A grayscale week

This will be a short post. Or at least that is my intention. Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to shorten up the posts here. I generally just sort of try to scale them to the number of new photos we have. Then I try to write captions to explain the photos, and of course (me being a mouthy son-of-a-gun) sometimes my enthusiasm runs away with me and I end up typing more than I should. Probably. Last week, for example, I was pretty excited about the new boat. Still am, but I am trying very hard to keep a tight rein on it. I mean a 'caption' shouldn't really run into several paragraphs. Well, anyhow back to the subject of short posts, and after that explanation of sorts, the truth is that we have not been taking many photos lately. Whew. See what I mean? Mouthy. (And this isn't even a caption.)

The weather has been weird. We have had a week alternating with gray rainy days, and then gray days without rain. Mostly the latter, but enough rain that the cisterns remain full. We are keeping an eye on the late season Tropical Storm Paloma, which is just forming SW of here. We have had quite enough storm excitement for one year. Maybe enough for several years. A lifetime even.

We have been keeping an eye out for some good sunrise/sunset photos of course, but this week all I could come up with was this one:



The good news about this weather is that the sea is very calm. It could almost be a huge clear blue swimming pool, stretching out as far as the eye can see. With binoculars, even. There has been almost no wind for several days. That sunrise was not even typical, because the sky was fairly clear that particular morning. The average day this week has looked more like a big gray scale. Sometimes we cannot even tell where the horizon is:



That's the kind of day that used to drive me nuts flying small airplanes up in the Cape Cod area. Low time VFR pilots like to see horizons. It makes it so much easier to keep the airplane right side up when you can tell which way is up. Now one big difference between here and Cape Cod in November is the temperature. Last night, for example, it was 81 degrees at 7:00 PM, according to the little thermometer I finally unboxed and attached to a post in the house.



And all the windows are open, so that's the same temperature as outside. This is going to sound a little funny to people at high latitudes, but when it drops down into the mid 70's we feel a bit on the chilled side and start closing windows. Well, partially closing them. The only time in 2008 that all of our windows were cranked shut was during the hurricanes.

I put the (badly flashed) thermometer photo in there because I know the ocean photos are misleading with all that gray. It makes it look cold, and it's not. It's still tropical. The calm water does make for some nice reflected light if we get a cloud or something just right. This one was looking good, but by the time I noticed and then found a camera with a charged battery it was fading back to gray:



And of course that water really makes one think about skipping over the top of it in a boat. And hopping over the side with some snorkelling gear. I haven't checked the ocean temperature lately, but I suspect on this side of the island it will still be near 80, about the same as the air. The lowest we saw the ocean temp last winter was 74.

There have been a few little DIY things going on, but nothing much. I put the lizard-shaped thermometer up on the post primarily to aggravate Dooley the Delinquent Dog. He loves chasing lizards. Every now and then he catches one although we do try to discourage him. He's pretty tough on things he catches, including (but not limited to) rats, lizards, and tennis balls.

I cut a piece of the plastic that used to be part of our boat Cay Lime's console hatch and made a little spacer for the spare tire mount on the Land Rover. It was rattling against the tail gate and driving us nuts and denting the aluminum tailgate. I suppose I should spell it 'aluminium' if it's part of an English 4x4.



And some of the strong nylon lacing that once held canvas to the top of our T-top is now a set of boot laces that work better than the frayed originals:



(am I stretching for blog photos or what??)

We think we may have decided on a new home for Cay Lime, because with the new boat on the way it simply can't stay here taking up space. But there will be parts of it still around for a while. It's a good boat, trashed through no fault of its own. And it needs a new owner to fix it up and put it back to work. And I don't like looking at it in its present state. We need to put that ugly chapter behind us and move on. But in the meantime, we may as well cannibalize the boat parts that are done for.

Speaking of the boat, I was down at the marina yesterday looking for our friend Preacher. I wanted to ask him for some advice on what to do with this busted up hull. While there I looked over to the spot where Cay Lime ended up on the shore, and saw a familiar looking piece of aluminum. Sure enough,it was the rest of the t-top. The missing piece whose very absence was making me start to mentally haul the whole thing to the dump. I threw it into the truck and brought it home.



This is a bad habit of mine, this junk collecting. I can't help it. When I lived up North I had a weakness for found wood on the side of the road. I still do, but these days the glint of shiny aluminum or stainless steel also grabs my attention. This is some useful stuff!! Eventually. Or so I tell myself.

Now I have every piece of that T-top. I suppose it would be possible for someone with the expertise and equipment to actually repair it. Meanwhile, it's just more aluminum in the yard. Lot of head scratching going on here these days.

Another small project was hooking up a web cam outside La Gringa's office. She did all that herself, to be honest about it. She is the software lady here. I am kinda limited to hardware issues. It works out well, though. I did help position the camera on a convenient louvre facing the sunsets:



You can also see that there is no glass in the windows here. We just crank the louvers down when it's blowing rain. (Or when that chilly North wind brings the temp down to under 80 degrees.)

