Caicos Bank trip, little islands, shipwreck photos

Hot dang, it's Sunday morning and the low clouds are gone for the moment. The sun is shining, and the winds are down. There are some high, thin cirrus and stratus moving in, but we are gonna go for a boat ride. I don't know if we will get all the way over to the wreck site I want to investigate, cause there's another one a little closer that might be interesting and I know how long the weather will stay like this. And the primary purpose of this morning's trip, after all, is to round up some conch. Talk to y'all later.

Ok, its 17:30 and we are back. Really good day, it was rough on the 'outside', and the water was still stirred up, but we managed to grab a bunch of conch. Then we decided to spend the rest of the day on the Banks side. It was flat calm, smooth as a skating rink and the water was crystal clear. We thought we would explore that side some, for a change. We are going to be living there, overlooking the Bank, and we hardly spend any time there. We took 119 photos today. We got underwater shots, we got photos of conch (whoopee, right?) we by the shore and got some shots of small caves, we climbed onto some little uninhabited cays, and we looked at some shipwrecks. I know which photos to start with. Maybe just take them in order, but there are several days worth at the rate I usually post.

All right, the conch are cleaned and skinned and out of my hands now. I can post some photos.
This morning we headed out planning to grab some conch and investigate some things around that shipwreck site. Weather was finally good, again. High clouds, light winds. We have to boat about seven miles on the Caicos Bank side of the islands to get to Leeward-Going-Through. Leeward is where we can cut between two islands and be on the outside, with nothing but the reef between us and the deep blue.

The TCI is shaped kind of like a huge atoll with the southern side open to the sea. Its a plateau, with water a mile deep all around it, and its ringed with reefs all the way around. But on the flat top of the plateau is the Caicos Bank. When the conditions are right, its some of the most tranquil, clear, and peaceful ocean you ever saw. Its also shallow around the edges and in many places in the middle. It's dotted with coral heads, and most of it is "unsurveyed" as they print on the charts.

The weather and water were perfect as we left the marina this morning:



About half way to Leeward I noticed we were gaining on this boat pretty quick. I could see he had three outboards on it, and could see that the props were turning cause he had them tilted pretty well back. He was making turns, and moving real slow.



I asked La Gringa..."what in the hell are they doing? There's no fishing poles out..."

Then as we came abeam of them, I realized they had two look-outs on the bow and were creeping along dodging coral heads. The water was so clear, it looked like the bottom was about a foot down,when in fact where they were it was probably more like 4-5 feet.

We went zipping by, further inshore ( we were in maybe three feet of water) and gave them a wave. We could see them staring at us, probably thinking we were idiots to be doing 35 mph through this water. He was doing about 3. I could have told him to follow us, but he wouldn't have kept up...its just too visually bizarre when the water looks like its disappeared entirely. And I would have felt bad if he hit something. There are coral heads around here:



They are not hard to spot with some practice...if you see any bright colors on the top, its shallow. And it helps if you can get on plane and STAY there...but it does take time to get that confident. The first year we were here, I think we dodged every dark spot in the ocean.

This is kinda what you see zipping across it, but looking over the side of the boat, its like the bottom is right there. He was being prudent if he doesn't know the water here.



We chose a panga just for this specific water. Its not a boat everyone would love, but the things it does well, it does real well.

This is about a six foot piece of bamboo floating in four feet of water. If it were not for the shadow on the bottom, it would be hard to tell how deep it is:



When we got to the ocean side, There was still a heavy swell breaking on the reef. We decided to go ahead for the conch, but didn't put much time into searching for anything else. The stirred up water had the visibility down to something like 40 or 50 ft...we are not used to that. Also had to get pretty close to things to get a photo, but I snapped a few anyhow.

More coral heads:





La Gringa's conch chili recipe calls for six conch. We double the recipe so we can freeze some, so that's a dozen. I like lots of conch in the chili, so we agreed on fifteen. When she put the fifteenth on the boat, I had just grabbed four more (you can carry two in each hand if you hold them with your fingers inside the shells...and don't mind them pushing their little claw against your fingers) so, we got out of there with 19 conch.

We headed back to the Banks side. Cutting through Leeward, you come out by the Conch Farm. They raise conch commercially. That's what all the pens on the right are.
(La Gringa took a lot of these photos)



Our friend Hammer Stubbs was fishing for mutton snapper out near Bird Rock:



Weird day, huh? It was still mid-morning at this point. We decided to cruise down to the Five Cays area and look around.

Zipping over a thin spot to check out a buoy. You can probably see why there's a certain pucker factor running around here. Its almost better when its choppy, it doesn't freak you out so much. The waves give you some depth perspective. This water is 3 ft. deep. Plenty.



