Loose Ends

I usually try to put a colorful, tropical sunrise photo here near the start of these posts. But in the past couple weeks most of our photos have included family who have been visiting us for the holidays. Late nights and sleep-in mornings mean not many sunrises or sunsets. Since there has been some howling at the moon, however, I decided to post one of the moon images La Gringa was taking last week when the lunar eclipse was occuring during the solstice. She got her camera set up just in case we happened to actually be awake at 03:15 in the morning and felt like taking photos. (We weren't. And we didn't. It was cloudy, anyhow)



There, that looks suitably cold and miserable, doesn't it? It's not all sunshine and clear turquoise water and white sand beaches here, you know. Oh no. Definitely not. Sometimes it's moonlight and clear turquoise water and white sand beaches instead. This is a great little country for people who like to walk deserted beaches in the moonlight.

We are into winter here, too. Last night the outside temperatue plummeted down to 67 deg.F. We were scrambling for warm clothes to put on. Winter days are typically a mix of clouds and sunshine. We are getting into the drier part of the year and windier. We start seeing more birds around now, as many of them winter down here in the lower latitudes. Some of our favorites to watch are the Ospreys. A couple of them usually have a nest just a few hundred yards from the house. They swoop down into the ocean in front of us and sometimes land upon the shore to eat. This guy has a fish on the rocks at his feet but was getting nervous at the attention he was getting from La Gringa. Can't imagine why a bird would be worried about a human pointing a dark cylinder with a lens at them. Perhaps he thought she wanted to steal his lunch.



So he picked it back up and swooped off to find someplace a little quieter and more peaceful than our house has been for the past week. Can't say as I blame him.



And away he goes, lunch firmly in hand. Or in talon, in this case.



I didn't really have much of a "theme" for this blog post. As I look through the photos we haven't posted yet I am finding I have little snippets of things. Not a nice long narrative that starts in one place and logically continues to another. This is more along the lines of cleaning up some small stories so that they don't get lost and forgotten once we get all enthusiastic about sailing. And I just know that's going to happen after the holidays. So I am going to take this opportunity on the last day of 2010 to say goodbye, for now, to a couple of the 'characters' that have passed through our lives recently.

We know quite a few people have been interested in the boat Treasure Seeker, which is the former ferry C.G. Richter. Capt. Ray Hixon has been stranded in the boatyard here on Providenciales since getting towed in back on November 18th.

Most of the repairs that could be done here in Provo have been done. Treasure Seeker's diesel is completely repaired. Ray tells us his engine room is clean and squared away, and he has gotten caught up on a number of other projects in the five weeks he spent here. We have a little news to report on that front. We had written quite a bit about this story a few weeks ago when we had a post with a lot of photos and the story of the "Treasure Seeker"

We got a call from Ray a few days before Christmas and he was finally leaving the dock on his way south. The decision had been made by Treasure Seeker's insurance company. An ocean-going tug boat was chartered to come to Providenciales, hook up to Treasure Seeker and to tow Ray the Pirate right on down to Puerto Rico for the next stage of his adventure. Here he is finally getting away from the dock after five weeks of 'standing by' waiting for parts, repairs and decisions.



We have been looking at this red and black pirate boat for all these weeks, and we know Ray has been sitting there looking up at us for the exact same length of time. Finally getting the green light (with 'green' being the operative word here) to move on to Puerto Rico was such a momentous thing that La Gringa did a little video of Treasure Seeker actually leaving the dock. For a while there, we thought we might have to find a cutting torch to break her free.



The tug boat from Haiti was not coming into the boatyard to take Treasure Seeker under tow. I would assume that the tug probably draws more than six feet, which is about the maximum draft for any boat trying to get to a dock in this part of the islands. So Ray managed to finagle a pull from his new friends and recent neighbors for the past month, the Marine Police:



We had ringside seats for all this, of course and were able to follow Treasure Seeker's progress as this slow-motion handoff proceeded without a hitch. The tug boat waited offshore in slightly deeper water:



And of course the crew of the TCI Marine Police patrol boat Sea Defender has more than a little experience towing disabled vessels. In fact, dealing with seagoing pirates is a part of their very job description.