I was hoping for a decent sunset tonight to end this post with. I did not get one. The cosmic grayscale continues. Looking to the west I was reminded of something that has been rattling around in my head for some time now. As a result of this blog we get emails from time to time from people who are thinking of building a home in the tropics and know we just went through the whole process. So maybe this will be useful info for someone, somewhere.

What generated this little departure was this view that we see from our front door every day:



(That is also pretty much the view from La Gringa's sunset web cam too by the way.)

When we were looking at house designs we wanted something sturdy enough to withstand hurricanes. I guess I was looking for the tropical equivalent of a log cabin. You know, something solid. I knew that we would be building in steel reinforced concrete. I don't think a real log home would last three years here, unless it was some kind of wood that bugs, sun, salt and hurricanes refuse to eat. Not practical.

But in researching it I came across this design called monolithic dome construction. It fascinated me for a number of reasons, and I still think it is one example of an ideal construction technique for places like this. It's a very rugged building technique, and incredibly energy efficient as well.

I found some good examples on the internet, and am going to stick my neck out here and post one I lifted from a realtor's website online:

This one is famous in some circles. It was the only home on that stretch of Pensacola Beach to survive a hurricane. It has been featured on various television programs about cool architecture, etc. Here's another view:



(I DID try to email the owners for permission to use their photos, by the way. Undeliverable email address.)

Now that one is huge, three floors and a garage. One of the nice things about this design is that you can make it any size you want for practical purposes.

In any case, what keeps me thinking about this is that little hill right there in the photo looking west. I expanded that part of the image to show you what I am talking about:



Now see where I am going with this? Can't you just imagine finding a piece of property on the water like that, shaving the top of that little hill flat, and putting a dome house on it? One you designed specifically for the site? You have to use your imagination a little here, but it could look something like this:



If you painted it to match the terrain, I think it would be a really cool, solid, house. Just me thinking, and that's what happens down here without a boat to play with. But if anyone is interested in these dome houses just send us an email and I will link you up with what I have found during my own searches.

Okay, well...I started out saying I was going to keep this post short and then started rambling on again. Must be the excitement of knowing our boat should be leaving Florida tomorrow. Through Tropical Storm Paloma and down here Tuesday morning. And in anticipation of some fun trips, we have just ordered a new underwater camera to replace our last new underwater camera that we dare not get wet anymore. This will be our fourth underwater camera setup. Ah, but THIS time we also ordered an underwater housing to put the waterproof camera into. I think that's what the Brits call wearing 'braces and belt', meaning a backup plan to keep your pants from falling down.

I wish I had a fresh sunset photo for you, but we gotta wait out this gray period.

At least its warm. And the boat is on it's way.

Best news in a long time...

This week we have a whole lot of not-much news to report. Interspersed with some really big news that I almost hesitate to report. Big news for us, anyway. And news that should help improve the quality of this blog again in the not too distant future. But first, the now traditional sunrise photo. And the usual drivel before I get to the good stuff...



We get up before dawn. We really don't have to, but we are much more the kind of people who want to maximize the day than we are into the nighttime party scene. Oh, don't get me wrong we enjoy a late evening that runs into morning laughing and talking with friends..but most of the people we know down here tend to be early risers. With the exception of a couple of professional party animals whom shall remain unnamed at this time. YOU know who you are...

I think it's because most houses here are set up to maximize the breezes. A lot of open louvers and sliding doors and windows. And not many curtains. Because curtains block the breezes, they billow in them. So the standard seems to be light curtains that are pushed to the side. This means when the sun comes up, the room lights up right along with it.

On the subject of houses, there is not much new to report. Oh, finally the replacements for the aluminum roof caps arrived.



And we were treated to the wonderful sound of the pitter-patter of booted feet on the roof, repairing a big part of the minimal hurricane damage.



I just noticed I caught the reflection of the shoreline in the photo. I suppose I should pretend that I did it on purpose to add some character to the photo, but I didn't. Pure coincidence.

We still have a dump load of broken outside lights to deal with, but that will come in time. I also notice that with the aluminum roofing, the mangled sat dish, and the piece of ugly art Hurricane Hanna made of our boat's T-top..



...we are accumulating quite a bit of aluminum here. I have been looking into what it takes to weld aluminum. This strikes me as a good skill to have here. But so far, the TIG and MIG welding machines I am finding online are 'cost prohibitive', as the saying goes.

I might be limited to my imagination on projects I can bolt together to make use of this stuff.

The repairs to the roof came just in time. This being late fall, this is our rainy season and we do get the passing storm. Yesterday we had a real storm, with winds gusting to over 30 mph, and rain blowing horizontally. Yesterdays sunrise was ominous to begin with:



And then it got worse. Glad the roof doesn't leak any more.

