Patio Palapa - Labor Commences

Carlos and I were out in the parking area assembling the last of 12 'tomato' cages (we'll use 'em for lots of other things) when I noticed Endher's truck parked just outside the utility gate.

Finishing De-Thatching

 I was surprised at just how fast the last of the thatch was pulled down, and how soon the guys got the patio all cleaned up.

At my suggestion, the debris was tossed over the fence into Mike and Steph's yard. Mario's crew is under strict orders to clean up all the debris and remove it.

Carlos is keeping a close eye on things as maintaining their yard is his responsibility. They'll also be bringing in whatever lumber they need for the project the same way. Otherwise, it's a long walk around our house to dump debris into the truck or to bring in the lumber.

Endher and Mario Planning

 Endher and Mario discussing how to do the framing. I want the look and feel underneath to be similar to the parking palapa, so those skinny sticks, for the most part, will be staying.

There's also going to be screening, just like in the pool enclosure, but we'll get to that when that part arrives.

Croc in the Canal

There's no shortage of supervisors either. Here you can see one of our local residents (inside the red circle) taking an interest in the goings-on.

This is a juvenile croc, probably around five to six feet in length. He cruises past our place at least once a week. It's either this one or another juvenile that spends a lot of his/her time under the fishing pier across the canal from us.

Whenever I backwash the pool, which empties into the canal, the croc scoots across the canal and keeps his nose right next to the marl cloud released as part of the backwash process. Sniffing a potential meal no doubt.

Cutting Compound Angles

This afternoon, the guys have been spending their time getting angles cut in preparation for setting a facia board (may not be the correct term, but it'll do). It's basically going to be a six-sided structure surrounding the old palapa.

Hanging Palapa Lamp

 Here's the old metal lantern lamp that hangs from the center peak of the palapa. It will be reinstalled as soon as possible to keep it from getting damaged.

Little Better View of the Angles

This photo gives you a little better idea of the angles involved. Of course, nothing is even all the way around, so it becomes tricky.

Also, all day today, we've dealt with thunder, lightning, and periods of rain. Since a woman in Ranchito having been recently killed in her backyard by lightning, safety is more on everyone's mind than normal.

Listen to the Rhythm of the Falling Rain

Yeah, the pitter-pat of the gently falling rain... Three and a quarter inches in a day? Gimmie a break! Thank God we've got a good drainage system here.

And the non-stop thunder and lightning the other night. I'm still seeing after-images. And our clocks - they're so messed up from the power outages, it'll take weeks to get them consistently back to the correct time.

We managed to avoid some of the many storms around the area. At one time Mexico had one hurricane, one tropical storm and one tropical depression all trying to come ashore in the same area. I think that's what we're dealing with now, the vestiges of those three storms plus some just heavy rain that was working its way north along the western Caribbean.

Everything seemed to arrive over us at nearly the same time, and then it all decided to quit moving for a few days. I know the plants in the garden were getting a little parched (their tongues were hanging out), but there is a limit. We're busy making little life-preservers for them.

Hopefully, we may be on the down side of the deluge. It's now Friday morning and Carlos just showed up for work. He's doing the patio/BBQ project. I need to head into town to get a bag of cement and a 4x8 sheet of Celotex. That's what they call Masonite here. Far as I can tell, it's the same stuff. Anyway, off to work.

Cheers

And the Day Ends With A Bang

Even though the tropical low has moved away from us, there's always time for one last gasp. This afternoon, it looked like we were going to get dumped on pretty good. I had to head into town and the horizon just looked nasty.

About 2:10 PM, "KaBoom!", thunder and lightning all over the sky. The rain started, but never developed into anything. But, it was enough to bring the work day to a halt.

Before that, however, there was a lot of progress made. Here's John showing how to nip tiles for the spa seat.

Nip, Nip, Nip

Here's a shot of John checking the tile work on the seat. Looking good!

John Hard At It

Seat's All Done

Today, the big project was adding additional stone dust mortar to create the proper slope to the drain and to add a bottom curve all along the bottom of the pool.

Mariano Showing Step Curve At Bottom

John Supervising Mariano's concrete Work

Here you can see as the concrete is applied to reach the proper slope. It all got done before the rain began - luckily.

Reaching the Correct Slope

Doin' the Tropical Wave

This is something I had never heard of before - "Tropical Wave". It seems that... Well, let Wikipedia explain it:

Tropical wave
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tropical waves, or easterly waves, also known as African easterly waves in the Atlantic region, are a type of atmospheric trough, an elongated area of relatively low air pressure, oriented north to south, which move from east to west across the tropics causing areas of cloudiness and thunderstorms.