The reason Treasure Seeker is being towed to Puerto Rico is because the Turks and Caicos Islands just does not have the ability to haul out and repair the hull of a boat this size. I believe Ray told us everything was done except replacing the large steel rudder that was lost off Plana Cays. The nearest suitable shipyard that can do the work is in Puerto Rico. Under ideal conditions, that's a three day trip from here for that tugboat. I would think that to be a long three days at the end of a rope.

The Sea Defender and the Police RIB ('Rigid Inflatable Boat' call-sign Hurricane ) managed to ease Treasure Seeker out of the boatyard without a scratch. Not so simple when Ray the rudderless has no way to steer Treasure Seeker at all. He could put the boat in reverse to slow it down, but he still won't have any steering control. Just the drag of the propeller.... and that's the brakes.



The transfer of a suitable tow line from the tug to the Treasure Seeker all took place out where we couldn't really reach them with our cameras.

They certainly picked a good weather day to depart Providenciales and get clear of the reefs that surround these islands.



Finally, the boats were all hooked up and the last sight we had of Capt. Ray the Pirate and the Treasure Seeker, they were disappearing over yet another horizon headed roughly south east.



We found it slightly humorous that the Treasure Seeker found itself being escorted to the outskirts of town by the local sheriff. It seemed a fitting sendoff somehow. What else would you expect from a pirate ship that was just passing through?

La Gringa took those photos as Treasure Seeker departed for Puerto Rico on December 23. We just received an email from Capt. Ray (the Pirate) yesterday, December 29, from Puerto Rico after an "interesting trip". That's six days for a trip the tugboat crew estimated as three. Can't wait to hear this next chapter.

At this point, I think I will turn the story of the newest pirate in the Caribbean back over to Ray Hixon and family to keep up with. But I wanted to let everyone know that he made it safely away from the Turks and Caicos. Alas, the origin of Ray's next pizza is no longer under our control.

Now on to some more news from a different ship entirely. We very recently posted some photos of the Star of the Sea, along with a description of the humanitarian efforts of Capt. Bob Nichols. We knew when the ship left here bound for Gt. Inagua and we read that they were anchored off the Il D'Vache, an island on the southwest edge of Haiti. Then we didn't hear anything more.

Well, this weekend we got an email from Capt. Bob. The Star of the Sea made it home to SW Florida on Christmas Eve after an eight day, non-stop run from Haiti. Capt. Nichols writes us that the rampant cholera and violence on the main island had kept food and supplies from ever reaching Il D'Vache and he promises me a good story to tell once things settle down next week.

Capt. Bob did attach five photos to his email, and I am going to post them here. I didn't receive any explanation or captions along with the photos but as far as I know these were all taken during the offloading of food for the orphans in Haiti.

I can tell you that I recognize a panga style hull when I see one:



And we've certainly seen enough hand built Haitian sloops to know what we are looking at here:



Baskets and donkeys and cardboard boxes marked "Kids Against Hunger". Seems pretty self explanatory so far.



Looks like a few kids are pretty excited about boxes of goodies from the USA.



And physically handicapped orphans will have a better life than they would have had for the next few weeks thanks to Capt. Bob and the Star of the Sea crew.



I would guess that these photos and more will be showing up at the ships blog for the Star of the Sea and you can follow that story straight from the source. As with the previous story of the Treasure Seeker, I am going to turn the narrative back over to the people involved at this point. (This is supposed to be a blog about living in the TCI, after all.) The Star of the Sea headed north. The Treasure Seeker headed south. If and when they ever pass back through our waters and our lives we'll probably be posting more about them. But for now all we can do is wish them fair winds.

In the meantime, we are already planning some trips for the new kayak. So far we have a couple easy ones in mind and two that are a little more challenging.

For the easy trips, of course we will be heading up to Pine Cay at the earliest opportunity. This has become somewhat of a benchmark kayak trip for us, and we are anxious to see how much time it will take for us to sail the new boat up and back.

Last week we were scrambling around for last minute Christmas gifts and one of those involved some gift certificates for a restaurant over on Chalk Sound. While there we looked around and realized that while we had made one trip to these irridescent turquoise waters back when we first got our inflatable almost two years ago, we never made it back to complete the exploration.



So another trip to more completely explore Chalk Sound is definitely on the agenda.



