Hurricane season 2021 found us back in Texas. We sold our house in Homestead, FL back in the early 90s 6 months before Hurricane Andrew. It was destroyed. Fortunately it belonged to somebody else at the time. But after hearing story after story from our friends we left behind (they all go like this: It’s all fun and games until you’re cowering in the bathtub from the wind and the roof blows off) I swore that we will never be in a place to experience a big one. Buttercup doesn’t share my anxiety, but she’s generally an optimist. We worked on boring stuff like farming and accruing more building supplies for the house. Then came November and time to get back to work.
As you’ll remember we had mostly completed the foundation for the deck. The foundation posts and joists were in place. The next step was to put up the 6×6 posts that would support the handrails and awnings. These were a lot lighter than the 8x8s used in the foundation of the deck, but still a little much to hold in place by manhandling. So I invented the Post Launcher 2000. All of my inventions end in “2000” because that’s how old I am. The year 2000 was the Zenith of my tech education, everything after that (like any music made after 1982) is trivial and not worth bothering with.
So it worked by screwing the bottom of the 10 foot long and 80 lb post to the hinges in a horizontal position. Then with me lifting the top end of the posts from the ground and Princess pulling on ropes attached to the top we moved the post to vertical and secured it. Other than the very hard part of getting it to a 45 degree angle (I need to be taller) it worked well on the first post. Then we did another post and discovered the penalty for not keeping the post in a straight line during the lift.
Aside from the fact that I had an incipient hernia from the lift to 45 degrees, some improvements were in order before we proceeded. Thus the Post Launcher 2001 was born. This time instead of trying to lift the post from the ground to the deck we prepositioned the post at the top of the deck laying horizontally. The new jig attached to the deck and the approximate middle of the post so the post now pivoted around its center of gravity. A great refinement, all the rest of the posts were almost one handed lifts.
We continued along for a couple of weeks putting the posts up and securing them to the larger foundation posts with 1/2 inch threaded rod. If you ever have to drill long holes through wood like this, then throw away that cheap spade drill bit you thought was adequate. It’s going to get halfway through and get stuck. Then you spend at least an hour trying to get it unstuck. What you really need is the old fashioned auger bit like your Grandpa had. Doesn’t get stuck and you only have to clear the wood chips maybe once drilling a foot long hole.
After a month or so we had all the posts up and were able to cut the joists (we ran them wild till then) to length and attach the 2×8 fascia to the cut ends of the joists.
It was finally time to order the actual Ipe wood decking. Ipe is a Brazilian hardwood that is heavier than teak, dimensionally stable, and almost fire proof. It is expensive, but about 30% cheaper than the alternative plastic products like Trex and much less bendy, so your joists can be further apart. After looking at various suppliers we ended up with Advantage Lumber in Tampa. They were fairly quick, but in the meantime we decided to play with our new toy.
Back in the 80s when we lived in Homestead, FL we had built a “hookah” rig to go diving. It’s an air compressor on an inner tube. Instead of dive tanks, your air comes from the compressor through hoses. It’s good to about 60 feet diving depth. My home built one worked well. The main trouble I had was keeping the gas edger motor that ran the compressor running. Nothing on the engine was corrosion protected so a lot of maintenance was required. So in 2021 when Brownie’s Third Lung came out with a lithium battery powered version I had to have one. We needed to go diving! We hadn’t dove for several years due to building the house. Until we get the dinghy I’m building out there we can’t dive with regular tanks because they are too heavy for our small kayak to carry. Added to this the nearest refill station is on the main island, so it’s a big hassle to refill tanks. The Brownie was the solution to this. We had a lot of fun dives with the new Hookah. On one of our first dives we came upon a sandy bottom filled with Queen Conch shells. They were spaced about 1 foot apart and went on to visible limits. There must have been thousands down there. We started planning our Conch fritter party! We did notice that these Conch shells had marine growth attached to them. Weird, haven’t seen that before. After consulting with the local Conch expert turns out that this was a colony of underwater hermit crabs that live in Conch shells! So no dinner!
There is a large wreck just offshore of Water Island in front of a friend’s house. He was a boy in the 60s when it went aground during a hurricane. The decision was made to blow it up with dynamite to remove the obstruction to shipping versus removing everything. This is what is left.
Of course what we were really looking forward to was lobster. They are in season all year. We just had to find some. Unfortunately dive after dive we didn’t see any that were catchable. So I really didn’t make a big effort to find the gloves and lobster snare you need if you’re serious about it. I really wish I had…
Recently I finally found a not so intelligent lobster walking around like he’s not somebodies dinner. I decided to show him who’s Boss even though I didn’t have the proper equipment. In an epic battle between Man and Beast I managed to grab him by the antenna with my bare hand. The antenna are fairly sharp and hard to hold onto, but this was dinner! Now that I had him it was time to go back to the boat. As we slowly ascended away with Mr. Lobster in tow he made one last effort for freedom and slipped out of my bare hand. As I looked at the new cuts on my palm, he mocked me by showing his recently gained intelligence and slid under a rock where I couldn’t reach him. We had chicken that night.
Soon our deck wood order arrived. How to get it back to Water Island? As I’ve mentioned before getting supplies over from St Thomas to Water Island is hard. A truck is $1000 minimum. Luckily our neighbor is young and enterprising. He had an old US Marine 2 1/2 ton truck which can carry about 15,000 pounds. The brakes were out so we had to fix them first. A little sweat equity.
So now we had the lumberyard inside the house as well as the one on the pad full. Buttercup complained about the lack of space inside her house/my construction zone. I explained to her that the fastest way to get the wood out of the house was to work faster to put it up where it belongs. She didn’t agree so I decided to get some advice from an expert.
Unfortunately Princess did not respond well to the training methods presented in the book. I decided it was futile to try to change her ways. I guess I’ll have to take her as she is. We started putting the deck boards down. If I’d known how long that was going to take then I would have bought a big boat and sailed away. But that’s the story for next time.
Speaking of boats, around this time we got to go on the the best kind of boat that there is: A Friend’s Boat. This was a very nice 50 foot catamaran in the Charter business so first class all the way. A very nice 3 hour cruise!
One of the great things about quitting your sedentary job is that you start taking care of stuff you blew off before. In both our cases since retiring we have lost about 25 lbs since retiring. I’ve got almost a 4 and a half pack now! Before I leave you this time another installment of why we do this:
