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OMG Newfie, with no tourists on your island you were definitely the attraction of the day.. That looks scary. This reminds me of something here in rural mountain Panama. There are no road signs and no shoulders on the roads and newbies who come to live here seem to have to go through the right of passage of having similar mishaps. It happened to me my first year. There are no shoulders on the roads here and tons of rain so right on the edge of the roads in town are deep ditches like 5 feet deep to collect the huge volumes of rain water. Backing up once out of the parking lot of a hardware store my truck fell right into the 5 foot deep ditch. I put it into 4x4 and still had to rock it back and forth and try all kinds of gyrations to pull the vehicle out of the ditch with a bunch of locals watching as another dumb gringo went through his right of passage!

I am so glad you did not tip over and fall in that river!

If I had charged admission. Could have made money after repairs!
Yup, dumb gringo me.

Newfie wrote:

We are fine, no physical injuries what-so-ever. My ego and wallet took sever hits though. My first accident is a very long time, a doozie.

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Sorry but I had to laugh.

Ohmigosh ---you were off on a great adventure through a beautiful tropical forest in the rental car and then BOOOOM!

I must warn you the worst one lane bridges are in Iceland. I took a tiny rental car around the "ring road" that goes all the way around Iceland and there are countless one lane bridges over glacial rivers running to to sea around Iceland. Much of the coastal areas of Iceland are made up of "Sanders"----vast outwash plains of mud and gravel produced by volcanic eruptions through glaciers on the volcanoes of central Iceland. Now Imagine you are racing down a dirt road in a very tiny car in the absolute middle of nowhere and there will be a sign that says "Ein Bred Bru" ---one lane bridge-----and then you had better grip the steering wheel with the grip of death as you cross a raging glacial river on a narrow one lane bridge----sometimes with the only shoulder being a 2X4 nailed along the margin of the wooden bridge. They use wooden bridges in active volcanic areas because if eruptions destroy the bridges and they can quickly build the replacements

Even now when we approach a one lane bridge anywhere in the world my significant other yells out EIN BRED BRU and I instantly focus on driving straight down the road.

GREAT STORY!!! GOOD LUCK WITH THE CAR RENTAL COMPANY

THANKS!!

Yup, and it’s not even the first thing I have driven over that bridge, although it was over a year ago.

A sign would have helped.

Newfie wrote:Yup, and it’s not even the first thing I have driven over that bridge, although it was over a year ago.

A sign would have helped.

Maybe you didn't see the bridge because in your mind you were preoccupied with some dialogue you were having on po.com.

Sometimes my wife will look at me when I have this far off gaze looking at nothing. She will come up to me and say HELLO! She recognizes that I am distracted by some internal dialogue I am carrying that prevents me from seeing the physical world in front of my face. And to be honest that internal dialogue is often about topics we discuss here.

That is dangerous! lol.

Ibon wrote:Sometimes my wife will look at me when I have this far off gaze looking at nothing. She will come up to me and say HELLO! She recognizes that I am distracted by some internal dialogue I am carrying that prevents me from seeing the physical world in front of my face. And to be honest that internal dialogue is often about topics we discuss here. That is dangerous! lol.

Thank you Ibon, it is nice to know others also suffer this. I am often in deep though on stuff and then wonder "did I close the gate” or I wonder what the hell did I just set that wrench. LOL. I think it is a combination of us old guys losing mental capacity at the same time we become more absorbed in intellectual thought. An absent-minded professor comes to mind I remember when I was in college in 85. He was a geology teacher that turned me on to Peak Oil

Newf, I hope you had your seatbelt on. Those are some scary pics! I bet your wife was pissed! LOL.

The Wife can get PISSED but not at this kind is stuff. I am blurry lucky to have her as my mate.

Torrential monsoon rain last night, the creek that feeds the penstock of our hydro turbine flooded and the screen that prevents debris from entering the intake was overwhelmed and at 5:00am this morning the lights were dim, I checked the voltage and herz meter and it read 80V / 40HZ

Went out in the predawn and hiked through the forest to the intake, everything ok, went down to the shed where the pelton wheel and generator is and noticed the pelton wheel was running slow and the load controller was not even illuminating station 1 which means we were producing less than 750W

Slowly turned the valve off cutting off the water flow and then removed the cover off the housing of the pelton wheel and upon inspecting the two threaded nozzles we noticed one was clogged with a thick piece of wood. It took over 90 minutes to loosen and remove the threaded nozzle. It was on so tight, only after soaking the threads with WD40 and taking a chisel to the edge of the hexagon nut were we able to gouge a canal into the edge and then with a long chisel we pounded the corner of the threaded nozzle until it loosened. Removed it and flushed out all the debris, re assembled and opened the valve of the penstock. Watching the load governor I noticed that 2 additional lights went on that had never before illuminated. Curious. This suggested at least an additional 1.5KW - 2kw of power was being generated. I went to the restaurant and turned on the 1400W water boiler. Check. Added both sides of the industrial bread toaster. Another 1500W. Check Then ran the microwave. Another 1800W RUnning all three appliances was never possible before and now we could run all three plus of course the 5 refrigerators and two floor freezers and all the lighting etc. which almost always runs.