We had also taken the inflatable out to West Caicos. This was an ambitious little trip for us since we had to cross over six miles of open water between Providenciales and the nearest tip of West Caicos. We had hoped to be able to try to find the ruins of Yankee Town but had equipment problems on the way over and spent our time beachcombing for string to repair the kayak Mirage Drives. So we definitely want to go back to explore more of West Caicos. And I am very interested to see if we can find the little spot called Maravidi Cove.

And of course we have long wanted to return to French Cay after our plans to explore that little uninhabited island got interrupted by fuel problems on our one and only attempt way back in October of 2007. We got tied up getting the fuel tank of Cay Lime repaired and well.... we just never went back to finish up our exploration of all the wrecks that get washed up on the outside of that remote little cay.



The distance out to French Cay from where we launch on this side of Provo is a little over 18 miles and it's all open water. So I suspect we will get a few other trips under our belt before we decide whether or not to take on a journey like this. We'd have to go out there prepared to camp out on the beach overnight, for example. Should be quite an adventure if and when we can pull it off. It might make sense to wait until longer days are once again upon us. Then we might have a chance of making it out and back in the same day. We have sailed kayaks in the dark before but it's definitely not our idea of the best way to do it.

And as ambitious as a kayak trip to French Cay might seem to us at the moment, that's not the big goal. For some time we have been thinking about whether anyone has ever physically set foot on every single exposed island in the Turks and Caicos Islands. When we first had this idea, we had been reading about the "40 cays, 8 of which are inhabited" that is a pretty standard description of this little country.

Then I started going over the charts and Google Earth, and putting a mark on every exposed rock I could find. And guess what? Without even numbering the islands we have already walked upon, I came up with another hundred. No kidding.



Now to be precise, a lot of these little islands and cays I have marked are nothing more than an exposed bit of rock, but since they are exposed and surrounded by water, I am choosing to include them in our definition of island. Just as an arbitrary rule, I am going to include every island and cay I can find that is larger than the boat. That sets us up with about an 18 ft. diameter required for an island to qualify.

I wonder how long it would take for a couple people with an obnoxious little dog to actually stand on each and every 'standable' island in the Turks and Caicos. Interesting thought, isn't it? Certainly would be enough material for a few blog posts. And I would be genuinely surprised if anyone has ever done it. ever.

Well, that's all I have for this last post of 2010. It's been an interesting year for us. Much better than 2009 was, in many ways. Maybe it's the start of a trend.

We want to take the opportunity to wish all our readers, friends, families, and other correspondents a Happy and Prosperous New Year. Thanks for all the support and interest.

And until next year, here's a photo of the sunset here, taken by La Gringa night before last:

Mid Summertime

Yes we do realize that it's the second half of July and that we have sadly done absolutely nothing noteworthy in almost a month. Well, not noteworthy in terms of posting photos of new and exciting things. But since several people have pointed out that we are overdue for another update we will just soldier along here with the photos we do have. La Gringa continues to keep her eye out for colorful sunrises to photograph:



We managed to get in a much-needed trip up North to the USA for the first half of July. From our perspective, the July 4th celebrations down here in the British West Indies are a bit more subdued than they are in someplace like Texas where fireworks and ammunition are available to the general flag-waving citizenry. While the small American groups here in the TCI do quietly celebrate the US Independence Day, this year we opted for the full blown Texas approach. I think we had a great time. Reports are still filtering in.

Then after we visited most of the Texas family, we shopped til we maxed out our duty free allowance on goodies to bring home. I tripled my own wardrobe for about $ 150. (That's a good thing about living in the tropics: shorts, flip-flops, and t-shirts are cheap) I bought yet another underwater camera setup to bring back along with a small spotting scope for long distance shots. We are trying to find ways to get more interesting photos for the blog, of course. Then we flew back to the TCI all fired up to hop on the boat and go take some new photos... and ever since we got back the weather has been very windy and the ocean has become very lumpy.





Erosion from passing tropical downpours has turned the road we live on into a scale model of the Grand Canyon. So while wondering if we dared put the boat in the water knowing we cannot push it back up the driveway again, we just got hit with our first Tropical Depression yesterday. And this morning I see that it has now become Tropical Storm Bonnie.

Those of you who have read our blog posts from September 2008 will understand why we are a little shy of having the boat in the water when tropical storms are going by. One of them turned into Hurricane Hanna while we were not watching and whose storm surge stranded us for four days without power or communications. It also smashed our favorite boat. We survived all of that okay but we've been real leery of "tropical storms" since then. We know firsthand how quickly they can turn mean.