Heres another view of a recent sunrise. I know its pretty much redundant, but I also figure you guys just starting into a Northern winter will appreciate it. We sure would have ..when we lived up North and dreamed of tropical islands.



So we have fallen into the habit of watching the sun come up with a fresh cup of coffee in hand.
We feel we are becoming connoisseurs of tropical sunrises, and sunsets. Lately our morning coffee sessions have been shared by some of the 'locals'. For example, this morning an American Kestrel stopped by to share it with us:



They have gotten to the point where they are accustomed to us, and don't fly away as long as we don't make any sudden or threatening moves. They sit on the little wall surrounding our patio, shredding the things they eat, as messy as a teenaged son. And they are just assuming we are okay with that. Raptors seem to have a bit of an attitude. I guess that's understandable when one is at the top of the food chain as one knows it. The kestrels are now almost daily visitors to the house. They act like we built it for their enjoyment. And watching them gives us some enjoyment as well. It's a good trade. From a practical standpoint, I guess it's a whole lot more comfortable sitting on a roof than on a cactus, when one is watching for stuff to kill. I know it would a no-brainer if it was me sitting on the cactus.

We have not seen the Ospreys yet this winter, but it's early in the season yet. They'll be here. We can see their nest from the patio. It's high on a telephone pole in a deserted part of the boatyard.

The DIY projects continue. I don't even keep a list of all the little things I have to fix, but it seems there is a new one almost every day. This week, for example, La Gringa finally hit the roof over something as silly as water pressure. We have had a problem with it fluctuating from weak to non-existent. This has been going on since the house was built, just one more thing in a long list. Over the past 8 months, I had gotten accustomed to taking the three minute shower. This week La Gringa informed me that she had just upped the priority on fixing the water pressure. I think it had something to do with the water stopping entirely when she was standing in the shower with a head covered in shampoo. Women are funny that way. I guess I don't get the shampoo thing, takes me all of three seconds, but anyhow I had called a plumber to come sort this out....three or four weeks ago. He hasn't shown up, and rather than restart the clock with another plumber I decided it was time to educate myself about water pressure. Seems like one of those things a homeowner should know about I guess. So I got onto the internet and found a site all about plumbing and pumps, and pressure switches. "Aha!" (thought I) "Pressure switch!!"

SO after reading up on pressure switches, I located that sucker and promptly tore it apart.



Of course, the intelligent thing to do would have been to take the photo BEFORE I disconnected all the wires. But hey, it's only five wires. Not rocket science. At least I remembered the important part: Turn the electricity off before you start.

Sure enough, the contacts were burnt on the relay, there was silt in the little pressure port hole, and the adjustment was all wrong. I tried to just buy a replacement, but none of the stores I visited had any in stock. Par for the course. Could order one for, say, three weeks from now. I didn't get the impression La Gringa wanted to go another three weeks without water pressure.. So of course the answer is to just rebuild the one we have.



I took the opportunity to add a pressure gauge to the plumbing, and once I got everything hooked back up I used my new knowledge of pressure switches to adjust the pressure cut-off upwards from 40 to 60 psi. And wow, did that make a difference. Not only in La Gringa's shower, but the washing machine, dishwasher, and these high-tech toilets are all suddenly working better as well. Must be related. Thank goodness for the internet. Arms me with the info I need time after time.

Okay, now the good news. Actually it's fantastic news. Almost unbelievable news.
So fantastic a bit of news that I have hesitated to even mention it here because I did not want to jinx it. But I cannot stand it any longer! I have to tell someone.

It started a couple of weeks after our posts on the hurricanes, and the photos of our smashed up boat, "Cay Lime". You have to understand that Cay Lime was our first boat. We had studied boat hull designs, we looked at where we live, we specified every part of that boat. It was built for us, equipped just as we requested. And we loved it. It was like a member of the family. Only more reliable. We were not looking to replace it. We had a lot of plans and dreams involving Cay Lime. Hanna put an end to all that. We were left high and dry, literally. We really missed the boat, so to speak.

After I posted the photos of our barely 18 month old boat smashed upside down on the rocks, La Gringa received an email from someone who has been following the story of our life down here. He goes by the screen name 'Marlinsix' on one of the boating forums. He wrote us that he was a long time boater and fishing fanatic and that he likes the blog. He has ordered a new custom built, 35-foot Calyber sportfishing boat. We are familiar with these beautiful boats, as a friend and neighbor on Pine Cay has been running one down here for a couple of years now.