Obviously there had been debris in the penstock that we flushed out that we didn't know about for the past 4 years since the last time we removed those nozzles. We just today gained around an additional 2KW of power for our project because of this. Total of 8KW 24/7

That makes me very happy!

Damn, Newfie. Glad to see that you're okay.

I'm a traveler. Not being able to travel because of the pandemic has been hard. So I'm off on my first trip since the lockdown. I'll be heading down to Homer Alaska. I've rented what has been described as "the most beautiful campsite in America" for three nights.

Its not a campsite...its a wilderness cabin in Kachemak Bay State Bay. They only way to get there is by water taxi from Homer. The cabin is on a little bluff above a little beach, with views down the inlet out towards Kachemak Bay and Cook Inlet.

I've been fussing around trying to figure out what Kayak to take. I was going to take an older hardshell kayak I bought in New Zealand some years ago, and an older German-made inflatable kayak for my significant other. But while I was digging around in my gear shed out at the Lake Cabin I found an entirely different kayak....one I'd forgotten I even had. Its a new French made inflatable, and I bought it at a garage sale some years ago and just put in the gear shed and forgot about it.

I just pumped it up and it looks great. Nice hypalon rubber bottom and easy to use inflatation valves. It even had a new pump packed in with it. And its a two person kayak.

I plan to camp out on the way to Homer and try to stay socially distanced for the whole trip. In Homer I'll be staying in a little rental unit down on the spit by the beach above Bob's Bait Shack. And then out to the wilderness cabin with my kayak.


Cheers!

Plantagenet wrote:I've been fussing around trying to figure out what Kayak to take. I was going to take an older hardshell kayak I bought in New Zealand some years ago, and an older German-made inflatable kayak for my significant other. But while I was digging around in my gear shed out at the Lake Cabin I found an entirely different kayak....one I'd forgotten I even had. Its a new French made inflatable, and I bought it at a garage sale some years ago and just put in the gear shed and forgot about it.

You should use a kayak made in the USA. Don't you have some national pride?

Plantagenet wrote:I'm a traveler. Not being able to travel because of the pandemic has been hard. So I'm off on my first trip since the lockdown. I'll be heading down to Homer Alaska. I've rented what has been described as "the most beautiful campsite in America" for three nights.

Its not a campsite...its a wilderness cabin in Kachemak Bay State Bay. They only way to get there is by water taxi from Homer. The cabin is on a little bluff above a little beach, with views down the inlet out towards Kachemak Bay and Cook Inlet.

!

Give my regards to all the Homeroids !

Across the bay from Homer is a small shallow stream whose name escapes me after all these years. Camped near the mouth of this stream we watched masses of pink salmon , their backs sticking out of the shallow water. It was pointless to fish with a rod there were so many fish. Instead we stood in the shallow water and threw rocks and knocked the salmon on their sides and quickly grabbed them out of the water. It was a very elemental primal experience I remember to this day.

Plantagenet wrote:I'm a traveler.

I think we figured that one out a long time ago.

mousepad wrote:You should use a kayak made in the USA. Don't you have some national pride?

I have some national pride, but I'm also trying to find the best quality gear and I'm kind of dependent on finding inexpensive stuff at garage sales and such.

In my defense I did buy the French inflatable kayak at a US garage sale.......

Cheers!

Blackberries have started! Actually, they are in all stages right now.

Careinke, that is one pretty awesome picture. I shared it with my wife who is an amateur nature photographer; we both loved it. You put a smile on our faces and brightened our breakfast. Many thanks for sharing! Keep up the good work! Never give up on gardening, revolutionary!

I’m BAAACK!

13 day trip from Dominica and just arrived in Beaufort, NC.

My longest trip so far, and my wife had only done a 2 night trip before this.

Lots of very peaceful downwind sailing. Then the last few days approaching the coast were different. First we had to motor through the horse latitudes, then watched some spectacular lightning storms off Florida from afar. Then we had to give to for a night to avoid a very serious Line of squalls. And finally a max motor sailing run to get in front of another bad predicted storm.

But it all worked out, nothing broken, new experiences and stories. Like changing our big headsail out for a smaller one in 15 knots of wind.

It’s all good stuff, new experiences.

Loving life.

Welcome back Newfie. Sounds like a great time out there in the wide open spaces.....

Newfie wrote: My longest trip so far, and my wife had only done a 2 night trip before this.

One of my dreams is the trip you just did. I love sailing. My grandfather had sailboats for a time and them went to motor yachts which I don't care for. Moving under wind and navigating to new destinations in your home is special. Lucky man.

Lucky I am!