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| Just beating the storm on arrival. Good rains this fall have brought everything back to lush and green... a condition that was hard to envision in April and July when everything was torched and tinder dry. |
It's tough for a sequel to measure up to the original but given the challenges of Lovango living a little experience under your belt makes things alot better. We're still getting to know the crew and neighbors and also figuring out details like boat storage, best crossing routes/times, dinghy securing/locking/capacity/capabilities/draft/etc, marketing, cabs, timing, trash, and more. Which is to say it was great to get back and continue to discover things and feel more at home.
Progress has been slow since our last visit in July with vacations and hurricanes and competing work for the crew but things are picking up again and the quality of what's been done is outstanding. Over our 5 day visit the crew made great headway on installing the roof and gutters while we knocked out the "pickling" of all of the siding. The work gave us a deep appreciation for the crew and the challenges they face in building our cottage on Lovango. We calculate that every piece of siding we painted has now been touched and moved at least 6 (likely 7) times!
The installation of the roof and gutter has allowed us to start collecting rainwater. Though it doesn't look like much the 6" of water in our 9' deep cistern represents over 1000 gallons. With reasonable shelter and a water source in place we are close to having something that could conceivably be inhabitable (if not finished) in the not too distant future.
Oh, and big news- we finally have a building permit for plans that match what we're actually constructing. This picked up from the permit office conveniently located upstairs in the airport.
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| View from the porch under which sits the 24,000 gallon cistern with (now) 1,000 gallons of rainwater. |
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| Dinghy to St John, then hike to hardware store for paint... and back. |
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| The first of 3 days of pickling the siding. Cut the latex paint 1:1 with water, apply it, wait 5 minutes and wipe it to expose the grain. Color is a light blue gray. |
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| Gloating over the finished stack of painted siding. |
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| The crew- Dustin (from NH) and crew foreman Martin (from MI). |
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| Up on the roof- Rigo and Marino (who brought passion fruit seeds from home and planted them around the site). |
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| Jeff's first USVI tool purchase (though not a measuring type by nature). |
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| Eeyore and Olive Oyl take a break from tending the burn pile. Olive is forever memorialized in the cottage by her paw prints in the downstairs bedroom concrete floor. |
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| How we left it... downstairs roofed and guttered, upstairs next. |