Ok, it was decision time. This is the buoy one mile out from the boatyard/marina where our slip is located. We were trying to decide whether to head on home or keep going. The day was young, the conch were still alive ( I still had to clean them, though) so we decided to keep heading west along the Provo coast. Explore our soon-to-be new 'neighborhood' a little better.



The water here is about 10 ft. deep. That's heavily growth encrusted chain under the buoy.

Zipping right along, we spotted some stuff sticking out of the water and went over to take a look.



Its a sunken boat, looks like a small landing craft, just under the surface. It was low tide, and only a winch and a piece of railing were sticking up. Nothing on the chart, nothing on the GPS, nothing to mark it.





Wouldn't you love to run into this puppy in the middle of a dark night, or in a rain squall with a two to three foot chop running? Ouch. That could ruin your whole trip. Might even scratch the gel coat.

We put a mark on the GPS for it. I was wondering if it might not be a good spot for Mutton Snapper ( they are thick on the Bank).

La Gringa spotted this fish, its not a mutton snapper. We know they are pretty harmless unless you annoy them, but still, there's just something about one of these swimming into your vision out of the corner of your eye when you are not expecting it. Must be some primordial instinct or something...but it just gets your attention. The little fish off his port quarter is about a foot long:



After this, we scooted along the coast down to the Five Cays area, and took a lot more photos. Climbed up onto some little uninhabited islands, etc. I will post some of those tomorrow if you guys want to continue this.

Yesterday we explored more of the area near where our new home is being built. We had not really spent all that much time on the Caicos Bank. We found it pretty interesting on a glassy calm day. We could see the sea-bottom as easily as standing on the edge of a clean swimming pool and looking down at the lane marker tiles on the bottom. It is that clear. We saw sharks, rays, conch (of course) shipwrecks, tons of coral heads, zillions of fish...

We started out by running next to the shoreline for awhile. One of the first thing we noticed was the huge number of sea-caves in the bluffs and underneath them all along this section of coast. Some of them appear to be pretty deep. It would be a great place to explore by kayak:



While we were cruising, I kept hearing these little solid sounding 'clunk' noises coming from around the outboard. Of course I was concerned, and would turn around and look at the motor. I couldn't figure it out. Then, while I was looking I saw one of our newly captured conch trying to make an escape attempt. They come way out of the shell when they are turned upside down, and try to hook their single little claw into something. This is one of them trying to flip back right-side up:



Another cave, and this one was pretty interesting. It goes way back into the hill, and slants upwards. Its also connected to another cave a few yards to the left:



Steel hulls are not immune to the sea, rocks, and storms here. But they do hang around awhile longer than the wooden ones.



Yesterday's excursion taught us that there are a LOT more wrecks on the Banks side of the islands. These are all relatively newer ones, in the past 10-20 years, but the shallow waters and coral heads have been here a long time, and boats have been sinking here for five hundred years...

I wouldn't want to run into this one in the dark, neither, but at least its marked on the chart:



Some of the views are pretty neat, at least we think they are. There are small islands all over the place here, enough to keep us in exploring material for quite a while. And one of the nice things about this area is that its only ten minutes from where we keep the boat. I almost think this one would make a decent computer background:



Notice, again, the water depth and clarity. It is actually about four feet deep here.

Now that's a pretty cool rock right there:



only a mile out. And I bet we have found ourselves a place to catch mutton snapper.

Can you imagine throwing a party on this one and watching people try to get back to their boats?



We kept cruising from island to island. They all have basic geology in common, yet they all have distinctly individual characteristics, as well. Of course> we just HAD to drop the anchor and wade over to this one to climb it:



You woulda done the same thing, I bet.

Provo in the background. You can see these little uninhabited cays are not that far away at all. Some dynamite picnic spots. And I am really looking forward to doing some snorkeling on the outside of them. The water is deeper on the side facing south, typically 12-15 ft. from what we saw. Prevailing currents sweep the sand around to the leeward side, just like islands everywhere.



For an idea where this is, that little hump right smack dab in the middle of this photo is where we are building the house. Its almost due East of here, and as you can see its a pretty straight shot by boat. We will get to watch the sunset over these islands from the house. Pretty cool, eh?



Oh, those cumulus clouds to the left in this photo (above that's where we would have been if we had stayed out on the reef today.) Good choice to come check out this side..

We tied up at yet another island, and I cleaned the conch. We were getting pretty parched, and it was time to head back to the house. It was so peaceful, the boat in a little cove with a perfect untouched sand beach. There was a neat rock on that island, with a hole going all the way through it, and a great photos....but we didn't take it!! Like I said, we were getting parched. And I made a royal mess of myself and the boat smashing holes in 19 conch shells. Thank goodness we opted for the raw-water washdown That's a real good option to have on a boat.

On the way back, we passed over another wreck, this one completely on the bottom. I had to hop over the side to get some photos, and of course, to wash a million little conch bits off of me. (Man, was I popular with all the local fish...)





