Odds and ends

The mouth of a Parrot fish! The Joker.

With the monster pour behind me, the forms all taken down and stored, the skies opened up and the rains came. This ended what had been a very dry spell. Great for work but bad for every cistern. The water trucks have a field day making deliveries to all the folks that ran out of water. Locals usually don't run out of water but rental villas do. Visitors bring their usage rates with them. The average islander uses maybe 20% of what passes for normal water usage stateside. When the rains come, for which there is no schedule, everything blooms. The rain forest turns green right before your eyes over three or four days. It has to be seen to be believed. Francis Bay
A Flamboyant tree blooms.

As luck would have it, the property is sprinkled with wild jasmine trees and a few others I don't know about. The bloom lasts maybe a couple of weeks. But oh la la, the fragrance. When the construction finally ends we can then get to the landscaping and have some influence over the current randomness of the rain and what blooms. Many have told me I should have started right away with this, but the truth is, I had no idea where anything was going to go. Had I, it would have been run over by now. Build your house then plant your garden etc and in two years it will look like it has been there for twenty years. Anyone in Florida knows what I'm talking about.
Signs and symbols!

Long story short--Cost U Less on St Thomas has a relationship with Costco back in California--San Francisco/Oakland to be exact. There is actually a Cost U Less up in the Gold country in California near Yosemite. I mean, what are the chances that you move almost 4,000 miles away, land on a 21 square mile island in the middle of the sea and the coffee/bread/cheese etc you have been eating for thirty years shows up within two years.

They carry several of the most popular bakeries from San Francisco including La Brea from L.A. Incidentally a three pound bag of this coffee only costs $2 more. The world is definitely getting smaller. If you want the organic they have that too.
Leinster Bay ruins. An old guard house.

OK, back to work. With the hurricane season, July-November, fast approaching I figured I would first get back to finishing all the tile work. Lay the porch, bathroom and then grout everything. The porch was the most important. While it was covered with a waterproof membrane, Stratoflex for the curious, it was not glued down. Early on I had taken some damaged rolls out of the container and put it down on the deck to protect the sub floor. Not smart. Water still found a way in and I had to take up the top layer and replace it. Not a lot of work but a pain in the ass. It was this water that made it imperative that the tile be laid and grouted before any wind driven rain arrived.

In laying out the tile the pattern the measurements worked perfect-no cuts aside from the threshold separating the living room from the porch. As a result my last row of tile, a full row, was at the edge of the porch. I mean how lucky could I get? Or so I thought.

Hmmm. Why is this perimeter row around the porch not sloping right? The subfloor was perfectly level, sloping one inch over eight feet. And yet it seemed that the last row was not as sloped. WTF.

The real bad news? I did not see this until it was too late. I was sitting in an Adirondack chair looking at something else I screwed up. Not all the travertine tiles were the same thickness and I had some problems with my thinset. You know, I mixed it with measuring buckets and I still screwed it up somehow. Basically I would lay about 50-70 suare feet and be done for the day. Next morning I came in and what had been level was now slightly uneven in a few places/corners. Not everywhere but enough to bug me. Stateside I would just rent a grinder and level the whole floor as they do during a remodel-billard table level with a new honed finish. What happened even happens to professionals sometimes, so living with it on St John won't be so bad.

Denise forgave me. Who knows, someday they may have grinders here and I'll put it on my honey do list.

But back to the real problem--the slope change on the last row of tile allowed water to puddle. Plus, once I saw it, I could not, not see it even when there was no water. I tried to live with it for a couple of weeks but couldn't. Out came the sledge and the meticulous work of only breaking the edge tiles and not the adjoining ones. It took a long time. So long in fact that the 26' long run is still there waiting to see it the gutters and trim work, still to come, prevent the water from accumulating.

After busting out all the tiles I still could not figure out why the sub floor was out. Steel is steel. Every joist is exactly the same. Screw down your sub floor, cement the earthquake waterproofing membrane and be done with it. Lay tile. But somehow I'm a 1/8- 3/16" high on the outer edge--just enough to puddle water. With that I cut out the top sheet of plywood and replaced it with a 1/4" thinner sheet. I got my 1/4 back but where did it go in the first place?
The culprit. The angled pieces of 14 gauge galvanized steel(laying on the ground in the pic above) that I used to sheath my red iron connecting rafters and studs. Among a host of reasons it gave me a screw surface for my siding and roofing panels. In the picture below you can see it more clearly on the roof on the hips and also where the wall meets the roof--the silver banding so to speak.
I used this fabricated galvanized because they would not let me drill holes in the red iron beams and attach 2x10 boards as they do in California. You just bolt the boards inside the I-beams and you have your screw edge. Tying the rafters and studs together with weldable steel did give it a Fort Knox feel however. It also gave me the problem on the porch.

When I put up the 20' columns I added a one inch slope to the porch--not in the original plans.
The 20' red iron columns and the porch in question.

