Another year

Finally returned to St John, mid September, after my return through Miami was delayed by a passing hurricane.

Okay where was I? Oh yeah, digging in the mud in the often mentioned septic. The work and new rebar were still in place with no new slides. Things are looking up despite the rains while I was gone. With the incomplete pour last May it was hard to know where to start. I had to leave up so much form work on the incomplete walls. The project seemed like a disorganized mess, no closure on individual steps. The septic, with constant fears of cave in's, was giving me heartburn, all kidding aside.

On the positive side I had a slab in the pool. I could set about framing the walls, slightly complicated because I had to form the walls around the beams and pier.

It was at this point I decided to flip it into a giant jacuzzi. Now I had to study up on Jacuzzi design. A few days later with my PHD in jacuzzi design I ordered all the jets etc from Florida. Along one wall with a bench will be all the jacuzzi jets. The bench will conceal the lights. I'll hide the pier by building the steps around it. All in all it will be an 8x8, five foot deep splash pool/jacuzzi looking out at the mountains and sea. I'll pour the walls 10 inches thick to double as retaining walls under the deck near the house.

Hurricane season in the islands runs June 1st to November 30th. Much time is spent eyeballing all the associated tracking sites from the coast of Africa. Thankfully the chances of getting hit by a hurricane are very low, lower still by the "eye". The last majors to hit were 1995 and 1986 resulting in total devastation for the most part, as Florida or New Orleans can attest when it happens. The normal path is across the Atlantic from the west coast of Africa. As one forms they are followed VERY closely. On rare occasions tropical depressions can form off of Panama or South America. I bring this up because in early October such a storm developed.

No one really talked about it until it made a dramatic turn and started heading straight north gaining serious momentum. Myself, I was busy figuring out the logistics of the pool when my friend Roger called asking if I had looked at my computer lately.

No. Why?

Take a look, we have a problem.

A Category 1 in the morning, Category 3 in the afternoon heading directly at us. I should have known there was a problem when the tree frogs went hopping by with their suitcases. Duh.

What to do with the Shack? A direct hit blows it away. A near miss and everything inside is wet and moldy afterwards. It will be any one's guess where the roof tin ends up. So like a nut I did this. I figured I'd steer the water to the sink!

Roger called again to see what I planned to do. I tell him I'll ride it out in the shack. He laughs.

The wait begins as darkness sets in. Heavy rains, winds, then no rain or wind. Roger calls. I tell him I think we missed it. He laughs.

An hour later, with the cell phone still working, I'm wailing on the phone asking what to do. The gigantic tree near the shack is twisting like a piece of spaghetti. It looks like it is doing 180's. If it drops a limb on the shack I'm dead. I ask Roger if I should make a run for it. He says it's too late. I'll get killed on the road. I hang up. It gets worse. Trees start falling. I can't take it under this monster tree. I snap into panic mode. A grown man holding his nuts like he has to go to the bathroom. Shear fright sets in when a humongous limb snaps off the tree and makes a noise louder than the 100mph winds howling by.

I collect all my electronics and plan a run to the truck. I have no idea where I am going. You have to see the route to understand the difficulty of getting to the truck. Plus, for added fright, it goes under the monster tree! It is no easy passage in dry times. I step outside the shack in the dark. BOOM! I stumble forward uphill falling off the planks with screaming winds, ankle deep mud, small debris hitting you constantly, all the while panic stricken by the large limbs above, sideways rain and all this with glasses on. I cannot see a thing. I'm so scared I'm laughing my ass off figuring I have finally done it. My heart is going to blow out. This is right up there with some one pulling a gun on you.

Stumbling, crawling, I make it to the truck. It is buried under small tree debris. Jumping in I try to calm down. I can't. The constant pelting of branches and small trees whipping the truck with the lightning flashing all around keeps my panic alive. Plus I'm still under several large trees. Your brain wants to race out of control.

With the rain and leaves making the windshield wipers useless I start up the driveway. My temporary driveway, as I have previously mentioned, is so steep you cannot see it as you go up. Under normal circumstances I use the tree line above to steer by. In low four wheel drive I start up going about 3 mph trying to feel the concrete. Somehow I make it through the world's most violent car wash with my windshield still intact knowing I brought this all on myself.

After what seems like forever I get to the top of the cul de sac and look down the road with the high beams. I realize I am not going anywhere, whipping trees and debris everywhere. The truck is rocking and rolling. I am so f'ked. I have truly outdone myself. Worse still there is a moon behind all this and you can see all the trees doing unimaginable twists and turns. There is no getting out of this one.

