bordeaux mountain: Taking things head on

Part of the family that weaves the world's largest web, 3-4 feet across. You don't walk through them, the silk and your fear is that strong.

Well its been a long time since my last update. Among the many valid reasons, tucked away deep in the back, is laziness. This is not as easy as others make it look--not to mention my computer is tending to crash all the time with the dreaded blue screen, "Hardware failure, Memory/Parity error, the system has halted". It truly sucks besides which computer makers have no idea what causes it.

Be that as it may I arrived as planned on October 20th. Blue skies, sunny weather. It had rained while I was gone, a lot! Next on tap was my planned concrete pour for the 24th.

This nice beautiful footing/beam, neatly tucked under a massive blue tarp while I returned to San Francisco, no longer looked like this. Instead massive rains had flooded the house slab and then drained, of course, under the tarp and moved the entire deck area an inch or two down the hill. And if that wasn't enough, the earth collapsed around my pier before I could button it up. Ah yes, hillside building in a tropical rain forest. There was no possibility of straightening the beam or digging out the pier. With only a couple of days to the pour, the bulge was staying. Further proof that every prior delay will have consequences. You just don't know what they are going to be!

October 24th arrived sunny and dry. The pumper truck and concrete trucks should have no problems getting up the mountain, in fact I'm the first pour of the day for Jeff. Or so I thought until the manager of Centerline concrete showed up at 8:30 am. This is not good. Jeff bailed again with whatever mechanical excuse was the flavor of the day. They just don't want to come up the mountain. Worst still a replacement crew/truck wouldn't be arriving until the afternoon. Leo and the boys to be precise--the Putzmeister, as his truck is called. He's got the putz right. I'm always worried when folks show up wearing shower sandals, it's quite the look down here. I immediately let them know I'm not humping pipe. I'll point when necessary. Leo, who was not Leo as it turns out but his nephew instead, was a likable guy.

The pour by standards was fairly simple. My upper retaining wall, footings and the lower pier and beams. I think it was 20 yards. We poured the footings first and then moved to the lower pier etc. Afterwards we would come back to the walls I had suspended over the footings. By the time we returned, the concrete would have set enough to hold the weight of the fresh concrete inside the wall forms. It's a bold move by a rookie!

Work proceeded as planed. Upper footings, connect about 100 ft of pipe and pour down below. Beams and footings, check. Now the pier. The cornerstone of the whole operation! The piece that pulls it all together, 2x2x8ft. When the concrete filled to about the six foot mark a great whooshing sound was heard as the concrete blew out the bottom, the bottom buried under that mudslide I previously mentioned. Now I had a lake of concrete. After saying bad things about what people do to mothers, I gave the f*k it sign with the wave of my arm and told them to break down the pipe and pour the upper wall. We can't wait for the concrete to set up. The truck has got to pump with another coming up the mountain. The real drag is the pier supports and holds the beams in place which further hold the hillside in place. Now I only have a half filled column with rebar from the beams still showing.

It gets worse.

The truck that had to leave got stuck connected to the pumper when its rear axle froze. Meanwhile there's another truck sitting with a hot load brewing on the spot. Yikes. Not to be outdone, the skies open up and a deluge starts. I'm talking raindrops that hurt. In the confusion over the next 40 minutes of crews scrambling to get the rear axle fixed, Leo forgets all the pipe he has out with concrete still in them and it hardens. Now we have to break down everything into 10 foot sections and pound it out with baby sledges. See you later! Me, I disappear with my damaged elbows back down below and start filling five gallon buckets with the concrete from my lake and pour them back into the pier. Without having a heart attack and before the concrete finally set I raised the interior level back to the six foot mark. At least it was something.

The rain abated about forty five minutes later with everyone having water coming out of their knee high rubber boots. It was not comfortable. Thankfully the walls were poured without incident. What should have been a three hour job took almost seven. Leo tried to have me pay for the extra time. "Yo, Leo, I'm not the pipe with the concrete stuck in it and I didn't break the rear axle." Leo won't be pumping for me again.

It's now going on a year my having stayed with Fran and Roger in Cruz Bay. At the moment I was house sitting again with them up in New York for a couple of weeks. Sleeping with the dogs, I was. My favorite little monsters. The original plan was I would stay in Cruz, house sit etc for three or four months until the electric company put up poles and power . Here we are a year later and Fran had had enough of Roger and me laying around having a good time, at her expense I might add, on several occasions. It definitely worked out for all of us with their being able to take several vacations and me having a place to stay for the seven or so months I was on island. On top of that they refused any rent. It was all I could do to get them to go out to dinner figthing Roger for the check.