But all excuses aside, we do have some newer tropical photos if you don't mind some of the same old subject matter.

In late June we decided to pack up the dog and cooler and kayak over to find some cool place to have another picnic. We started this trip at Heaving Down Rock as we do so many of them. Our boat was launched and I was just about to park the truck out of the way when I stopped to take a photo of one of the crew of a local tugboat. He was taking advantage of the falling tide to paint the hull of his beached landing craft.



But notice in the photo the blue "conch boat' that is full of water with the gas can floating around the deck. This is one of the boats that was made with a fiberglass mold taken from a Boston Whaler hull. They are very, very common here. I suspect this one got tied up over a steeply sloped bottom and got swamped by waves and boat wakes as the falling tide left it sitting at a steep angle. Or not. Could be a hole in it. Or someone left out a plug. See what this tropical life has done to me? I could stare at this boat for half an hour and speculate about what happened. Maybe talk about it with other observers all afternoon.

But in this case, the owner drove up while we were still there and he got quite excited. He tried to bail the boat out with a coffee can but the waves were coming back in and filling it up faster than he could bail. We stuck around to see what happened.

First he got two guys from a tugboat to help him pull on the bow line. The boat didn't move. I would guess the total weight with motor and several hundred gallons of water would be around two tons. Don't let the looks fool you, this is no real Boston Whaler. They are unsinkable. This one is obviously not. So, anyhow, we had this truck and volunteered to help.

He tied his heaviest line from the boat to the rear of the Defender:



We only wanted to pull it high enough so that he could bail it out, without pulling the bow out if it. Of course that little 4x4 in low gear could have pulled up a telephone pole if it could get traction.



We left the 'FauxTauk' captain happily bailing away and headed out through Leeward channel until we cleared Little Water Cay where we turned right to find a picnic spot. It was a nice day to be on the water, and a lot of people were out boating. This is a group making a rendezvous offshore to throw a beach party involving all these boats..... and more:



We inadvertently got into a near collision with the Wharram design catamaran when they decided to dash from the rendezvous spot to the beach. Which was basically directly on the other side of where we were at the time. We were not sure that they saw us directly ahead of them, as they made no signs of seeing us and did not alter their course to keep from running down the little inflatable kayak. In the sudden sharp moves we made to avoid being run over, our mast sprung loose from the boat and both it and the sail landed in the water. It was an exciting few minutes. The good people in the yellow sportfishing boat saw the whole thing and came over to make sure we were okay.

After re-rigging the mast and sail, we decided to grab the first spot that looked good, preferably with some shade and no neighbors.

Fortunately for us, around here that kind of spot is relatively easy to find. This place is a beach lover's dream.



The nearest other beach visitors are about a mile in that direction:



Dooley the Dangerous is always up for some fresh beach exploring. Look at all that clean sand that needs to be investigated.



And the little limestone cliffs are full of potential hiding places and ledges:



And we found a nice little spot out of the sun to set up for a little lunch.




No picnic table or iguanas on this beach, but all in all, not a bad little spot:



Nothing in this direction, either:



The little seaside cliffs here are full of small caves. We know several species of birds, such as the Tropic Birds, nest in these caves in the spring time.



Of course this guy feels like he has to personally inspect every one of them:



And he carefully inspects the higher ledges that he can't easily reach from ground level:



I'm not sure what he would do if he spotted something worth chasing. And I'm not sure I want to know.

After storms this area is ripe for beach combing. On this day the beach was pretty clean. We did find a piece of seemingly ancient rudder post jammed hard into a crevice. This has a solid iron post surrounded by what I believe was a wooden rudder.



After lunch we went for a swim. Dooley the Desultory was left on the shore watching us swim away...



But not for long.....



Of course he loves to swim. He has turned into an excellent dog to have in a place like this. (Don't tell him I told you that, he'll never let me forget it.) He could swim for hours:





Before we left to head home I spotted an Osprey sitting on a rock down the beach a short distance. It's in this photo although you probably won't be able to see it yet.



I am just sticking these photos in mainly because they are nicely blue and I thought people in places without clear water might like to see that. I continued to ease my way up along the beach closer to the sea eagle Osprey. Maybe you can see it in this photo. It's sitting on top of the flat ledge exactly in the middle of the photo:



At this point I was really moving along quite slowly, keeping behind rocks where I could, making no sudden moves....freeze for a few minutes...then creep up a foot or two. Just hoping to get a photo of it from a few yards away..