The wreck is covered with silt, and the debris of the sea in a gentle blanket giving it all a softened look. The wood is rotting away, the iron turning to rust. Coral is starting to grow in various places, and there is sea life making a home here. I saw several anemones:



(of course, perfect opportunity to mess around with the new little camera...in U/W closeup mode)



The sun shining through the ripples on the surface made these constantly moving waves of light crisscrossing the bottom. The visual affect was stunning. I SHOULD have switch the camera to movie mode...it would have been worth posting a link here to show you the patterns. It was absolutely hypnotizing. And even though I am very limited as to which colors I can see, even I could tell that where the little ripples crossed there was a moving prism effect, and thousand of miniature rainbows surrounded me, moving across the sea floor and the old wreck.....I thought maybe I was finally having one of those flashbacks I paid for and never got... or it could have just been the sun...oh well, never mind. I guess you hadda be there.



After my trip over the side to look at this wreck, we had enough for the day and headed back to the slip. I still had conch to "skin" (the hardest part) and La Gringaneeded to get to the supermarket to pick up supplies for her conch chili...oh man, I can hardly wait.

We did not even get to the little cay with the "x" marked on it. We didn't get to a third of them. We just ran out of day before we ran out of stuff to do. Next time. I promise. Its very near here.

Island life comments, no photos.

It looks like we got a break in the weather, until that glob just starting to spin up there north of Hispaniola gets here. So we are going to run up to Pine Cay in the boat today. Plan is to check on the new refrigerator we hope got delivered yesterday, then we are going to head out to the reef and do some snorkeling if the weather holds. There have been some swells breaking on the reef a lot last few days. We figure to pick up a dozen or more conch and make up a big batch of Conch Chili. We put it in two-serving ziplocs and freeze it. Good stuff to have when we don't feel like cooking. But the point of this is that we plan to go look for conch in the spots near those ballast piles, so I should have some more underwater photos to post late today. I hope some of you like the underwater shots. It's a break from talking about Provo, or the new house, anyhow.

Well, so much for the boating plans today. We got the cooler packed, programmed some GPS points of interest into our hand-held Magellan, and headed for the marina. Only to run across the WIV (West Indies Video) cable guys at the end of the street. We stopped to see if it was Howard, whom La Gringa has been talking to on the phone. Lots of times. For months, in fact. They are on a first name basis.`And it IS Howard. Supervising a cable technician. Working on a Saturday, no less.

We have been waiting for just over fourteen weeks since we requested cable hookup to the house. They are trying to get it done today, and need access to the house. So, we decided to put the conch diving and wreck exploring trip off til tomorrow morning. The thought of being able to watch the Discovery channel, Sci Fi, History Channel....after 14 weeks without television, just changed our plans. Besides, the wind has picked up and the afternoon squalls must have been alerted to our intentions. They have surrounded us already, and the dog is considering taking up nail-biting. He thought boating today was a bad idea from the get-go, but we get antsy when we haven't been on the boat for a few days so we were gonna go for it.

The swells are breaking on the reef, and an evil little chop is starting to flex its muscles, but we still would have gone. But you don't just turn your back on cable installers here, once they get around to your little problem...you may never see them again. Besides, we made a new friend. His name is Howard.

To live in a place like this and not go insane requires large amounts of tolerance, a sense of humor, and above all, a pervasive and consistent, and never-flagging flexibility. Such is life in the Kingdom of MakeDo.

Cave questions, House photos

IMAGINARY Voodoo (Vodun)? Uh...I don't know how to tell you this, but its not imaginary by any means. It's the religion of Haiti. We live among these people. There are more Haitians in the TCI than there are any other nationality, including the natives. You need to read up on both Rada ( good, family Iwa) and especially Petro ( the dark side of the religion that you associate with the word voodoo...)

I am not saying the little cave has anything to do with that. Its a dark little natural passage that goes up into that hillside. A video camera on a R/C truck??? Who YOU calling a chickenshirt?? Maybe I'll tie a string to the dog and see how far he gets. except if there's a rat in there I will never get him out of there until he kills it. No matter how long it takes.

Any how, I took the camera with me today, but didn't get any photos of anything interesting. It was raining the whole time. I did go up to the house to go through the rubbish pile for a piece of wood, talked with Romeo the Painter for a while about Samurai's ( He's got a 94) and whether we should go halves on a junked one we can both pick over for parts...got a bunch of house photos, but that's old hat to you guys.

I'll keep my eye out for something interesting.

I don't have any good Mel Fisher stories, but would have liked to have known him better. He is, of course, one of my heros. I wish I had known him when he first started looking, I could have helped him a lot with equipment recommendations and experience finding things in the ocean. Would have been nice to be looking for stuff that didn't blow up for a change. I was making a living running sidescan sonars in those days.