They were due back on November 4th and I promised to be in Coral Bay by the 10th.

zoomed in view from the cul de sac

My original intention, and it sits in one of the containers, was to move to the property and live in a three room 18x11 tent resting on a platform. It was a good idea until I experienced a torrential downpour, not to mention I had no level area even remotely approximating 18x11.

Plan B.......

the back side of the newly poured 12ft upper retaining wall......

The way I saw it one wall was already done! That's a 12'x12' platform I'm bolting to the wall. I decided to built a post and beam shack completely bolted and screwed together that will be taken apart at some future date. With screws it's a lot easy to hold things in place with your shoulder etc and put things together while keeping a level on top of a joist as you work.

"Deadwood" comes together

This is the interior view I didn't like. At this point I changed the two main flaps overlooking the valley. By having the flaps swing outward I lost considerable views and light. Not to mention my flaps were 6x4 with reinforcing trim. They were a bear to open plus I had screening problems I could foresee. In the end I left two as they were and changed three others.

So from that I went to this, a 4x12ft picture window with a bigger view.

Altogether, not including rain delays, it took me about 15 days to put it together. Total cost in materials about $2500. Meanwhile I slept in my camper shell on the back of my truck for several nights. It was perfect. I backed it up to the end of the cul de sac and this is what I woke up to every day. Living large by my standards.

Roadhouse blues--Jim Morrison and the Doors
Keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel
Keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel
Yeah, we're goin' to the Roadhouse
Gonna have a real Good time
Yeah, in back of the Roadhouse they got some bungalows
Yeah, in back of the Roadhouse they got some bungalows
And that's for the people Who like to go down slow
Let it roll, baby, roll
Let it roll, baby, roll
Let it roll, baby, roll
Let it roll, all night long
Ashen lady, Ashen lady
Give up your vows, give up your vows
Save our city, save our city
Right now
Well, I woke up this morning, I got myself a beer
Yeah, I woke up this morning, and I got myself a beer
The future's uncertain, and the end is always near
Let it roll, baby, roll
Let it roll, baby, roll
Let it roll, baby, roll
Let it roll, all night long

They crossed all the way over to clip the tree--we drive on the opposite side here

This is a very common scene on St John. Well let's put it this way it is not uncommon. I took the photos above and the one below was in one of our local papers, the Tradewinds. Because of the roads here we have the lowest posted speed limit in the US and territories 20mph with no passing allowed anywhere on island. Yes, everyone does 30 and passes on blind turns. In fact you are allowed to drive and drink at the same time. I know what you are thinking. Plus let's not forget you are driving on the left as an added bonus. ( driving on the left with our cars is actually quite brilliant)

Every vehicle on St John is damaged and I mean every vehicle except for mine of course. In the last year alone eight people have died in assorted accidents. Most are work related. Back hoes, concrete trucks etc going over steep cliffs. That's a small track hoe in the water after it slid down the road and went over the cliff. the operator jumped off before it went over.

Two guys in the concrete truck weren't lucky. This is the truck after it was turned it over.

It's quite gruesome. In one episode a jeep flipped over backwards going up a steep hill when it lost power. Two young girls were killed. In another a parking brake failed and the vehicle crushed a lady against a retaining wall. The tree trimmer from California lost his life when he tried to jump back into his cherry picker to stop it from going over a wall--it took him with it. The list goes on and on. Per capita this has got to be the deadliest place going. What I can tell you is if you take your eyes off the road for even one second you are risking life and limb even at ten to twenty miles per hour.
Here's another set of photos......

This one I got to see take place...... THAT'S MY TRUCK!!!!!

Tahoe Dave as he is affectionately known, a long time resident, had just returned from a month in Spain where they drive on the right. Myself, I was returning to the love shack via the north shore road, having just finished climbing up a series of steep four wheel drive switchbacks when I crested the hill and started down--max speed at this point 10mph. Sure I saw the headlights coming around the turn at about 30mph but I didn't think they were in my lane! All Tahoe remembers is someone screaming "you stupid motherf..." just before impact. He woke up to the same. WOW, the sound of impact. Now I have in the past t-boned a Camry at 30mph on California street in San Francisco rushing to get to the market open at 5am, but a head on is a whole different breed of cat especially at night. You don't know what you are about to be hit by. It's a life changing event!!!!

