preacher should be their agent.

He'd  been out diving that morning and had a pile of conch to clean. He likes to cook native dishes and was treating us all to breakfast.  I forget what we were talking about.  Something serious and profound, no doubt.  Could have been hull design. Sailing. Sunken treasure. Local Politics. Airplanes. Diving. Fishing.  We were talking about fishing for the big Mutton Snapper. La Gringa and I intend to get back into fishing again, but not the same way we were into it the first few years we were here.  We want to concentrate more on the  local subsistence style that produces steady protein, and leave the big lure, deep sea fishing excitement to those guys with that hobby.   We're moving more toward sail boat living, and our fishing style should adapt to that.  I don't think S/V Twisted Sheets would be all that great at trolling for wahoo, so a lot of our future fishing will be at anchor or from small boats in shallow water. We like snapper, and have seen some really nice ones caught on the Banks.  It has something to do with the phases of the moon.   Preacher has promised to educate us.

We also haven't been getting out to Pine Cay as much as we'd like to.  Even living just a few miles and three islands away, that trip takes a boat or airplane.  We're always happy when we have the time and excuse to go out there.   Just coming into the landing at the marina there, and shutting down the outboard, feels almost like stepping into another country.  The only powered modes of transportation on Pine Cay are the electric golf carts, and the overall silence is nice.  Suddenly, the sound of the warm breeze ruffling the Gumbo Limbo trees is all you notice nearby, with the distant sound of waves crashing out on the reef. We can feel the relaxation settling in immediately.  Well, coming from a couple islands over it's a quick change for us.  We don't have as far to go as some. We've watched the process for years now, and some people need a day or two to completely downshift.  A week's about right to truly find neutral.   This is a great place for that.

After Preacher finished up  cleaning and rinsing his freshly caught conch (above) we went to the home where some visiting friends were staying.  Preacher handled everything, tenderizing the conch, and mixing up one of his specialties...

Conch and grits.  Turks and Caicos Islander style breakfast at it's finest.   We went back for more.  I don't think there were any leftovers.

The chef took a bow, as well he should.  I think we were discussing something else by that time. We had a lot of catching up to do.  There is a lot going on in the Turks and Caicos Islands at the moment. The government is transitioning from direct UK control back to elected officials. It's great to get Preacher's perspective on some of it.  His loyalties are well established, and he knows all the players.  He grew up with them. We don't vote here, being US Citizens, but of course we are keenly interested in the politics that affect us as residents.

 

Day trips to the other islands mean an early return, so we really didn't see much of Pine Cay on this one. Nobody really likes to boat around here in the dark. Back on Provo we had the rented Jeep. We could only keep it for another day so we decided to take a trip up to the other end of the island.  We hadn't been up to Malcolm Beach in quite a while.  The road over that part of the island has some unimpeded  views out across the 'bush' to the reef.

We had heard that improvements had been made to the road here.  We were actually looking forward to really trying the rented Jeep out, and we knew this road was typically one of the steepest and most rutted on the island.  However, the rumors are true.  Well, not entirely true.  What we actually heard standing around the bar at South Side Marina was that 'they fixed the road'.  I'm reminded that fixed is a fluid, and flexible term here.  In this case, the worst of the ruts gouged into the solid rock road surface have been filled in with concrete, and all in all, it's now actually better than the road we drive every day.  This one is certainly more fun.  Especially in a rented jeep.

Our first impressions of Malcolm Beach still linger in our memories as indicative of what to expect when we get to the end of the road.  Eight years ago it was just a rough trail along the coast.   It's all changed now, and has been like this for some years.  The road ends in a small parking lot, with an elevated wooden shelter and steps to the beach.  It's nice.  When we first came here the road turned right at this point, and we drove down the ruts until we found a break in the vegetation that we liked.  Each one was a shady picnic site.    We noticed that there is a security camera setup on a sturdy wooden post here now.    I wonder who monitors it and what the response time might be.

Dooley ran around this wooden platform several times when we got here.  He looked like a small pylon racer, going fast and turning left.  He did several loops and then zoomed right back down the steps.

He gets this intense look on his face when he does these things.  I have to wonder what complicated set of formula must be running through his little skull as he careens around and around on the very edge of losing control...

The view here remains spectacular, as I'm sure it's been for a very long time. This is the view straight out from the beach. There are two SCUBA dive charter boats anchored off  the steep drop off.  Right out there where the ocean starts getting serious about its blue mood.

I noticed the break in the shore rock here on the right, and the unnatural underwater pile of rocks.  I saw the sand there and was thinking it might be a place to wade into the water barefooted. But it doesn't extend out very far.  Something man made to investigate there.

