Thursday - D3P3

Thursday really proved to be a pivotal day in that we formalized most of the major decisions that would shape our work on the island for the next four days. Mike, Elizabeth and Marianna continued to get the tank stands built, with Ambrosio cutting the would and offering carpentry assistance. I must confess that there is a strange paradox. I had virtually nothing to do with the tank stands as I was engaged in other tasks, but I managed to take quite a few photos. On the other hand, I have very few photos of the stuff that I was working on as I was too busy "doing it" to stop and "shoot it". Go figure.

Up until Thursday the weather had been unusually good, compared to last year. Sunny, damn hot, damn humid, and a rare brief shower. That changed late Thursday morning. It rained. It rained hard. It rained damn hard. It rained Panama hard. And rain mixed with clay and moving feet produces mud. Panama mud. Chip and I got to discussing this and concluded that the soil is probably a very fine clay that is very poorly drained. When it rains the top 12-16 inches absorb all the water and the stuff below stays pretty dry so what happens is you basically get a dry platform topped by a foot of slippery, viscous ooze. Once the rains had wet the soil and we mixed it up in our work area, the die had been cast. Even without any further rain, we were in mud until the day we left.

The one certain benefit of the rain is that allowed us to locate the leaks in the gutters and also whether the drain holes and vents we had added (thus far) were working. Again, with no source of pressurized water you don't just turn on the hose to check. If it doesn't rain you have to lift 5 gallon buckets up to where you want to check.

Leaky Gutter

This is the vent hose for the first flush system; note how the water level in the tube is even with the Y pipe in the distance.

Tubing running up side of building for first flush vent.

Drain hole at base of first flush. These had previously been buried and covered over by the vegetation

The new system repositioned them higher up and we made them larger (1/16").

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The second to last photo starts to suggest the onset of mud. The photo does not do it justice. However, by late afternoon the rains let up and the sun, low in the west, started to re-emerge. As the rain tapered to mist, one of the most spectacular rainbows I have ever been given the gift to see broke out across the eastern sky. It spanned the full arc across the sky, touching the ground on both ends. And just to really make it special, much of it became a double rainbow. This picture doesn't even begin to capture the sheer beauty and majesty of this magical place.