That was a morning photo back in December, and it didn't come out all that great, but you can see what a nice boat Calyber builds. (Besides, it's the only photo of it that I can find)

These are Carolina boats, built by people who understand the ocean, and combine style, class and function into some of the finest boats you will ever see. Marlinsix's new boat is bigger than the one in the above photo, and he has sent us photos of it being put together:





The Calyber is a big step forward from our kind of small boating. From an open deck, single outboard, day-boat, Marlinsix is going to a twin engine inboard. A Calyber is a mini-ship. From spending the day with food and drinks from a cooler full of ice, he has graduated to a boat in which people can go below to take a nap. Or brew a pot of coffee. Or open the fridge for a Coke. Or fry up breakfast. This is a boat where you step down from the deck into the cabin.

You could live on that boat. This is a different animal from the open deck fishing boat setups we are accustomed to. Its the next step all serious boaters aspire to. Marlinsix has made that leap, and somehow in the grand cosmic scheme of things....we have gotten attached to his good fortune. He is expecting delivery of his new boat later this month. Now here comes the good part of all of this, Marlinsix told us...

If we wanted it, we could have his "old" boat: a Contender 25. It was that simple and direct. He told us that he needed to either retire it or sell it to make room for his new boat. He knew of our misfortune, and said that he would rather see his Contender with someone who appreciated it and would be posting photos of it exploring the TCI than to just sell it to some stranger in Florida. Wow. This kind of luck just doesn't happen very often. And you sure do not run into people this generous and thoughtful on a regular basis, either. At least, not in our experience.

When La Gringa read me Marlinsix's email, I thought about it for about sixteen or seventeen milliseconds, looked at La Gringa and said "yeah, right. Whats the catch?"

But we were soon assured that there really was no 'catch'. It was just someone being incredibly nice to us.

Thats pretty much a bombshell in our little world. The Contender is set up for just the kind of boating we do here. The owner sent us some photos of it tied up to his dock in Florida.



The Contender is a nominal 25 feet long, but that is a little bit misleading. With the way the outboard is mounted on a bracket outside the enclosed transom, the length is actually 28.5 feet. This makes it six and a half feet longer than our "Cay Lime" panga. It also has a newer Yamaha (our favorite brand, too!) 300 hp. outboard on it. That is twice the horsepower on Cay Lime:



But it gets even better. The Contender already has a good GPS, a sound system, a VHF radio and a pair of outriggers for some serious fishing. In fact, the name of the boat is "Wahoo Serious", and it's set up ready to go do exactly that. Serious wahoo fishing time in the TCI! (can you tell I am moderately excited about this? If I suscribed to that old cliche about pinching myself to be sure I am not dreaming, I would be a walking bruise by now)

The console is laid out similar to what we are used to running, with Yamaha gauges, and the same type of hydraulic steering and controls that we have been using on our boat. I basically already know a lot about the systems on the boat, without ever having seen it.



This boat differs from "Cay Lime" in a lot of ways. "Wahoo Serious" is more of a 'deep-v' style hull. This is a heavier constructed boat, with the center of gravity lower in the water than "Cay Lime". It needs a little deeper water than "Cay Lime", but should run fast offshore in heavier seas. It also has a lot more range than Cay Lime. Another nice features of a deeper hull is that there is room under the deck for plenty of storage:



As if the gift of the boat itself is not enough, Marlinsix is sending it down with one of the best boat trailers around. Its made of aluminum, and has three axles.



This is going to be perfect for trailering the boat over these rough roads, and make it easier for us to launch it at some of the unimproved boat ramps around here. And I guarantee you, no matter where we end up keeping the boat, it will be on this trailer and secured if a tropical storm gets within a few hundred miles of us. Oh yeah, we learned that one. Yessiree Bob, we did.

Here's another view of "Wahoo Serious", being inspected by it's former crew and Marlinsix's best friend Mickey:



Knowing our little furball Dooley, I think it is going to be fun watching him go crazy sniffing around our "new" boat looking for the dog who was last on board.

Okay, well this post basically turned into my doing mental cartwheels about us getting back on the water again. This should be in about a week and a half, or as soon as we can arrange to ship the boat. Oh, I wanted to mention something about that, too. When I called the shipping company with the dimensions of the Contender, they quoted me $13,000. to ship it down from Florida! Ouch. When we heard that, La Gringa and I decided that we would fly up to Miami and drive it down ourselves. I spent days mapping out our trip, making lists of what we would need to run a 25 foot open boat almost 700 miles down through the Bahamas. We were looking at a fifty mile crossing across the Gulf Stream from Florida to Bimini, clearing customs and immigration there, and then island hopping all the way down the Bahamas to the TCI. The trip was planned to go something like this:



I picked a route that would let us stay protected from most storms. And an alternate route, just in case. I researched hotels, and marinas all the way. The plan was for us to try to travel 100-150 miles per day, and pull into the next port well before dark. This is easy in the northern part of the islands, but it gets a little more sparse in the Southern Bahamas.