Frozen, I sit there in the truck for what seems an eternity. The panic becomes manageable as I imagine the lumber rack on top has to add some protection but.... these trees are so large. With that I finally get a good idea. If I can blindly back up the small road behind me I can slide my truck along side one of my 20' containers protecting at least one side from the wind. Hopefully any falling tree will hit the container before it hits me. At one or two miles per hour I creep up the road and CRUNCH. My heads snaps even at 2 mph. A huge tree fell on me? I jump out of the truck. Quickly drenched I realize I crashed into the first container. Forward, reverse and I'm along side the container. Immediately the truck stops shaking, the howling ends and an eerie calm sets in. I can't believe it. I almost pass out from the come down.

I look at the phone. I have bars, go figure. I call Roger. He laughs. Next I call Denise. We talk for an hour as I describe the hurricane in front of me. She's with her girl friend and they put the speakerphone on for a blow by blow. Her friend cannot believe I'm calling from the middle of a hurricane. With a full moon behind the clouds the silhouetting was excellent. All I can say, trees are actually rubber. Don't let anyone tell you different.

The phones go dead, I fall asleep. A couple of hours later I wake at first light. The truck is buried, it is hard to open the door. The storm is gone. Getting out it looks like a war zone. I start walking down the hill. I'm afraid to look. Trees have fallen across my temporary power lines knocking the pole sideways but not breaking the lines. Several large trees have snapped half way up and fallen onto my neighbor's property. Shit, more work.

As I venture down the driveway I assume the shack is gone. I can't see anything until I round the retaining wall. Under the debris it is still there with several large trees toppled right next to it. I go inside, everything is fine. I never had to leave! I collapse in bed and sleep all morning thinking St John has been trashed.

I awake, get my chainsaw, machetes and start clearing the driveway, cul de sac, power lines and free my truck. Several hours later I drive down the mountain to see the aftermath. Nothing whatsoever has happened. How can this be? Flowers in place, goats munching and all the palm trees swaying in the breeze. They even have electricity. Apparently I live in the twilight zone. I just lost my biggest trees that survived category five hurricanes in the past that wiped out 90% of St John's housing stock and folks are having breakfast drinking coffee on the patio at the Big Belly deli! When questioned they asked what hurricane? I was dumbfounded. I drove to Cruz Bay. A tree here, a branch there but nothing really. I lost my best trees and there was no hurricane? Later, depending on who you talk to, a few properties high on the mountain were hit by wind shears, small tornadoes or some such at probably 125mph. Most of my trees were felled in a straight line traversing the property and then crossing my neighbors disappearing into the jungle. The eye of the storm passed on the other side of Tortola about 20 miles away. The high winds were only at higher elevations and then only in selected spots. Whatever, my favorite tree, the one the hawk family perched in was gone. The hawks have never been back. Before and after......

Moral of the story? I won't be staying in the shack if another hurricane approaches.

With the torrential rains the pool filled with mud and silt, a lot less because of the boards I quickly threw up before fleeing. The lower septic had another cave in.

I spent the next couple of weeks cleaning up the trees off my neighbors property, digging out the pool and septic. I did not even try throwing out the mud and rock from the septic. I just saved as much of the rebar as I could and spread the debris around raising the floor about 18 inches. The pool I had to dig out. One of the fallen trees had a large beehive that Wayne, my neighbor, was all to happy to harvest. He now raises bees after taking lessons on island!

They're back. Mosquitoes. With the rains come the bloom. St John is basically bug free, even in the jungle when it doesn't rain heavy. I work shirt and repellent free most of the year. But when it rains in inches they bloom, do they ever, for a couple of weeks. The only part of me showing at those time is my face. Long sleeves, pants, gloves, Arab head dress, the works. You get very hot and in no time your clothes are soaking wet--head to toe. Rubber boots fill up with sweat. I'm good for about four hours and then I have to go inside. That was basically November while I formed up the pool and laid new rebar for the septic.

I am so ready to go home for the holiday's. Everything will be building for a large pour when I return. The pool, septic, and lower deck.

All in all, not a good year. With the weather, concrete delays, trips home, Greece and Turkey maybe four months of actual work. Even some of that was do overs. I dug the pool and septic out twice.

There's a house in here somewhere.

House, what house?