This is the view  up the beach.  Now, I don't really know why I called that direction up the beach.     I guess I imagine some general convention regarding up north, vs down south.  Up the beach compared to along the beach.  I'm up for looking into it further as long as I can get down with the definitions.

 This view to the south might be considered down the beach.

But in this case down beach leads to very much up scale, if you know what I mean.   That group of buildings down past the little point is the western end of the Amanyara resort.  From that aforementioned little point it looks like this:

Can't really see much of the resort from here.  That's the main beach, and also where the  charter dive boats pick up hotel guests who have booked a dive with them.   We've never actually visited the resort itself.  But if we could win our choice of a weekend getaway to any place on Provo, this would be the place. Don't get the idea that photos of the grounds are forthcoming any time soon.  

I thought this was as good a place as any to try the little Nikon's panorama mode again.  It works okay but needs a really big format to view it.  This is probably why I don't take more of them.  It's one of those "Oh  yeah...NOW I remember..." moments.  I'm starting to think that 180 degree panoramas are a gimmick, and 360 degree panoramas must be targeted toward an audience of owls. Or accident victims, past and future.

We wandered up and down the beach for a while, as we tend to do.  The beach here is like the water.  It's very clean. There's not much flotsam here to pick through. And the water is beautiful.  I know I've been using words like 'crystal clear' and such when I write about the ocean here.  It's difficult to describe without using the same old words for really clear water.  The photos show you some of it, but even this doesn't accurately represent how clear it is.

You can go from having dry sand beach to  a thousand feet of water  underneath you  in just 800 yards of movement here.    Some of the best diving within easy reach of Grace Bay is here, and it's usually somewhat protected from the east wind.   Nice.

There are a couple of very large inflated rafts moored off of  Amanyara's beach.  We didn't see anyone using them while we were there.  But hey, it IS winter time here.  Not everybody braves these fierce Atlantic weather conditions.

There really isn't much in the way of collectible junk washed up here. This part of Providenciales is basically tucked up into the lee of the trade winds and the current.  Floating things tend to keep going and not come onto shore here.  Did you notice the way all the boats are riding, sitting on their anchors?  That's pretty much the prevailing conditions here.

 There are are numerous marine fossils in the rock. And walking barefoot is not unpleasant if you don't stub a toe.  The rock is smooth and the sand is soft.

We came back by that break in the shore rock that is near the little beach shelter.  It's also right in line with the road.  It's easy to see the two dark objects that emerge from under that line of rocks.

And a close look reveals them to be two cables.    I couldn't be sure what kind of cables they are, but I would assume communication. It's pretty modern looking urethane so I'd guess fiber optic. I'm puzzled as to where they might go.   They leave the beach here on a heading of 282 degrees.   There's nothing in that direction.  Mayaguana is much more to the north, and West Caicos is to the south.   The cables are marked on the nautical chart, but not as to their destination.  On the chart they are drawn from the beach and continue for  a short distance to the west before disappearing into the deep ocean at the point where they no longer concern boaters.  Kind of like in real life.

We never get tired of looking at the water here.  It's interesting to us even on bad days.  And we've had a few bad ones.   And on good days it's just amazing. If you ever visit the Turks and Caicos Islands, the chances are that you'll fly in from Miami to Providenciales. If there's a choice of seats on the plane,  I'd pick a window seat on the right side.  You'll see plenty of reef, and the water all the way past West Caicos.  Including this spot right here:

Every time we've come out here we've told ourselves that we need to plan a trip specifically for snorkeling. There are spots where one can walk out barefoot over soft sand until the water depth exceeds one's draft.   We've just got to come back here with the underwater camera.  The people on the boats in that video are diving on places with names like  Shark Hotel, The Crack and Hole in the Wall.   And just past that, the water is a mile deep. Floating on the surface in a mile of clear ocean is always such an otherworldly experience.  If you watch long enough, eventually you will see large shapes deep below you. Just on the very edge of your vision.  And every now and then you'll see something you can immediately identify, close enough to be clear enough to be just enough to send a little jolt of adrenaline though your system. And then it swims away and disappears from your view into that deep blue mystery that transforms turquoise into something darker than blue ever gets. And suddenly the ocean seems a little bigger than it did a moment ago.  And I always feel a little smaller.

"It was the Law of the Sea, they said. Civilization ends at the waterline. Beyond that, we all enter the food chain, and not always right at the top."  