And just as we were about to call the airline and start that hassle you get these days when you try to buy a one-way air fare, the gods smiled upon us once again. The phone rang, and our contact at the shipping company had come up with a way to ship the boat, and trailer, for less than half of their previous quote! As exciting as the idea was of us two old fogeys (well, one old fogey and a young chick) running an open boat down through the Bahamas for a week, the new quote made it actually cheaper to ship everything. And of course the risk factor goes way down.



One good thing came out of the planning, once we had made our minds up that we were going to make the trip. I got online with various resorts and hotels in the Bahamas, and have now struck up an email correspondence with a fellow named Shorty. He runs the only lodging (that I can find online, anyway) on the island of Mayaguana. We are not making the trip down the Bahamas chain this time, but we are planning to run up to Mayaguana to meet Shorty one of these days. It's only 45 miles Northeast of Providenciales. This Contender should do that.

SO, back to Plan A...and Marlinsix kindly arranged to have the boat put on the trailer, and shrink wrapped for the trip:



As I write this, our new boat is already at the freight terminal in Florida waiting for boat space. It's most likely to be on a freighter this coming Friday, which will put it in Customs here around the following Wednesday, November 12th. Want to hear something weird, and somewhat too cool to be totally coincidental? Ok.. I figure we should be able to clear the boat and haul it home on Thursday November 13th. We will have to buy some lifejackets, fenders, get it registered, that sort of thing. But I am betting that we can get it launched and fired up some time during the day on Friday, November 14th.

Did I ever mention that La Gringa and I have our birthdays on the same date? It's true, we have the same birthday. What's more, we decided to get married on 'our' birthday, so that date is also our wedding anniversary. Guessed the weird part yet? That date is November the 14th.

I think a celebration may be in order.

And finally, we should once again start having some interesting photos to post here other than these boring sunsets.

Ides of October, or thereabouts.

Wow, it's mid October already. I think we need to mentally catch up to the calendar. We seem to have missed a big chunk of September. It must have been the couple of weeks that it took for us to get re-calibrated to a changed life after back-to-back hurricanes. But that is gradually happening.

I thought I would look around and see if I couldn't find something different to post about. I have found a slightly off-beat subject but before I introduce you to our new 'house guest,' I have to start with the traditional sunrise photo, of course.



This has been our typical first cup of coffee view lately, with the winter sun well to the south of us. And since it doesn't come up until around 06:30ish we are usually up and around in plenty of time to enjoy it. Love those programmable coffee makers.

Here's another one:



And life here is slowly but surely stabilizing to the new normal. The constant views of hurricane damage that once seemed startling to us now just seem to be part of the landscape. Blue tarps no longer grab out attention. The news media have moved on, so we no longer see familar sites in Grand Turk (or even Galveston) on the nightly news. But we do identify with the people living in those places. It's a shared ordeal.

Very few of the roofs have been completely repaired yet, even here on mildly stricken Provo. Including ours. We have been told that the materials are now "on island" and "cleared". These are always good words to hear in a country where the 'standard' lapse between needing something and actually getting it runs around three weeks.

We still get some personal reminders of the hurricanes from time to time. Nice of life to freshen up our memories of all that. For example, on Sunday we got a call from our friend Preacher telling us that the guys working on the marina had hauled our wrecked boat's t-top out of the water. We skedaddled on down there to see if it was salvagable at all. In addition to the t-top itself, it was a platform for a nice deck light, a navigation light, a GPS antenna, and our VHF radio antenna. We were also sort of hoping that the zippered mesh bag attached to it was still there. That had our life jackets, and Dooley's doggie life vest in it. When we got to Leeward, our spirits fell, again. Ouch.



The GPS antenna and lights were still attached, but the VHF antenna and all the life jackets were gone. The T-top itself is missing about a third of the aluminum, and what's left is bent, broken, and bashed. This thing took a heck of a beating while the boat was upside down. Seeing this dashed a few more hopes, but we decided to haul it home and have a friend who welds aluminum to have a look at it. I couldn't just leave it there.

I started unlacing the shredded canvas and removing the hardware, while La Gringa backed up the Land Rover.



After trying several configurations of getting this thing into the Land Rover, we gave up on that. We decided to lash it to the outside of the Land Rover. Of course I had not thought to bring some rope with us, so I ended up cutting up the lashing that formerly held the canvas, and with a lot of help from La Gringa we got it precariously attached to the canvas roof. We were a bit nervous driving through town with this thing sticking up in the air. There are still sagging power lines across the roads in quite a few places.



And Dooley, who categorically resists any changes of any kind and consistently worries about my judgement, was not completely happy with sharing the back of "his" Land Rover with this thing. He clearly thought it was going to be a navigational hazard.



La Gringa drove it all the way home, and we didn't even get electrocuted once. So now we have another piece of wreckage in the driveway, courtesy of Hurricane Hanna.