I know this is about as exciting as watching paint dry, but since I didn't take any photo except those of the house, might as well, to try to keep the thread alive until I can get some more fun stuff to post.

The garage and workshop is that blocky thing to the right. The top is flat, and has a wall around it connecting to the deck and patio. Its set up so that we can add a guest suite, or something, on top later. La Gringa is still voting for the tiki bar.

When I told the architect we were thinking of a palm roofed tiki bar on the top, cause the house looks like a German pillbox....I thought he was gonna hit me. Not sure whether it was the tiki bar idea, or calling his design a blockhouse. It'll look a lot better with some nice colors and landscaping. Should be a lot of boulders on this side, retaining walls for the driveways on each side. I hope they blend into the hillside, and make the garage look smaller.

The ten foot garage door is on the left. The other half, with the tall skinny window next to the door, and the two smaller windows on the side, is my workshop;


Inside, well, its just an empty garage for now. I am going to be doing all the workbenches, shelves, etc. for the shop myself. I have some ideas using driftwood for part of it, but I need some more power tools first. Like a bandsaw to resaw planks, etc. This is the view looking out the ten foot door. Its so that we can drive straight through the garage. Its ten foot on this side, just in case I ever want to pull a boat inside. Would have to take the t-top off, of course, but I figure it would be good to be able to do it. Patching hulls, etc. something that needed to be in out of the weather. Of course we still have the driveway to do on this side. Not a bad view, though:


View out the other side, through the two 8 ft. garage doors. The one on the right basically defines the workshop entrance. There's a utility sink going in just to the right of the door for GoJo and stuff like that. There is five feet between the outside edge of that door and the wall.

Its also not the worst view.

This is looking out one of the workshop windows on the side of the garage,over the salina and across the island;

the view from the other window is remarkably similar. Not ocean, but I can watch flamingos. We had them put a concrete beam across the ceiling strong enough to "chain hoist a V-8 engine out of a truck", or at least that was my design criteria.

Between the garage and the house is the area underneath the concrete deck that connects the roof of the garage to the deck around the house. We haven't figured out what to do with this space, there's enough room here for another small bedroom, or maybe we will just string some hammocks and leave it alone...dunno...


Not much else going on out there, in the rain. The guys are finishing up the plaster work on the top of the ledge running around the garage to the house, etc:

The roof completely overhangs this walkway, so they can stay dry, anyhow.
I checked into the finishes,and I was wrong. Its not paint. Its this coating developed here in the islands, pretty interesting stuff. The company is Island Flextec, if you want to Google it. Coating developed for this kind of construction, in this kind of climate.

And these are the 4x4s of Romeo the Dominican, and Gringo the Texan.. good choices for here;

We had a grand old time today, discussing water pumps, leaf springs, and where to find parts. People are always trying to buy our Samurai's from us. We plan to keep them.

Oh, almost forgot, they also stuck the wooden beam doo-dads over the front entrance thingamajig;

I cant get a better photo of it, which would be head on, because of the big container full of building supplies in the way. But the view in through here is through the house and the middle slider, back to that same old ocean view.
Same one I have posted sixteen zillion times here already. I need some new material. It's STILL raining...

One last thing...houses here commonly have names. I think its a Brit thing. But this one definitely qualifies to be named,and we are looking for ideas. We have heard "TailWinds", "Limestone", the architect suggested the "Other Side".

We are still open for ideas, though.

I liked "The Far Side" too....but its a trademarked name . I don't worry about the trade mark, but wonder about confusion. I don't want people showing up wanting an autograph, thinking the cartoonist Gary Larson lives there.
"Los Gringos? Lost Gringos? But so many Mexican restaurants around with Gringos in the name. We were also looking for a synonym for 'hideout', or sanctuary, but didn't come up with anything good.

When we were first designing the place, I told the architect it would be cool to have some kind of little architectural signature, I said something like " a couple arches or something to set it apart". He took it pretty far, I think. I am SO glad I didn't mention gargoyles.

Shipwreck search and background

Am I going to go crawling up into that cave? The honest answer is......probably not. I am okay with caves I can stand up in, been in lots like Carlsbad Caverns, Mammoth, some in PA, Longhorn Caverns in Texas.....but if it requires crawling through skinny spots to get to the cavern beyond, etc....I ain't yer guy.

I might go far enough in to shine a light to see what it looks like further on...maybe, but I am more into trilobites than troglodytes.
Well, if you want to come to the TCI on vacation, I'll be happy to draw you a map....and you can spelunk away..

Speaking of maps..I wanted to show another one. This is a GE image of an area where we have been exploring. I have marked several piles of ballast stones we have found, plus the location of some iron rudder parts (gudgeon), and where we found clay and fire bricks, and bottle pieces from the 1700's. The ballast pile to the east I found while looking for conch, and we haven't really explored that area much yet.