West-moving waves can also form from the tail end of frontal zones in the subtropics and tropics and may be referred to as easterly waves, but these waves are not properly called tropical waves; they are a form of inverted trough sharing many characteristics with fully tropical waves. All tropical waves form in the easterly flow along the southern side of the subtropical ridge or belt of high pressure which lies north and south of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). Tropical waves are generally carried westward by the prevailing easterly winds along the tropics and subtropics near the equator. They can lead to the formation of tropical cyclones in the north Atlantic and northeast Pacific basins.

A tropical wave is normally preceded by an area of sinking, intensely dry air, oriented as a northeast wind. With the passage of the trough line, the wind veers to the southeast, the humidity abruptly rises, and the atmosphere destabilizes, producing widespread showers and thunderstorms, occasionally severe. As the wave moves off westward, the showers gradually diminish.

A notable exception to the general characteristic of widespread precipitation behind a tropical wave occurs in the Atlantic. Periodically, a surge of intensely dry air known as the Saharan Air Layer (SAL) is entrained behind a tropical wave, resulting in cloudless or nearly cloudless skies as convection is capped by the dry layer inversion. Additionally, any dust which may be present within the SAL reflects solar radiation, slightly cooling the atmosphere below it.

So, there you have it. More than you ever wanted to know about tropical waves. Basically, they stack up like this:

• Tropical Wave
• Tropical Low
• Tropical Depression
• Tropical Storm
• Hurricane

We're in the middle of the "rainy season" down here in paradise. Up till now, it's been relatively benign, with the exception of the odd hurricane or tropical storm. Then comes this new thing (to me anyway) of a tropical wave.

I half expected this would be something you'd do at a soccer or cricket game (they don't do baseball here), dressed in tropical party clothes of tshirts, shorts, and Crocs, raising your arms up and rising out of your seat to a calypso-reggae beat... No. Not even close.

It's similar to the nine months or so of rain that we would get in the Northwest, only you might get about 5 or 6 inches of wet stuff in an hour and it's accompanied by huge thunder and lightning (We had one thunderclap that was so sharp, so loud, and so close, I thought our butane bottle out back had exploded).

This has been happening since yesterday evening. We were over at Canadian Bob's for a nice chili dinner along with Bob, and Connie and Greg when it started to rain, and rain, and really come down. So much so that we ran from Bob's to the Isuzu and headed home because we had all our hurricane shutters open and we were afraid of getting bedding and computers soaked.

We were barely able to stay on the highway, it was coming down so hard. We made it to our turn-off and headed up the track.

Dang it, there was another tree fallen down across the track. I really didn't want to get out in the pitch dark and wrestle the tree out of the way, along with whatever stray snake was out there. Luckily, I saw through the lightning flashes, a possibility of just driving through it to get home. I punched the accelerator and crashed on through. We made it! Of course, we had to run from the Isuzu to the house, getting completely soaked in the process. Dianna especially so, since she stopped to try to close the gate first.

After getting in and closing the shutters, we found that other than the porch, everything was dry. We secured the place for the night, let Tanya in, since she is so afraid of lightning and went to bed.

This morning, still raining, lightning and thundering, we went out onto the porch to see what was happening, and discovered we had another visitor. This little guy (see below) was pretty cute. After snapping his photos, I managed to heroically shoo him outside.

Our Little Visitor

Trying To Get Away

Later in the morning, while Edna was here doing the housekeeping, I went into town to see if I could find a new water heater. It seems ours has bought the farm. The gas lights, but doesn't heat the water. Apparently, there's a down tube that acts as a sacrificial anode (no sense having a replaceable anode, eh) that has "anoded" itself to death.

I couldn't find a small one like the heater we have, so no water heater for now. Maybe I'll find one in Belize City when we go there. It's no real biggy not having a water heater. We usually take cold showers anyway. It's just nice to have the hot water to cut the initial chill of the shower. Then we usually turn the hot water off as it's too hot for the whole shower.

Later in the afternoon, shortly after the tremendous thunderclap I mentioned above, we let Tanya in again - she came on the run. Really! Dianna, no fan of thunder or lightning, went into the bedroom to take a nap and escape the gods playing at bowls.

Dianna Hiding From the Lightning

At the same time, Tanya hid out in the bathroom.

Tanya in Hiding

The kitties both hid out under the bed.

Yours truly, stayed up to work on the blog and watch TV. Having the remote in hand gives you that feeling of power and strength to fight off the urge to hide under the covers - or in the bathroom.