The scrap aluminum collection around here is getting pretty impressive. Makes me wish I had the capability to weld aluminum. Between the sat dish and the T-top I could probably come up with some outdoor furniture. Or a hammock stand.

Now, for our new "pet".

A couple of weeks after Hurricane Ike blew through here, La Gringa was walking into her office when she saw a small scorpion in the middle of the floor. It was barely moving. We figure it came inside during the storm, and had been hiding under the rug. This one is about a third the size of the one that was in the shower with me about a month ago. Unthinkingly, I had turned the previous scorpion into paste, and had been feeling bad about that ever since. So we decided to see if we could keep this one alive. I scooped it up and put it into a leftover sandwich container. La Gringa added some sand,and rocks, and we started doing some research on these things.



I was surprised to find out that there are quite a few scorpion collectors around, with their own websites on the internet. Of course this means there is quite a bit of scorpion information available. I found out that this is a "Centruroides platnicki ". I also found out that they are bloodthirsty little predators, are members of the arachnids (spiders) and that they eat other bugs. Well, anything that eats bugs starts with a couple of points in its favor as far as we are concerned, no matter how ugly it is. (Well, within reason. I can't see us cozying up to some of these 8 inch centipedes) So I started putting different bugs in with it to find out what it likes. So far, we know it likes moths and flies.

I read that some scorpions like to eat spiders. So I picked up some long legged, wimpy looking spider and dropped it in to see if that could be lunch. It did not work out. The spider stayed up high where the scorpion could not reach it. And the scorpion did not seem interested in attacking the spider at all. It does go after moths. After two days, we noticed that not only was the spider unscathed, the thing had managed to run down to the sand and grab a discarded scorpion leg. (I think the scorpion must have molted it, or replaced a damaged one, because it still has eight.) Anyhow, this spider, this mangy misfit, managed to meticulously move the mangled leg up to a corner of the lair. And there it might have maniacally masticated it with its multiple mandibles before maliciously mounting it to its metaphorical mantle, merrily manufacturing silk as it went. The spider was comfortably establishing itself a home, and taking tropies. I thought that this did not bode well for the peace and tranquility of the scorpion. And we want it to be peacefully tranquil. So I got rid of the spider.

We found out that scorpions cannot jump (probably a good thing to know, keeps the clean shorts factor out of the equation) and that some of them can go months without eating. They just sort of shut down their metabolism to a hibernate mode.

Now, I have to admit that finding two scorpions, so far, in the house is not incredibly good news. We spend most of our time barefooted. And of course they are nocturnal, which means the most likely time to find one with a bare foot is when we are walking around in the dark. Great.

While La Gringa was reading up on the care and feeding of ugly, bloodthirsty, poisonous little arachnids, she read that scorpions glow in ultraviolet light. She mentioned this to me, and it rang a bell. Not about scorpions glowing, but about a pack rat and his junk collection. About seven years ago I was walking out of the TruValue hardware store in Mashpee, Massachusetts when I passed one of those bargain tables. You know the ones, anything on the table for five dollars. I can't resist those deals, and usually take a look to see what kind of goodies a hardware store has been unable to sell. In this instance, I saw a small, battery powered UV light. I bought it, just in case someday I might need a small UV light. (Hey, one never knows when one might run across an old Jimi Hendrix poster). Anyhow, it got thrown into a box and forgotten about. In seven years I have, surprisingly, had absolutely no need for an ultraviolet light. Go figure.

Since then it has gotten moved from Cape Cod to New Jersey, put into storage, then trucked to Florida, to being shipped to Providenciales, to being put back into storage, and then moved here still in the bottom of a box of miscellaneous junk.... So when LaGringa mentioned this supposed UV characteristic of scorpions, I remembered that I just might have a UV light. (This did not surprise her, strangely enough. She is totally accustomed to me pulling things like UV lights out of a tool box on a small tropical island. This is a good place for a pack rat.) So I went down to the garage and sure enough, after rummaging through various boxes of gadgets, tangled wire, and doo-dads, I found it. Still in the original packaging, and needing only a set of batteries.



The scorpion (which we are just calling "Sting" at the moment, not that it matters to it at all) was pale and translucent when we first found it. After a week or two of a steady supply of bugs and water, it has darkened up in appearance. Last night I decided to see if we could test this UV thing. This is what it looked like in a flash photo:



Not exactly the picture of "cuddly", is it.

Then I put the camera on a small tripod and managed to get some photos while holding the UV light over the scorpion. And yes, we can absolutely confirm that scorpions do, indeed, glow under ultraviolet light:



I moved the camera a little closer, but taking macros of live scorpions is something I want to put some thought into before going much further with this. Messing around with the focus ring on the lens puts fingers between camera and subject :



I realize some people might think this strange, but we are finding this bug fascinating. And La Gringa, especially, likes the idea that we could walk around in the dark with the UV light and 'sweep' the house from time to time. I am thinking we could also use the light outside and add to our scorpion collection. Of course that means I would have to build a terrarium, but this is do-able. For now, La Gringa has a live scorpion in its own little world on top of her desk.



