[Ibon]

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!

[Newfie]

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

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', ' ')

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.

URL=http://imgbox.com/s4HNKB0Z][/URL]

[Newfie]

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.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', 'Y')up, 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.

[REAL Green]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', 'S')ometimes 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.

[Newfie]

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

[Ibon]

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!

[The_Toecutter]

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

[Plantagenet]

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!

[mousepad]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '
')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.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '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.

!

[asg70]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', 'I')'m a traveler.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mousepad', 'Y')ou should use a kayak made in the USA. Don't you have some national pride?

[careinke]

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

[JuanP]

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!

[Newfie]

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.

[Ibon]

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

[REAL Green]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', ' ')My longest trip so far, and my wife had only done a 2 night trip before this.

[Newfie]

Lucky I am!