Back in freezing San Francisco. I used to think the winter was warm here. After being gone the better part of six months, in Florida and St John, the 40's feel cold. Anyway onto more important things.
Returned to St john in the middle of November to meet my truck at customs on St Thomas. With my friend Roger's help and advice I cleared most of the paperwork, fees, etc on St John. The folks at Tropical shipping, I can't say enough about them, did their part so that everything went smoothly. Rumors that it would take days turned into one day by clearing most every thing on St John, population 3500+ vs St Thomas with 50,000+. No lines vs long lines. Ferried over to St Thomas and cleared the truck and brought it back with California plates. Supposedly I was to change the plates. I couldn't resist riding with the plates for a few days. Total clearing, license, insurance fees etc about $800. So when you work in the tramp steamer you are looking at about $2000.
Boy, this is easy or so I thought. The real fun started a week later. I might have mentioned this earlier but I bought two 20ft containers that I had professionally packed by BI Consolidators, a division of Tropical shipping. Like the folks at Tropical, I can't say enough about these folks. They let me on the dock to direct the packing order. First in last out, a perfectly balanced load--more on this later. Anyway back to the drama. The total freight moved was about 42 tons--I know, that's a lot of sh*t! It worked out to my two containers, a 20 foot open skid and 5 tons in someone else's 40 footer.
Everything arrived safety as scheluded on Nov 30th. I had already arranged trucking as referred by Tropical--everybody knows somebody. Some minor paperwork and things would be cleared. Excise tax board and customs. Bada bing or so I thought. Excise tax board nicked us for about $2400 within two days, now on to customs. Meanwhile I have a plane ticket to bolt on December 15th and it's now Dec 5th--plenty of time to take possession, barge everything over and then have it humped up the mountain--hoping of course it doesn't rain turning this all into some kind of Landrover commercial. You get the plan. Back to customs and my daily call to Tropical and Boynes trucking--they expedited the load--to see if it cleared. Day after day against my Dec 15th departure day. Tic, toc and what's it going to cost us. Truth is I had no idea that customs did anything but look at the load. As for duties I had not seen any printed material that indicated any. Excise tax board yes, customs no. Finally Dec 14th late in the afternoon I was told the cargo had cleared--12 days after the Excise people. The bill, $127 for the new kitchen appliances! You have got to be kidding. 12 days for that? Truth is I thought the bill was going to be about $2000. So, net net I kept my mouth shut.
Now the fun part. While all that was taking place a major problem jumped up out of nowhere. Remember those containers I owned and was going to move up the mountain--well as it turns out no one could move them. The truckers in question thought they were empty. Apparently no one buys their own containers. People ship things, they get delivered to a site on a trailer, they are unloaded and the container and trailer return to the shipper within seven days or you are charged a per diem. The containers never leave the trailer that they are put on at the dock by those very large cranes. There are very few mobile cranes that can lift a 17 ton container and put it on the ground especially in the islands, St John in particular and on top of Mt Bordeaux. Say what? The local laughter was getting to be a bit too much!
So lets see. 42 tons of cargo, spread over 3 1/2 containers sitting on St Thomas needing to be moved pronto. I'm leaving in five days and Tropical needs the dock space for the xmas rush. Originally the cargo was to be transshipped to St John once it cleared. I put a halt to that because I did not have a place to put it and no one could get it off the trailer unless each container was unpacked. Trust me when I tell you this--there was no way they could be unpacked and repacked on top of the mountain. Those fork lifts or people don't exist. The purpose of buying the containers was storage and more importantly-- as safes. Tropical understood the misunderstanding about empty vs full containers and my dilemma. They did what they could--they refunded me, no questions asked the trans fee of $1700 and gave me some time to contemplate my navel.