And finally, to end this post, the now traditional sunset photo. It's not much of a tradition, as traditions go, but we work with what we have:

Interim post

I noticed we have not posted anything since the first of the month, and thought I would put something up here. Just as a change of scenery if nothing else. The truth of the matter is that things have been relatively slow since the hurricanes of last month. These islands were all affected, some more than others. And repairing, rebuilding, and moving on takes time. We are still warily watching all our weather sites, keeping a suspicious eye on anything that looks swirly coming this way from Africa. We are hoping to make it through the rest this hurricane season with no further surprises.

This is the time of year for nice sunrises, and since we are usually up by dawn we tend to still snap photos from time to time. I am not sure why we have this fascination with sunrises. Maybe it's something to do with some subconscious realization that for each of us, one of these sunrises will be the last one and most people never know exactly which one that will be. Wow, that sounded depressing! In the meantime..there is also the drive to enjoy every one of them as though it were the last. We had a decent sunrise a few days back, and I took a number of photos as it developed:



I guess that one was a bit before dawn. Here it is a few minutes later with the actual sun in it:



And with the old zoom lens cranked up a bit it looks even more different:



I am not sure which one I like best. Doesn't really matter though, it will all be deleted shortly. And there will be another one any day now. Seems to be a trend. I, for one, would like to keep it going as long as possible.

I have been stripping stuff out of our boat, "Cay Lime". Most of the engine is now in pieces. I really did not need a few hundred little projects added to what had already been planned. Woodworking, for example, has taken a back seat to fixing things that broke. We don't know what to do with the boat. Some locals tell us it can be repaired. Others tell us to junk or sell it as is and cut our losses. Meanwhile, it is sitting in the driveway while we decide. And of course all this time we are 'boatless'. Some of these parts must be useful to someone, somewhere. Three carbs, for example, that I can honestly say were working perfectly the last time they were used. Only a month ago. Honest, they were.



I have removed most of the stuff out of what remains of the console. I never realized how many wires it takes to run that many electrical systems. Sadly, most of what survived the actual diaster is never going to work again. I still had to remove it in order to get the busted up console loose. The console was smashed beyond repair:



The hydraulic steering is still good. Not that I have any need at the moment for hydraulic steering, but I just cannot bring myself to throw it away. Not yet, anyhow.


That short section of aluminum tubing with the flanges is all we have left from a fairly expensive T-top. Maybe I should mount it over the fireplace. Oh, wait a minute. We don't have a fireplace.

I suppose I should look on the bright side. I no longer have to worry about my old nemisis, the inconsistent fuel guage. It's become extremely consistent these days:



Now, I am no expert, but I am pretty sure that thing has fooled me for the last time.

Driving around the island we notice that there are boats in various stages of damage sitting in a lot of driveways. There area lot of missing parts in these islands these days. This one is at our friend Preacher's house:



It spent a week sunk out at Pine Cay, with just the tip of the bow out of the water. All of the problems we have with our motor, this boat has times two.

And of course the damage from Hanna and Ike is not limited to the hundreds of damaged boats. People are still having issues with roof and structure damage to their homes and businesses. This block of small shops on Leeward Highway is conducting business under the soft glow of sunlight shining through blue tarps where there used to be a roof:



A month after the last storm, and there are still shortages of roofing materials. The guy we hope we have hired to repair our own roof recently reported that "the island is completely out of nails" for example.

We took a drive down to the marina Saturday. We have been interested in seeing what we might be able to find on the bottom when the water clears up to it's usual crystal clear. A lot of things fell out of our boat's storage compartments when it went over. Some of it, like the stainless steel gaff for example, should still be somewhere on the bottom. I figure the boat went over when all the boats were slammed into the concrete section of the fuel dock:



And where "Cay Lime" ended up on the rocks there near that small white SUV:



I think some of our tools and other parts are very likely on the bottom in that area just this side of the barge. I doubt we would find anything useful, but it's worth a shot. The water has not cleared up much here in Leeward Channel yet. It will take a week or so of calm weather before all the stirred up sand and silt settle out.

We did notice that the marina is re-installing the floating dock sections that broke away during the storm. This is where our slip was located:



I was not all that encouraged to see that they are re-installing the floating docks exactly as they were installed before. They broke loose before. They destroyed over a dozen boats. I am thinking that we will keep our next boat on a trailer until we have a better protected slip to keep it in. We never want to have to go through something like this again.

As for putting the same docks back in the same places, I suppose the thinking is that we should not see another storm like that for many years to come. It also occurs to me that, statistically, maybe we are just getting caught up for all the storms that missed us over the past 48 years...