And then this thundering set of little feet came barrelling by me on the left, headed straight for where the bird was sitting, and totally ruined all my careful sneaking. I managed to snap this photo right as the dog blasted blithely by and before the Osprey took off.



I was curious as to whether or not I would get some award winning photo of an Osprey flying away with a Jack Russell Terrieriest clutched in its talons and trying to climb its leg.. But no. They only eat fish and show very little interest in being in close proximity to obnoxious little yapping dogs. Obviously intelligent birds. Next time I'll smear the little booger with tuna and see what happens.

Well after Dooley the Delinquent ruined my Osprey photo, we packed up and headed back to Leeward.

We do look for photo ops, still, when we are out. For example we cruised by Children's Park down on the edge of Grace Bay and when we first came over the wooden boardwalk we thought we had a disaster on our hands..



But as it turns out this was the Provo Sailing Club teaching young sailors how to right an overturned Hobie catamaran. Did manage to pick up some of the different colors of the ocean around here, but that's not all of them. There is a gin clear color that looks like no water at all, and an iridescent blue in Chalk Sound. The water over the reef is different again yet, and it's out where the line of breakers are in that photo. It was a good test photo for the new Olympus Tough 8010 camera, too.

Some shoes maker it further than others...




But only the newest of seasonal arrivals wears them on the beach for long.

And Dooley the Delighted was glad to have someone to chase HIM for a change.



The new Children's Park is very nice. They even have a shower just the exact right height for someone of Dooley's stature. He acts like he hates it, but he doesn't fight too hard to get away:



We have been experimenting with a spotting scope and digital camera setup. The optics are okay, but the camera is noisy. I guess it gives some photos like this a different quality, if that's the right word for crummy photo..



That makes me think of the kind of scene the sailors up standing lookout on Sapodilla Hill would have waited weeks to see. They had plenty of time to carve rocks.

By the best of my SWAG ability (Scientific Wild Ass-uming Guess?) I figure that boat to be about 6.2 miles away. I know where it left from, where it was going and the bearing to it when I took the photo. Can you imagine what a naval encounter on the high seas must have been like when boats this size were maneuvering at the speed of a brisk walk, could see each other miles away, and were each trying to get within cannon range without getting blasted? Or what it must have been like sailing on dark nights, neither knowing where the other one would be, exactly, at first light...

Anyone who reads much of this blog will know that we are very much into boats. We like them. Old, new, big, small, power and sail. And where we have built our home gives us a great view of the approaches to the marinas on this side of the island. Almost every day we get to see something new out on the water. A few weeks back we were treated to the sight of this beauty at the fuel dock of the nearby Caicos Marina and Boatyard:



This 130 ft. beauty dwarfed all the other boats in the marina, and underlined how small the scale is here. I am sure this boat would blend in just fine in Ft. Lauderdale or Nassau, but here on Provo they needed a pilot boat to lead them out to water deep enough to navigate safely:



We love being able to watch this stuff from the patio, and listen to it all over the VHF radio. La Gringa gave this captain a call and complimented them on the beautiful boat. It was nice to talk to them and to see a dream like this.

The fantastic water of the TCI makes just about any boat photo look like something from a sales brochure, doesn't it?:



Okay, now for a very brief DIY section. (This is also part of living on a tropical island. I would be remiss if I represented it all as one long Corona beer commercial) Not long after we got home from our USA trip we once again heard a hissing noise coming from under the bonnet of the Defender 110. La Gringa had heard it before but it stopped before we could identify the origin. This time we found it.

The arrow on the left is where the upper coolant hose of the D-110 rubs slightly on a metal bracket used to hold a heater hose off of a spinning pulley.



I removed that hose and lo and behold, a hole has been rubbed into it by the corner of that bracket.



I checked the other hoses, and found that the pulley itself rubs on the underside of that heater hose where the arrow on the right is pointed. I checked the other Defender, and the smaller hose is almost worn through. So, I need one of those, too.