When I plotted these all out, it started to maybe tell a story. Originally, we had thought that we had found ballast from several small boats who just all happened to screw up in the same general area. Now we dont think so. All the ballast stones are of European origin. The boat was big enough to have cooking facilities on it. The iron rudder gudgeon is too heavy for me to swim with, maybe 50 lbs.

So I started looking at this scatter, and on the GE image I noticed some other things. They are hard to see, but I was wondering if any of you guys might see some of the stuff that is getting my attention in that image above?

So, I put some marks on it to show you what I am looking at. Look at the first one again, and concentrate on the areas where I put the marks. Can you see how some of these are not consistant with the general pattern of the reef structure? I am seeing angles, and possibly an old trench.


I am thinking that the first thing a captain would do if his ship got driven onto a reef would be drop the hook to try to keep the ship from hitting more reef. If you look at the start of what I am calling the "trench", and the distance to the easternmost ballast, that could be the initial configuration of the boat to its anchor, once it stopped. The start of the trench would be near the place of initial impact.

The distance from the start of the trench to the eastern ballast is about the same as the distance from the end of the trench to the rudder parts and ballast.

The changing wind direction would make for a curving anchor drag mark, and this "trench does curve, toward where we have found additional ballast, ending with the breaking up of the main portion of the boat dropping bricks and tearing the rudder off.

The location and direction of the "trench" is what I would expect if the boat got driven onto and over the reef, and then they dropped the anchor inside the reef to prevent further damage ( which didnt work). We could probably come up with a good estimate of where on the outside of the reef the ship originally struck by just extending the trench northward. That would have been the direction of drift.


Just trying to come up with a scenario that would logically put all this together, because, after all, there definitely IS a story here. We already know that.

Time to get the hookah running and do some more exploring, I guess.

I've read Nigel Sadler's book on the TCI a couple times. Lots of interesting stuff there. Peter Benchley, the "Jaws" author and some friends did a stint at treasure hunting down here, but basically they didn't know what they were doing. Their names are still dirty words here, too. At the moment, Kim Fisher and a boat from SC are down here doing some searching over between Provo and West Caicos. We spoke with one of the people involved, they are finding cannon and bringing them up for a new Maritime Museum the TCI is building on Provo.

It's been estimated that over 1,000 ships have wrecked here, and less than 100 of those have been found and identified. The ones mentioned that were spotted from Birch's Lookout typically ran up onto the reef, and didn't sink right away. They had plenty of time to offload lumber and cargo. the ship would sit there, holed, until it eventually got broken up by the next storm.

We are more interested in wrecks before the 1800's, before it was commercial trade. We like the idea of boats that hit the reef and sank back where there were no locals or witnesses to run out and help them. It wouldn't be hard to imagine sailors washing ashore, and living years before dying, or being rescued.

Its pretty well accepted that Columbus stopped here on his first voyage in 1492. Ponce De Leon came through a few years later. So, those wrecks between 1500 and 1800 are very interesting to us. Three hundred years of Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and English sailing around these little islands had to result in some pretty interesting stuff laying on the bottom. The reefs are treacherous, and they come up from the bottom suddenly. People still hit them today.

All ships before the late 1800's had cannon, muskets, and other fun stuff on board. Even merchants carried cannon. Of course all ships carried some amount of gold or silver, even if it wasn't primarily a treasure ship. They had to be able to buy provisions, pay crew, bribes, pay for repairs in foreign ports, etc.

We love the excitement of picking something up off the bottom, holding it in our hands and thinking about the last hands to touch it all those years ago. We look for wrecks because its fun. If we pick up a few cannon balls for the new house, or the odd cutlass, so much the better.

Its like an Easter egg hunt for the big kids. We love it.
I was sitting in the breakfast area of the Holiday Inn near the Houston Astrodome some years ago. I was there for the Offshore Technology Conference, as I was for 20 years. I was the only person sitting at a small table, and every other table in the place was taken. Mel Fisher walked up with his buffet tray and asked if he could sit down. I recognized him, of course, from photos. Plus he had a lot of really interesting gold hanging around his neck. So I got to spend about a half hour or so eating breakfast and talking about wreck hunting technology. He stopped by our booth later to look at the underwater tracking and navigation system we built. But the truth was, he didn't need one. The water is so clear, and shallow, where he worked that knowing where the ROV was located was never a problem.


Its been thunderstorms and raining off and on for three days here right now, and I haven't been out much. Worked on my truck yesterday, and we went and bought a refrigerator. Was thinking about going scrounging at the town dump later on..... I need some one inch channel or square tubing and am thinking the legs of a certain kind of outdoor grill might work...
No, I ain't messing with our grill. I am thinking of scrounging at the town dump to find an old one. I need some square tubing to fabricate something FOR La Gringa. She's missing the foot rest for her total gym machine, its in storage in a box, in a pile of boxes... I am going to make her a replacement until we get moved in and finally unpacked after two and a half years of being vagabonds...