While we were looking around the Leeward end of the island we stopped by the boatyard to take a look at "Phoenix" again. I was hoping for a better angle for better photos than I got before. But since we were there last the Beaches Resort's catamaran,"Kitty Katt" has pulled in and tied up.



That limited my angle for a good unobstructed photo of "Phoenix", but I did get this perspective:



I'd asked Preacher what the story was with "Phoenix". She went missing from Leeward during Hurricane Hannah, and then turned up here about three weeks later. Preacher told me that a US Coast Guard helicopter spotted it adrift about half way between Mayaguana and Great Inagua island up in the Bahamas. They got the name and country of resistration from the transom, and called the Marine Police here in the TCI. The Marine Police contacted Jay Stubbs (owner of Sail Provo, and Preacher's brother) and Jay somehow managed to go get the boat and bring it back. I have emailed Jay for the details, but he has not gotten back to me yet on that.

There seems to be a story about this boat from back even before it belonged to Sail Provo. Preacher told me that it was originally recovered up in the Bahamas, smashed up and abandoned some years ago. Jay bought the hull from the former owners, brought it to Providenciales, fixed it up and put it into his charter business. Hence the name, "Phoenix". Now the same boat has been smashed back to a floating derelict by another storm, and was blown back up to the Bahamas. And it will live again. If a boat ever lived up to it's name, "Phoenix" has. She was totally adrift throughout both Hanna and Ike, and yet did not sink. This boat seems to have some instinct for survival. Preacher figures she just wanted to go visit the Bahamas again.

This has nothing to do with the Phoenix:



I just thought it was a neat looking pile of chain that has rusted completely into a solid block. If I could figure out a way to get it home, I think it might look interesting sitting in the yard. I am not so sure La Gringa shares my opinions about what looks good in a yard, but it's worth a thought.

While we were looking around the boatyard we parked near this truck over by "Phoenix". I thought, while I was snapping photos, that I would show it to you as I am sure most of our blog readers in North America have not seen one like this:



So down here, if someone tells you to look for a "blue Toyota pickup truck" for example, you might have to broaden your mental definition a little from what you're used to in the USA. This is a blue Toyota truck.

Before I forget, I wanted to put this photo in for the owners of the S/V "Maja":



In the days right after Hurricane Ike, we were getting a number of emails from people who were concerned about their properties and boats down here. We drove around and took photos for people, and emailed them with the information we could find. We had been asked about "Maja", since it is stored at the boatyard and a lot of boats there were damaged. I no longer have the email address of the people who aked us about this boat, but if you are still reading the blog, here she is as of yesterday. Not a scratch on her, as near as I can tell.

This boat was in the local newspapers last week. Seems it was caught fishing illegally here in the TCI when it was supposed to be in the Dominican Republic.



The Marine Police confiscated the boat. They also arrested the captain and engineer on a number of charges, and deported 18 crew members back to the D.R. They also held a quick auction at the dock, and sold something like $ 19,000. worth of fish, lobster, crabs, and conch that were iced down in the hold. The government here is getting serious about fishing violations, finally. We are glad to see it.

I wonder if they would sell me one of those confiscated panga-style boats that are on board. There were at least four of them impounded along with the rest of it.

I have noticed that we are seeing a few more of these types of boats around these days. Boats that really don't fit in with what we have become used to seeing. With the devastation that Haiti and the D.R. experienced last month I would not be surprised to see the influx of desperate illegal immigrants on the rise. We are only about 130 miles from Hispainola. I think about that every time I look up and see a boat like this chugging by:



Should I call the police and mention it? There are no registration numbers on it. No home port on the stern. No radio antenna...are they fishing illegally? Do they belong here? Or should I just mind my own business and assume its just a local whose boat I am just not familiar with. I tend to err on the side of 'minding my own business' unless I see something that I know needs intervention.

So that's basically what's been going on with us. Picking up the pieces and counting our losses and moving on. Trying to figure out how and when we are going to get another boat, of course. We hope to have some really good news to report on that front in the near future, but I don't want to jinx the possibility by talking about it until it happens. Rest assured the whole tone of these photos will change for the better when we get back on the water.

In the meantime, while we think about another powerboat for fishing and transportation, we have been toying with the idea of something like a small sailing catamaran. Not the floating mini-RV we dream about having eventually (Gemini 105), but something more along the lines of a Hobie cat. It's a shame to not be taking advantage of the wind here.

I still have an 8 foot diameter piece of dented up aluminum taking up a lot of floor space in the garage:



It was a whole lot of fun getting that thing down the driveway and into the garage in a 40 mph wind. It wants to fly.

I stopped myself from cutting it up into pieces. I just know that a few days after I decide to make a pile of 2x2' squares out of it for convenient storage, I am going to suddenly and desperately need a 3 foot section. Meanwhile, here it sits awaiting a good idea of some kind.

And until that project manifests itself, we can take photos of sunrises..