Hunter Thompson

Dooley the Digger immediately seemed to feel right at home in the rear seat of the Jeep.   It's a good size for him.  He can see in every direction.  I guess the day at the beach wore the poor old fellow out, though.  He was snoring by the time we hit smooth pavement again. And I have to tell you, this little Jeep is a lot more comfortable to ride in than either of our badly beaten Defenders.  To be fair to Land Rover, it's probably not cricket to compare a six year old suspension with a one year old suspension on these roads. It's also probably safe to say that this rental Jeep spends most of it's time here on the pavement.  Our Defenders definitely do not.  I guess we can say the rear seat on the Wranglers has now been Dooley Approved.

We've had Jeep on the brain a lot lately.  We've already had both front and rear tow hitches imported and waiting for ours to arrive.  We only rented this Wrangler for two days.  Then we moved into the cheapest rental we could find for the long haul.  Have you ever heard of a Fiat Panda? Strangest transmission that I've ever seen.   I'll take some photos if anyone is interested.  Or bets on whether it lasts a month on our daily drives.

 his is a photo I recently took of   a little Piper PA38 Tomahawk, right after it touched down at Providenciales.

And I was taking the photos because La Gringa was in the pilot seat, taking her fourth flying lesson.   Dooley the Distracting and I sit in a car alongside the runway with an air-band VHF radio and a Kindle e-reader while she's up flying.   Very relaxing way to spend an hour or so.  For me, anyway.  I'm the one comfortably on the ground with a radio and a good book.

This is a nice place to learn island flying, too. The major airport here is not that busy for most of the time, and it's almost two miles long and brand new.  All nice and smooth and up to current standards.  She snapped this photo  while circling out over Chalk Sound one day during a lesson.     I don't know how that little Piper two seater was able to get behind that X-wing fighter... but the inescapable truth is that the little Tomahawk landed safely that day.  No X-wing fighters made it to the runway at Provo....

Just kidding.  La Gringa says it's a chip in the windscreen.   Just my imagination.... running away with me.

I've been keeping a steady string of DIY projects going.  Usually several at once.  Most of them are probably not even worth mentioning here.   Maybe one recent one and only because it's probably an unusual scavenging of materials.   A few years back I picked up a mangled road sign in the bushes here. I cut off the bent up part and ended up with a semicircle of aluminum plate.  I am working on a project that needs a smooth flat piece of aluminum, and I cut one out of this old half a road sign.  I had to scrape, saw, sand, etc. I don't know what kind of adhesive they use to put the reflective surface on these signs, but I sure wish I had some of it.  

It took a while to get it smooth and flat.  I used the electric sander to get the rough surface flat.   The dark gray areas are where the metal is still low.  The shiny stuff is the high parts.  I milled it on flat glass at the end.

That's one of the last parts I needed to complete this little 3D printer kit.  I still need to come up with a way to clamp this to the headed bed, but I'm getting closer to being able to make plastic and ABS parts.

I use a lot of aluminum plate here these days. It's generally good stuff  if you  work within its limitations and keep it out of contact with other metals.  I've taken another piece of our storm destroyed HD satellite dish and along with the strap from a diving face plate, I've put together another Dog Cam mount for Dooley the Director. I wanted something that he could wear on our walks that could handle a GPS or a camera. I didn't want to make him have to wear the entire life jacket with the other Dooley Cam mount. Running around looking like a miniature version of the Great Pumpkin wasn't cutting it.  I think it embarrassed both of us.  So I came up with a more canine friendly mount.

This one is like a jockey's saddle.  But unlike a thoroughbred horse, I can't find a spot that doesn't bounce on this dog.   I tried showing him videos of squirrels and cats, so that he'd get an idea about how to run smoothly... we wanted the camera to flow... But I learned not to show him videos of squirrels or cats as good examples.   He got the wrong idea.   He thought we were watching a hunting video.  At least he seems okay with this mount arrangement.   He didn't seem to be too upset on a trial run we did.   I explained how this was going to work, and I'm sure he was carefully thinking about all my instructions on how to walk level and smoothly.  I could see he was paying attention.  He listens to every word I say.  I could tell that he committed my entire speech to memory...

This brings us pretty much up to date at this point.   We were just over at the shipyard and a lot of progress has been made in rewiring the S/V Twisted Sheets.   A lot of the old tangled wiring is gone now, replaced by heavy cables, simplified runs and marine-rated switches.  And I have a brand new shiny helm station to replace one that gave me a whole lot of trouble last year. These are huge improvements to the boat.  And we've got more in mind once we get her back in the water where I can get access.  We're estimating another month in the yard. And then we plan to start doing some sailing.

We haven't been in position to take any outstanding sunset photos lately.  I thought this one was mildly interesting only because the reflection is crisper than the actual image of the sun.