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27 November, 2009

Just When You Think It's Smooth Sailing

Well, here it is, the morning after Turkey Day. I'm sitting in the living room. Dianna, out on the porch, calls me, saying Bob C. is across the canal hollering for me, something about the canal.

So I put my Crocs on and hobble on down the stairs (I bunged-up my knee yesterday morning walking the dogs. Right across from Caribbean Village, I slipped in the muck and fell pretty hard. The dogs were thankful I didn't use them as landing pads. Anyway, my knee is scratched and scabbed, sore and stiff today. But that's not the topic at hand, is it?

What Bob wanted was to tell me I had a river coming out of our bank and making a cute little waterfall into the canal. He was right. Looking down, I could see it bubbling away. I could also see some large cracks in the bank, in fact, along the whole left canal bank on our property, it looks as though a cave-in is imminent.

Taking Bob's advice, I jumped into the Isuzu and headed over across the canal to see it from his perspective. Wow!

Our Endangered Canal Bank
Our Endangered Canal Bank
And here's the waterfall - almost right in the middle of the span.

The Waterfall, Bubbling Happily Away
Here's a bit of a close-up of the waterfall.

Almost Dead-Center
My posting the other day regarding the need for remediation and restoration in the canal before we have problems? Guess what? We got's problems! I was hoping to defer putting in a bulkhead till after the guesthouse was completed... That ain't gonna happen now. This definitely takes priority.

I've got an engineer coming over to take a look at it sometime this afternoon, and what Bob and I talked about doing (I'll see if the engineer agrees) is waiting for four or five days, checking each day to see if the waterfall volume is decreasing, as long as we're (hopefully) done with the rain for now. Then, when it stops (hope, hope) we'll begin putting in the bulkhead with lots of 4" drain-pipes to allow the water to disperse, avoiding a pressure buildup, and at the same time protecting the dirt from needless further caving.

Well, there you have it. I'll let you know what I find out and what the plan of action will be just as soon as I know what it is, well, maybe a few minutes later.

You know, I always say, "If it was easy, it wouldn't be any fun." I could do with a tad less fun for a while.

1 comment:

Wilma said...

Yikes! Water can be such a big problem. You have my sympathy; we recently spent a small fortune diverting water away from the foundation of house here in Minnesota. I hope there is a good inexpensive, solution to your problem.