Once upon a time on St John, Penn's trucking, which has the contract to pick up and empty 40ft garbage debris boxes, used to deliver full 20ft containers to mountainous jobsites for about $650. They did this until one tumbled down the mountain--the lawsuit is still ongoing. The trucks, the kind I needed, have a sliding bed that tilts up and winches up the container. As it is doing this it levels itself out. To deliver a full container it tilts up and the container slides off as the truck drives away very, very slowly controlling the cargo with a winched chain. I acted like I did not know about the lawsuit when I went to see Penn's. Young Mr Penn seemed nice enough and my offer of $1000 per, plus any papers I needed to sign, appeared to be working until he told me the road I had just been on was not paved so no delivery. No, trust me, it is, I was just there. The road is paved. him. Why am I even talking to you? me. Oh no, this is going badly. Lets just say we are not friends and now I am really desperate. He had the only trucks that could do it on St John.
Plan C. You can't have too many. Enter "Sleepy" and Terrance. Two locals from St Thomas. Boynes trucking, who was going to originally move my "empty" containers, gave me Sleep's number. As luck would have it he was to be on St John the next day. We rallied and drove across the island to Coral bay and up the mountain we went. Four hours later he said no problem if the rain holds off. He has the right trucks. We hit it off pretty good. He runs the same program I do, cash, handshake, no insurance, no papers who's better than "Sleepy".....I am. At least I call people back! Tic, toc my flight has to be canceled until the 20th.
Sleepy, call me back you m'fker. You're killing me! You have to stay in touch. I'm being ridden pretty hard with Sleepy jokes from my new friends on St john. It appears I'm Dopey hiring a guy named Sleepy!
Finally Sleepy.... yah man, tomorrow, I'm waiting on another truck, I want to move both containers at the same time. I don't need to call you, I told you I would do it. How's the road? No problem Sleepy, it's not muddy despite the rains. I've been up and down it everyday, we are down to embedded rock. Should I meet you at the barge or over in Coral bay? He tells me to stay on the mountain in Coral bay.
Next day..... Patrick, we have the containers and we are going to try for the four o'clock barge. It took all day in line at Tropical to get loaded by the big overhead crane. If we don't make the barge I'll come over the next day. I'll keep them at my house. My heart stops beating. Oh this is not good. 80k in construction materials with only a plastic customs lock in the heart of whatever constitutes a ghetto on St Thomas. I'm dying. I console myself by remembering I used to be good at judging people to move loads when a lot more was at stake. I would have trusted Sleepy then so I trust him now. Repeat whenever necessary.
One hour later, this is Sleepy, I'm on the barge, should be in Cruz bay by 4:30. You had better come to the dock. The load is not balanced. My truck is listing pretty bad to one side.... Me. Can't be. I was there when it was packed. I'll drive to the dock. As the trucks roll off the barge I'm parked in a large open area to the right. With arms flailing I get them to pull over. The truck is listing very badly. Why? The back outside rack of tires on the passenger side have been blown out under the weight! Two of the four are riding on the rims. Oh shit. The second of my heart attacks is starting. There is, to my knowledge, no jack, hoist or crane on St John that can lift this load. Not to mention it's going to be dark in two hours and we have to drive across the mountain roads to the eastend and then a 1000ft winding climb on a one lane with a switch back and sections that only a four wheel drive can traverse. I want to throw up. Well at least my load is not in the imaginary ghetto!
Riding on the rims, driven by a 22 year old rasta with his girlfriend(very hot) with another truck behind we set out in what I think is the wrong direction. As it turns out it's to drive by a friend to get a long air hose. With his monster "Freightliner" he cranks air reviving one of the tires and he proceeds to top off the other six. One is dead. I ask about it. "It's your 80k load and my 100k truck--we are in this together lets go". Like I said, my kind of guy all the while shitting my pants as the onlookers say 'no way'!
As this has been happening I realize I have a great photo op. With camera in hand I slide out of the truck to snap a few. Truck listing, people laying on the ground, on lookers, naysayers, traffic backed up and the like and me, the great white hunter. When the "great white hunter" flashed by I put the camera down. That's all I need to be, the litigious ahole bad vibing everything, he's taking pics so he can sue our sorry asses when we kill ourselves trying to get his stupid shit up the mountain....They would have been great pics as everyone attested the next day.