Its overcast here again today, so I wont be able to get any fresh sunny photos until it clears up. Its been three days of clouds now!! My tan is fading, I look like I just got off a plane from Montreal!!

(This was in response to a question about the house)
The outside is finished the same way, 'an architectural coating, two coats with base coat 3/8" thick, then when properly cured, a second coat 1/4" thick, with "Hi-Tech Fibers" mixed in as per manufacturers instructions in both coats. (this is from the architect's spec btw). Exterior walls will have Flextec Flexbond III, modified with Superbond II, with a 'Venetian" surface structure in pattern approved by architect' ( and us). We've chosen some version of white for now...we might add some other color over that later after we have been in for a while. I can see us adding some pretty bright tropical colors for trim.

(this was in response to a question about cooking conch)
The photo wasnt conch salad, thats a different dish. Conch salad is little diced up pieces of conch, marinated in lime juice, and mixed with diced up onions, red peppers, etc. Its kind of like ceviche.
Yeah, for conch dishes where we have chunks of conch, we pound it. We use a little tenderizing hammer. The locals use a lignum vitae mallet called a "conch bruiser". I am keeping my eye out for one of those. Some of the old timers also used to use the old thick glass coca cola bottles for that.
When we want to make something with finely chopped conch, ( conch chili, fritters, etc) we run it through a hand crank meat grinder. We tend to put a LOT more meat in our dishes than the restaurants do, of course.

(this was in response to a forum question about moving the anchor)
The anchor, well, we have discussed that, actually. We could get it over to the new house, of course. That would be a little mini-adventure, but basically we would probably borrow the zodiac RIB we sold to Jay at Sail Provo, use a front end loader on Pine Cay to set the anchor in it and tow it to Provo. Then we would have the guys at the shipyard lift it with a davit or the travel-lift, and put it on a sheet of plywood on our boat trailer, then haul it up the hill. Piece of cake, right? Put it next to the flagpole, right under the Lone Star... or next to the driveway. But we gotta leave room for some cannon and maybe another anchor.

We are really glad you guys like the photos. Its actually gotten us to take a fresh look at where we live, and appreciate it a little bit more. We have gotten so acclimated to this "Land of MakeDo" , that most of this has pretty much become commonplace to us. These are all our normal day-to-day activities. Your comments make it fresh to us again. Gives us some new ideas, and reminds us of some ideas we haven't followed up on yet. Thanks.

Forum questions about TCI, house photos, small cave

Which resorts we would recommend for someone would depend on what they want to do when they get here. The same for which Cay to buy on. You basically have a number of choices, and it all depends on whats important to you. Do you want to be close to shopping, restaurants? Do you boat? Have kids that need to get to school? Want privacy? How MUCH privacy?? etc.

There are no-see-um's of course. usually only seem to be around at dawn, and again at dusk. We have found that there are ways to avoid and control them with some thought. Simple things, like dont grow bushy shrubs right next to the part of the porch where you sit outside. They can't tolerate much wind, and hug the ground for the most part. They need cover. Mostly ankle biters, here, because of the trade winds. Mosquitos are not nearly as much of a problem, but it varies from island to island. THis is basically a pretty arid country for the most part. There is a lot more standing water on islands to the east than there is to the west. Wetter in general on the windward side of the islands. Compared to Texas Gulf Coast, or the Keys, I would say mosquitos are not really much of a problem here.
We have a lot of knowledge about Pine Cay, and the Meridian Club of course. La Gringa's family have been homeowners there for 17 years. We are headed over there to measure for a new refrigerator in about half an hour, in fact.

The no-see-ums are not that bad really. Not as compared to many other places. Some people dont get bit at all. I am not one of those people. They will pass up several hundred perfectly good victims just to get to me. They dont want to ruin their appetite snacking on other people, for some reason. They are willing to wait. Some of them will fast for days just on the rumor that I am going to be available on the menu. Bugs,in general, consider me a delicacy. Bugs in Europe, the Americas, and on other Caribbean islands stowaway on aircraft and boats just to get a shot at me. I am the record Great White trophy in bugdom. So, if I can handle it....

Some of the insect repellents out these days are pretty acceptable, not the old railroad tar and creosote smelling things of the past. I dont even bother to use it, though.

Forgot to answer your question about the laws...the TCI legal system is pure Brit. Land title is guaranteed by the Crown.
We have a lot of knowledge about Pine Cay, and the Meridian Club of course. La Gringa's family have been homeowners there for 17 years. We are headed over there to measure for a new refrigerator in about half an hour, in fact.