This new slope presented a minor roof line issue but the real problem was in the 90 degree angle that I had prefabricated into the sheet metal. The new angle where the porch joists met the red iron beams was now greater than 90 degrees and the sheet did not lay perfectly flat. You can't re bend the angle however. Anyway you could not see it or so I thought. I mean what's 1/8-3/16's amongst friends? The slight uplift translated through the plywood sub floor and finally showed up under the last tile. I know, I'm being annal but the whole idea was not to have water puddle on the last row of tile after every rain. The thought of having to possibly take out the last row is not something I'm looking forward to.
The infamous Lionfish. An invasive species from the Pacific that escaped private aquariums in Florida during a hurricane in the early 90's. They are taking over until a natural enemy emerges.

After finishing the tiling I spent a week or more grouting everything. With easy access to clean water being a problem I used her approach to grouting.

Just the lines ma'am, just the lines....cleaning as you go. It made clean up and rinsing the floor so much easier.
St. John's nearly one month excuse to party. Starts in June and ends after July 4.

The New York Dolls lead singer David Johanson aka Buster Poindexter says it best.

In keeping with a long tradition that I documented in previous posts, a yacht/ferry from St Croix ran up on the rocks the night of the fire works. They thought they knew a short cut. You are allowed to drink and drive here but I don't know about boating!
She sat aground for over a month until a ocean going barge/crane could come down from New York of all places.I guess the blow up cruise ship in the kiddie park might have been a tip off of things to come.

Something I ate? No. This toilet spent several years inside a termite nest!

I dug it out when Denise told me she was coming back in mid July. It seems American airlines was basically giving away a free flight if you signed up for their MasterCard. With that news I stopped whatever I was doing and finished the septic. Poured the lids, installed the interior pipes and laid the waste pipe from the house. I made the connection from the house temporary. I was in no mood to dig about a 30' trench, at a starting dept of 3', on short notice. I need warning for something like that. That's a whole lot more cardio than I want at any given time! As it was, the temporary set up was pain enough on its own.
Waiting for daddy....

Despite the posters, it is not always sunny.

Two weeks fly by and Denise is gone. My mini vacation ends.

This is a mock up for how I may build my railings on the porch. Copper tubing, 1/2". I'll put a vertical support divider in the middle of each run with the standard 2x6 cap ledge. Basically 1x4's with holes drilled 4" on center. Slide them into place and screw the end boards home. I can knock out the entire porch in one day. Besides being economical, easy assembly and upkeep, code fulfilling, it's the patina on the copper that I'm really after!

The time is flying by. By the end of July it was time for my semi annual pilgrimage back to San Francisco. To use my mileage with United I had to fly on US Airways. Of course there are no seats available-ever-except for first class, nicking me for 60k miles. First class on US Airways is a joke. No movies or music. I was surprised they had food. The seats don't recline more than coach. Sure they were a little larger but a much better deal is coach with an empty seat next to you.
Flying over Eleuthera and Long Island in the Bahama chain. Satellite photos. Of course it does not look like this from 35,000 feet but if the lighting is right the views are amazing. The underwater sand dunes look exactly like mountain ranges.

Ahh, back home in San Francisco! The latest fashions.

Showing at the DeYoung--different spelling but the same pronunciation as the Governor of the Virgin Islands. Who knew! In a further coincidence he was in Detroit going to high school while I was at U of Detroit. We talked about it at the fireworks one year. That's the Twilight soundtrack you are hearing n the background!

The usual suspects. Museums, movies, burning cd's for the truck, adding to the ipod and mailing supplies back to St John. This time, strap hinges and the like for the shutters I will be making. Yes, it is cheaper to buy and ship but the real issue is availability. While you can get most everything on St Thomas at a price, the waiting time can be impossible. My two trips a year back to SF has solved most of these issues. I can't say enough about Priority shipping with the Post Office. Extremely affordable and the email tracking service is excellent. Five to ten days and all the packages show up.

And in a first, a car repair. The 20 year old Lexus coupe finally needed a repair. There was a leak in the gasket behind the water pump. I mention this because they gave us a brand new Tacoma pickup to drive for a couple of days. Did they know I have a 1998 that had been in a head on a year after arriving on St John?
Now I ask you, what are the chances that you ship your truck 4000 miles only to have a "local" driving on the wrong side of the road crash head on into you with his vehicle plastered with stickers that say "Keep Tahoe blue" among others. When he comes to, he says his name is "Tahoe Dave". Don't stop the carnival.
And over at the Legion of Honor....



The Unseen Sea. Full screen, speakers on.

Down to Stanford University for the womens finals of the Bank of the West tourney. Serena Williams in her first competition since her injury and almost one year layoff. She won.

Great seats are always available.

Baby's got back!
The MOMA will be home to the 1100 piece Fisher collection. The collection is so large they are going to build a wing larger than the original museum to house it. San Francisco almost found a way to lose the collection. The Fisher's, on their own dime, wanted to build a museum in the Presidio. Local opposition prevented it. Talk about biting the hand.

Also on exhibit at the time
http://www.sfmoma.org/exhib_events/exhibitions/410 The Steins Collect, Gertrude and family.

We are getting close enough with the house on St John that we are stealing colors! This house is around the corner from us in San Francisco. We could not get it right so we will be knocking on their door. There's no guarantee they will give it to us. If they had a colorist pick the color we are probably not getting it.
I wonder how my feral kiddies are doing? They do know how to get by.