By the time of impact I was already stopped having dove for the shoulder. He followed me over there! His instinct had him turn the wrong way. We met headlight to headlight. My cow catcher basically totaled his old car, snapped his seat belt and put his face through his steering wheel. My cursing and swearing ended the minute I saw him and his girl friend stagger out of the car with blood everywhere. What are you going to do. Anyway both vehicles had to be towed as I sat by the side of the road crying in my beer. I called Roger. I didn't have a clue what to do or what the local procedurers were. You are dazed and confused. In fact you are not certain who's fault it is. Your vehicle appears to be on the wrong side of the road. I took pictures as he said and waited for him and the police to show up. Roger ended up driving Dave to the hospital where they couldn't fix his face. He later had to have surgery. Meanwhile I had to find a place to tow my truck to. Dwight, the tow man, suggested the DMV parking lot as it was the weekend.

I moved back into Roger's for a few days--stranded in Cruz Bay. I ended up renting two different jeeps. Each worse than the next.

Next day Dwight and I went down to look at the damage. Aside from being crushed inward about six to eight inches no main engine parts seemed to be broken. Hmmm. Hook up the winch. With that we slowly winched out my entire front end pulling the plastic, yes plastic, radiator away from the fan so it could turn. She started after fooling around with all the cables. Whew. I put the headlights back in with duct tape, cut off all the broken plastic and metal and immediately drove to my insurance company to renew my policy which had recently expired. Who knew! Thank god the accident wasn't my fault. Two days later I got my new 08 sticker at the DMV. Tahoe had insurance and despite the naysayers I got a check for $5400 which went into my last concrete pour. I now have an official St John truck!

The accident happened on November 17th. I didn't really get back to work for another week, what with getting police reports or at least trying to get them. Had to get a couple of estimates etc etc.

some local ruins.......

With the shack sleepable I went about my time taking off all the forms on the upper retaining walls so I could have the drive way retaining wall back filled and have the driveway scupltured so it would be useable getting me down the hill closer to the cottage.

Edwin showed up a couple of days later. Originlly he said it would be three weeks. We started getting a lot of rain and track hoes don't work when it's wet--they start sliding and there's nothing that can stop them.

When he got to the bottom of the driveway after back filling the wall I had him turn left and continue very percariously down the hill to the cottage.

Here I had him dress up the previous work that had been done but not to my liking. Instead of having one tall wall I have chosen to break it into two. One eight footer, a landscape shelf and finally an upper 4 footer. Should look pretty good. Also an eight foot wall is a whole lot easier to build. In addition I had him dig the footings for the eight foot retaining wall, zig zagging to save the palm tree. It's a little strange but I'll make it work. When you are using the outdoor shower and look up you will see the palm.

To lessen the steepness of the driveway Edwin lowered the top another 3-4 feet. As you can see the old road was originally at the bottom of the black plastic. Ultimately I will be adding another four feet to the driveway retaining wall bringing it to 16 feet further lessening the steepness---lower the top and raise the bottom. It works.

The remaining hours were spent going up and down the driveway pounding it down. Total time spent on everything was 10 hours at $165 an hour.

Finally the long awaited moment. Truth is, I was afraid to go down and get stuck. Edwin laughed as he roared down the driveway in an old beater Explorer. He even stopped half way up to rub it in! But my fear is well placed. If I get stuck on this mountain it could be a long time before I'm freed.

It's now the end of November. I jumped down to the lower patio and started putting up the forms for a small wall running along side the house.

What a pain in the ass. The footings were anything but level, as a result of me forgetting to trowel them when I was dealing with the pier blow out. Then the rains came back. None of my forms lined up etc etc. Doing it alone made it near impossible. I kind of punted as there was no concrete on island and my road up the mountain was no longer passeable had there been any. Making matters worse a tropical depression that they thought was going to be become a hurricane passed to the south of us over St Croix. Massive rains and sustained 45-55mph winds lasted almost a week. Jungle debris everywhere. Limbs and branches covered the ground. Basically it wasn't safe to go out on the property. In fact on a day I was having a delivery of whalers I had bought, an enormus tree snapped in half narrowingly missing a truck. It snapped in half because, as it turns out, it was hollow. The occupants were very pissed. As we went to look, thousands and thousands of bees made for us or so we thought. When you see a swarm the size of a car moving in your direction you don't stand and calculate the distance. Regretably there were witnesses and they happily enacted our shrieking and running whenever we showed up at the bar.
A couple of days later a few Dominicans showed up, created some smoke and made off with a five gllon bucket of honeycomb.