The no-see-ums are not that bad really. Not as compared to many other places. Some people dont get bit at all. I am not one of those people. They will pass up several hundred perfectly good victims just to get to me. They dont want to ruin their appetite snacking on other people, for some reason. They are willing to wait. Some of them will fast for days just on the rumor that I am going to be available on the menu. Bugs,in general, consider me a delicacy. Bugs in Europe, the Americas, and on other Caribbean islands stowaway on aircraft and boats just to get a shot at me. I am the record Great White trophy in bugdom. So, if I can handle it....

Some of the insect repellents out these days are pretty acceptable, not the old railroad tar and creosote smelling things of the past. I dont even bother to use it, though.

Forgot to answer your question about the laws...the TCI legal system is pure Brit. Land title is guaranteed by the Crown.
Just got back from a run to Pine Cay a few minutes ago. Talked to Bev and Wally, the managers of the Meridian Club.. There have been a lot of upgrades to the rooms etc. this summer. They open officially November 1.

We havent been there in a week, but not much going on this time of year. Bruce has seemingly dug some kind of a spot to haul his boat out. I got to ask him what THAT's all about. If we can dig our own canals, I might get into that myself.


did he dig that on purpose, or is he going to claim the throttle stuck open on him late Saturday night after a Provo run...

Couple guys building a new section of floating dock. A filipino and a local TCI guy. I told them I had waited a long time to get a photo of them working....they thought that was funny:


We headed to the house, and packed up most of the stuff that has drifted over there with us over the summer. Clothes, food, tackle box, couple spare fishing poles...loaded up the golf cart and stopped by the Meridian Club to arrange to get some work done at the house before the first round of winter visitors arrive..

Golf carts and bicycles are the only forms of transportation on the island. No cars, trucks, dirt bikes, ATVs....none of that loud motorized stuff.

I took a photo of the old dinner bell at the Meridian Club. They ring it every night at 7:00 PM ( give or take a few cocktails) to announce to everyone on the island that dinner is served. Of course, most people show up poolside an hour or two, or three, before for cocktails.


We carted our stuff ( literally) back down to the boat, and found Romeo, one of our painters hanging out with the guys fixing the dock. Gringa laid into him, like "What the hell are you doing over HERE?? How come you are not working on our house!?!?!" And things of that nature. Romeo acted like he had been caught playing hooky, but I guess the gist of it is that they are getting some other little projects done waiting for the subcontractor to put the tin roof on.


So, here we have a caucasian Gringa joking with an Asian Filipino, a TCI islander of African descent, and a loafing Hispanic housepainter from the Dominican Republic. This here is what you might call your polyglot society. Did we leave any races out?

We headed back to Provo with our boat load of stuff. I spotted something washed up on the beach over in a little cove area of Water Cay, and took the boat in close to the beach for a look. It was someone's console, looks like it got ripped right off the boat. It had barnacles on one side, so it had drifted a ways before washing ashore here. I could make out the steering wheel, and engine contols still on it. I wanted to jump overboard and go take a closer look, as I am in the market for some gauges and can always use some stainless hardware if I can salvage it.



Alas, La Gringa Suprema takes a dim view of my tendency to pick up stainless lock washers, brackets, cables, loose pieces of nylon line,and the odd section of PVC. She says I have enough junk to open my own shop. I was telling her, hey, as a minimum the fiberglass itself is probably fixable, and the steeringwheel looks good...and you KNOW there will be stainless hardware...but nooooooo... (Edited 1/05/08: Three months later we would see that someone indeed eventually salvaged this console.)

There were squalls in the area, and we had a cooler full of frozen food to get home, and I am good for several hours with something like this to pick over.

So, I turned the boat for home. As we left the little cove I noticed its kinda a scenic little place, with the waves breaking on the reef off in the distance. Good spot for a picnic and a swim;


But ever since we got back, I have been thinking about that console. It must have just washed ashore during the storms of the last two days. What made it float? The hardware should have sunk it. And where's the rest of the boat, is it sitting on the bottom just outside the reef? It would have taken some force to bust a console off...

I can tell you right now she aint gonna let me go back over there just to look at it. She's afraid I might bring it home.

Thats not fair. Some of it is on the porch.

(changing the subject) Hey Welder...
Heres conch tenderzied, breaded, then sauteed in butter and garlic, with fresh lime juice squeezed on top...


Well we have all kinds of photos of the house of course, so be careful what you ask for. Its the major thing going on with us right now...well, except I have been doing some thinking about a wreck site...

I take about a dozen photos every time we are out at the house site, anything new or changed.. Its been helpful, going along. I have photos of all the plumbing roughed in, wiring, etc. If I ever need to knock a hole in a wall, I will be able to see exactly what's inside it. We were just out there Sunday after the rain finally let up. Only things going on right now with it are the beams across the top of the pergola,


and they have put these little decorative things on the columns ( dont know what you call them)

and they are finishing up the tops of the ledge, or seat,or whatever along the top of all the outside patio walls.

