Perils of Coastal Living

Or, sometimes you'd really rather not know...

Today is a good example. We were rather smug yesterday thinking that the only damage we'd gotten was to the oleander tree growing in our parking area.

Cody Repairing Oleander Tree

I knew it wasn't going to be a good day when, as I was taking a shower, Dianna told me that the workers downstairs wanted to show me something. I asked her to go ahead and sub for me till I finished. When she was gone a long time, I surmised that it probably wasn't going to be good.

What I secretly was hoping was that they had found a stairway leading down to a waterproof subterranean area that turned out to be the never-before-seen Mayan control room to be used to focus all the Mayan temple energies to save the earth in 2012. Not sure if that would be a good or bad thing to have that on your property. But, that wasn't what they had found.

What they had found was several holes in the earth, that naturally led down, but of the cave-in or sink-hole variety.

Backyard Cave-in

These all were right in the back yard by fence, and a result of problems we had that necessitated the bulkhead installation in the first place.

Close-up View

These are all connected by the small underground stream emptying into the canal.

Little Palm Has To Be Moved

It seems to start up near the pumphouse for the pool. Anyway, what we're going to do, is have John's guys who are already here working on the bulkhead, just continue on for a day or so, digging these cave-ins out, filling them with rocks and topping with marl. This is pretty much what everyone who lives on a waterfront area, whether it's up in Consejo, Finca Solana, or here on the south end, has to do sooner or later. This is our third year and each year, we've had holes to fill. Some, I've filled (really Cody) three and four times. Small ones around the palapa posts, but still, they need filling.

Now, even with our nice new pour on the bulkhead deck, we found a new cave-in right at the corner of the fence and the deck. So, the same process will be followed here, dig it out as necessary, pack it with rocks and cover it with marl.

Some Worse Than Others

Here's the main hole in the yard, after the guys attacked it with a shovel. Unfortunately, the rocks won't be delivered till tomorrow - the road to the gravel pit is still too soft for the trucks to make the journey.

After A Little Shovel Work

While all this was going on, work on the bulkhead deck was proceeding along too. The foto below shows the finish coat being applied to the deck. It's not the way we would do it up north, but, hey, the job gets done.

 Brushing On the Finish Coat

In fact, it happens everywhere. Here's a cave-in we found on the road right in front of our place yesterday. After being hit by a couple of vehicles, it's now protected by a large stick topped with a Monster soft drink can.

Road Cave-In

I called Corozal Department of Works (Public Works) and reported the cave-in in the road. The guy I talked to said they'd be by to take a look.

Surprisingly, about an hour later, when I was just getting ready to head into town to take care of some errands, here they showed up and fixed the problem by tossing a bunch of stones into it and bashing them with a sledge hammer. they're doing essentially what we'll be doing in the back yard.

Corozal Public Works Working

Well, that's it for now. It's time for lunch. Dianna's been out in the garden all morning helping Cody prune and gossiping chatting. I promised to fix lunch. Probably going to be a nice cool tuna salad. Yummers!