Usually I don't like leaving the island even to go home. Do not get me wrong, I can't wait to get back to San Francisco when I know I'm going but I also know it is a break in momentum. While it is primarily psychological the truth is I rapidly fall out of "work" shape no matter how much hiking etc I do at home. Sixty will do that to you especially when combined with concrete and form work. It is a brutal three weeks when I return to get back in shape.


San Francisco was wonderful as usual. Who would not like returning to your wife, Pacific Heights on Broadway and a Lexus coupe in the garage? I mean really folks, food, museums, movies, a bathroom, hot water, friends, and countless other distractions to help forget the clusterf'k that was the last few months on St John. All this and more concluded with a trip to Texas to visit my mother and other family.

Proving once again the old maxim that you take your head wherever you go there was a Chihuly glass exhibit/installations at the DeYoung and Legion museums when I arrived. Who knows what he named it but it looked like a reef in glass. St John on my brain.

Summer in San Francisco

In a blink San Francisco was over and we flew to Texas. Once there we decided to take my mother on an African safari. Only in Texas! This place was a trip. It turns out it is very close to Granbury where my mother lives.

Fossils going to see fossils!

She is why I don't eat meat. :~)

We were warned Zebras bite.

Ostriches are a whole lot bigger than you think. Once they get their head inside the car you are in deep trouble. Very nasty and fast. They will get any food.

Emu, a lot nicer than the ostriches.

The weeks went by in a blur. I returned to St John after July 4th, missing the Carnival.

To get back in shape I started removing the remaining forms from the retaining walls. At best I can work a four/five hour day to start. The heat exhaustion just knocks me down. The biggest hurdle is mental. Just getting up to start work knowing what I face is the hardest part.

These forms have to stay up now because of the voids. Another wonderful pour job with hot concrete. (These are the same pics from a prior post.)

With the forms done, I then arranged for all my steel to be trucked up from Elvis's where it had been stored since November 2006. I put it up by the water tanks. That will save $200 month. From the top of the driveway I'll be able to drag it down piece by piece as I need it. It was well worth keeping it at Elvis's. It is much drier down in the valley. The steel showed no real rust despite sitting open nearly two years in the tropics.

Heavy rains, a constant random threat, caused another small mud slide in the septic covering the rebar. Digging mud again! Yikes. The game here is every break in work has a potential downside. Until every project is completed the elements can cause trouble. Working alone or with another person has added inherent risk because projects take longer.

Bad news from home. Denise got laid off. Not good. It is one thing for me to be away for months at a time but at least Denise had work to keep her mind off my absence. Weekends were already tough. Now it will be seven days a week. With this as backdrop I start digging out the septic yet again. It is at this point Denise is very sympathetic to my digging in the mud--I'm being set up.

Usually it's, "that's the choice you made now get it done"!

For several years we have had an open invitation to sail Turkey and the Greek isles with our friends Dave and Patricia. They keep their 44' Beneteau in Turkey, spending summer's sailing in the Mediterranean. Denise gets it in her head that now is the time. I resist as usual. This house is never getting built!

To make a long story short I spend the next ten days trying to get tickets to Istanbul using mileage on United, which at the time is imploding with the stock market decline and rising crude oil prices. Truth is, I thought they were headed for their second bankruptcy along with our miles. Between us, we have several hundred thousand miles.

As anyone who has tried to put a trip together with miles knows, one leg is always easy with the other being near impossible. I spent the ten days mentioned calling from St John at midnight California, Chicago, London and Istanbul time looking for cancellations. My dates were open, any class of service. Why midnight? I was told by different United reps that each of those cities was the control point for the trip I was trying to organize and that cancellations would be posted midnight their time. Too funny, but I kept calling anyway.

Finally after several cancelled 72 hour bookings someone cancelled on the Istanbul-Frankfurt leg in business class. When could we return? In five weeks! That is why our trip was over five weeks. Business class round trip, upstairs on a 747. The last time I was upstairs on a 747 in the 70's, it was a bar and smoking lounge, I had hair down to my ass, all the while up to no good.

Hoo rah! Going sailing again!

Building a house, what house?

I got home, burnt about 50 cd's for the boat, scored a new digital movie camera and pumped up the ipod. Ordered everything on Amazon to be delivered to SF when I arrived. It was a hectic three weeks, SF-St John-SF-Istanbul. The pics link is on the blog home page. The seven hours of film will be a editing project on Denise's Mac Pro using i-movie, later to be burnt to dvd.

Istanbul.......