And they have started installing the louvered windows:

These are cypress wood, and will be untreated, allowed to weather to a light gray. No glass in the windows, just screens.

That hole next to the windows will be a big sliding glass door, from our bedroom out onto the patio.

Oh, they also installed all the gutters, and the outside light fixtures. Now waiting on the roofing sub to put the tin on and make the house weatherproof so they can get serious on the inside.

On the concrete, over the blocks they paint this blue binder stuff. I dont remember the name of it, but I believe it both seals the concrete and binds to the plaster. Then they put a rough coat of this plaster stuff over it, left it with a pretty smooth finish. Over that went a finish or skim layer, which is smoother yet.

Here's the only photo I can find that shows the rough coat of plaster over the CBC, its about as thick as the mortar joints between the blocks:

Another smoother coat went over that.

I think there are two paints to apply now, they have already put the primer coat on in the living room, its a yellowish color ( I think, but I am partially color blind, so it could be some other color).


Thats the primer coat over skin coat plaster inside.

Then the final coat goes over that. All the construction here is CBC and poured concrete. Our architect specified all the finishes, and our builder tends to go overboard. So I think we are okay.

The pergola will have a floor the same as the patio, which is 2'x2'x2" concrete pavers being custom poured, white with a little gray mixed in and a varied, speckled finish, on purpose. They will be bedded in sand.

There was a good idea posted about rescuing a Gilleys sign, I might look into that. It may be too late, though. But we wont lack for things to use to decorate. The Meridian Club re-decorated all the rooms this year, and those Haitian painted chairs are for sale cheap. I am pretty sure I posted a photo of them earlier. La Gringa wants em, and I was thinking of attaching them to the wall as shelves or something. Use them to build something else.

There are several beaches around where amazing amounts of neat stuff floats up. One over on another island we call Trash Beach. We could furnish an entire neighborhood with net floats, etc. Driftwood. Theres plenty.

Also, I kinda like some of the Haitian art around. For example, there is a little kiosk kind of place just near here that I just passed coming back from working on the @!#$%*&# gas tank on the boat this morning. They carry all this wall hanging stuff cut out of tin and copper. Some of it is brightly painted, some they leave just bare metal:


They got suns, and stars, and fish, and zodiac signs, palm trees, all kinds of stuff. I think the copper ones would weather pretty well. I notice they leave them outside here all day every day, rain or shine, without any problem:


There is also a native handicraft place in Blue Hills that has some neat stuff, if you like this kinda junk. A friend of ours runs it. Can get some photos next time we are over there.

Between here and where we tie up the boat is a stretch of bad road. Its about three miles of dust, potholes, loose gravel, dirt and rutted, exposed bedrock. It goes through some limestone cuts, and in one of those there is a small opening. I have been looking at this little cave each time we drive by to or from the marina. I could tell that some animal or something must use it. Theres a small ledge at the entrance, and its smoothed down. I thought maybe dogs were living in it. Its difficult to see into from a moving car because its dark inside it, and bright sunlight outside, and anyhow, I just never took the time to stop and look at it. Okay...I'm lazy.

Well, usually we are on a mission, either to the boat to leave, or coming back to town after being away. But today I was just doing some work.
And recently, I've been carrying this little camera in my pocket, trying to keep an eye out for things that seem commonplace to us now, but that might be of some slight interest to someone living in a different environment. So today I thought I would actually stop and look.


Still sitting in the Samurai listening to country music, I could see there was trash inside, obviously people are using it. Or some really clever dogs with access to beer. So after Old Waylon ended on the radio, I climbed out for a look.( Priorities, ya know)

The opening is about three feet high. Plenty of room to crawl inside.

I didnt feel like crawling inside today, had just spent two hours in the sun and I was hot, tired, sweaty and thirsty. But I did get down and crawl inside the opening. I was surprised. It actually opens up a little bit inside, and goes way back. I didnt have a flashlight with me, but there was enough light to see that the cave turns upwards at the back. I could not see the end of it. I snapped a photo, and the flash lit it up pretty well. I still dont know how far back it goes. You can see more in the flash photo than I could see at the time.

I could see enough to know I wasnt going to go crawling back up there in the dark.

This part of Provo is between one of the areas where Haitian sloops come ashore with their cargos of refugees. My theory is that this is a spot where people wait and hide, calling someone local on their cell phones to come pick them up. Its a good spot, a car could come zooming up on this very lightly travelled road, and you could be out of this cave and in the vehicle in seconds. Beats hiding in the bush in the open I guess. Maybe someone would even leave a couple cool ones for ya if you were expected.

Gives me ideas about digging my own cave in the rock the house is being built on.