I headed on down to NAPA, which is the best source for auto parts in this little nation. And ran into a problem. NAPA doesn't stock parts for THIS model Land Rover. Does not even cross reference it. Oh, they carry parts for the LRs sold in the USA but not the trusty old classic model. Well, I was in a kind of McGyver mode and asked the guy if he had any hoses that looked close. He got into the spirit of the thing and disappeared back into their warehouse area. I shopped around for a while, pinching my fingers in the Vise Grips (Mole grips in the UK), reading the fine print on the road flares... and then he came back with the closest hoses he could find to the ones I need to replace.



I will have to see if I can cut suitable pieces out of these two if I want the hoses any time soon. And by any time soon, I mean within the next month. The big one has to be replaced immediately. I have a few days to fix the smaller one. As I was picking up my 'close-enough' radiator and heater hoses I asked the man at NAPA what vehicles they were intended for. He told me that he thought they were for a Ford and a Nissan. Well, maybe so. But they are destined to be part of a Land Rover now.

We have found that we do not take quite the same laissez-faire attitude that we had before the hurricanes. Oh we don't freak out and lay in 200 cases of D-cell batteries and truck loads of military ration MRE's or anything like that. But we do pay attention to the vehicles running well, that we have fuel for the generator, some canned goods - things like that. The boat is strapped down to chains I buried in the ground.



I mean, one aspect of living on a small island is that you realize after a couple of these storms that you really don't have many places to run to. And that there is really no one outside your circle of nearby friends that you can call on for help. And by nearby, I mean within walking distance.

As we were driving home late yesterday afternoon we noticed that the tidal water of the salina is lapping up over the edge of the road, much higher than usual.



We knew we were still over an hour from high tide, and that this tropical storm would be blowing by us. But it still brought back memories of how Tropical Storm Hanna's change to hurricane status started the same way, with the water rising over the road.

A 'silver lining' aspect to tropical storms is that the cisterns are filled to maximum capacity.



Now we should have a few days of reasonably good weather, and hopefully can get out and enjoy the ocean for a change.

I mentioned earlier that we recently went up to the USA for a visit. We were not anywhere near the ocean and in fact were several hundred miles inland near Austin. I would guess the nearest salt water was probably underground. (That might not make much sense to people who didn't grow up around the 'oil patch', I suppose) But even there, in the middle of the Lone Star State, driving along enjoying the rural countryside... we were never far from thoughts of shallow draft, trailerable, coastal cruising catamarans. You know, a boat that we could use to explore inside the reefs and something the three of us could sleep on for a few days here and there. We even found one for sale:



Hey, I told ya we like boats.

But alas, the rental car did not have a trailer hitch. It's a little bit too far to sail this home, and I am sure American Airlines would have a problem with it as checked baggage. We will have to just keep looking.

Okay, I am about out of fresh photos for now, unless I upload all the Texas pictures. Now that we are back we plan to start using our new underwater camera setup and the spotting scope/camera combination to see if we cannot continue to find tropical images for your internet enjoyment. We hope.

This blog is meant to be about life in a small tropical island nation. It is not meant to be about our other travels or our families, so I try to refrain from getting too far away from the tropical topic too often. But I am going to make one more brief exception just to illustrate another aspect of this life: the commonplace things we do without. One of the many things we have traded for our life here is the variety of things that just do not exist within easy reach in a place like the TCI. Now, we easily learned to do without McDonalds, Wendy's, Burger King and the like. But I confess I do miss easy access to some of the food that one takes for granted in Texas. And good barbeque and Tex-Mex cooking are two of our favorite foods. And you cannot just easily get either one here. We looked into importing beef brisket to make our own barbeque, but it's just too much trouble. A three week wait for the brisket, for starters. And once you order it, you own it whether you like what gets shipped, or not. And while there are some mexican "style" items on a few menus around Providenciales, it's not Tex-Mex. I have nothing against the big Mexican food chains, and love their food when we are in the US, but those are not Tex-Mex either. Real Tex-Mex is more family style cooking. It does not involve a lot of lettuce, sour cream, or black olives, although that style of Mexican cooking is great, too. No, you have to find Tex-Mex where it lives, and these smiles from La Gringa and one of her stepsons should verify that we did indeed find something authentic in Marquez, Texas, just a few miles from my family's homestead.



In the meantime, back at our little island hilltop home we notice that the sun is rising and setting a little bit further to the south every day now. Amazing how much attention one pays to the weather living exposed like this. A few more months of Hurricane Season and we will be able to relax again.