With me leading we set out for Coral bay. As luck would have it the road out leans into the mountain. On St John you drive on the left side, however the trucks/cars are American. So the driver side is always in the gutter. It actually makes for very easy driving on narrow to non existent roads. So, as I said, going out driving on the left side the driver side was leaning into the mountain relieving the pressure on the blown side. Bottom line, I consoled myself that the truck would tip over or crash into the side of the hill rather than plunge down a cliff when the remaining tires blew. It's the little things that count! At last Coral Bay, but it's twilight. Can we get up the mountain in 30 minutes? These trucks are not four wheel drive but the sheer weight of the load should give the rear tires all the traction they need. I mean who needs the front. Duh.
The first half went perfect. The minor problem now was the road sloped the wrong way and the pressure was on the blown tire. Thankfully no cliffs. If she goes over here, she will lie blocking the road. That's a whole lot better than down the mountain. It's dark now. At the bottom of the hill we discussed the strategy for the switchback. Basically full steam ahead straight up hill and then hard left into the bush backing out with the wheels hard over and going the last 1/4 mile up the hill in reverse. In a four wheel drive pickup you would go straight up the hill and then make a 90 degree right hand turn in first gear and then proceed up the next leg of the hill. Big trucks cannot make that turn. Everything goes as planned in the dark as the my rasta turns left, hard into the bush. Remember that rain. Well the road may have been down to rock but the bush was mud and I don't mean normal mud, I mean fine sand type mud, perfect for women's wrestling. The front tires drop about 18 inches and the wrestling starts. The front end won't swing around to get the back of the truck pointed up the next leg. Hour after hour trying to get it right. Backing out onto the inclined hill, twisting the frame of the truck behind the cabin, the uphill tires coming off the road. I'm having heart palpitations, I can't watch. I'm just seeing truck and load tumbling down the hill. With my truck up above we have the entire area lit up with the brights. This apparently provided night time entertainment for the folks down in Coral Bay who watched a bunch of aholes try to do the impossible. All the yelling and cursing gave it color echoing down the valley. I told Sleepy we should bail and try to winch the front end around the next morning. He said it could still be done and he had work to do that night on St Thomas. Tomorrow was out of the question. With that I went up to our property where I had built a plywood road so I wouldn't get stuck and brought it down. We attempted to do the same now with the truck's front end. One and half hours later they swung the front end over that pathetic 18 inches we had been trying for and she came out. I could not f'n believe it. I had assumed, everytime over the proceeding 2 1/2 hours as the truck went off the ground, that all was lost. The only other time in recent memory that my heart and adrenalin were so exploded was when I walked off that four story apartment roof in San Francisco. That's the only thing that compares.
The subsequent placing of the containers in the dark with chains snapping and blocks crashing is not even worth typing about. Let's just say I'm going to have to rethink this next time! The other one and a half containers sit at the bottom of the mountain at Elvis's where he has a fork lift. Hank, who has a brain--he said no thank you to running the containers-- and a truck will hump the steel up the mountain as I need it. How I arranged all this a day before I had to fly out, I have no idea.
What I will say is Marilyn, Tim, Jim and the folks at BI and Tropical are some of the people that I couldn't have done this without in Florida. Roger, Fran, Hank, Elvis, Sleepy et al are the folks that made it happen on St john. Without them this is all bullshit.
the containers bought used and inspected were $1710 each
tramp steamer for cargo $10,700
I get back to St John Jan 17th. We are penciled in to start excavating the driveway and house. While I waited for my cargo I cleared the driveway and general house area so we can have at it with the 'cat' on the 20th. I ran the driveway right along the property's border, as allowed by code, so that if I don't get the lot next door they will want deeded access to use ours. No problem, I just get to tell you where your house goes. Got to protect those sight lines!
One last thing, Sleepy was right. When I opened up the blue container the loading had been changed after I flew down to St John. It was probably unbalanced by 3000 lbs. Now was that enough? Either way he was right. It was unbalanced. Sleepy, you da man! He and crew missed the last barge back to St Thomas....
1 comment:
People should read this.
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