According to the engineering company, their engineers had valid USVI seals, although the local building department couldn't validate the authenticity of the seal since their building and contents were destroyed during the hurricanes. They had spent time dealing with the issue and finally had to fly their engineers to the island to apply for their seals in person, and wait the 2 week validation period. This is the short version but it's caused delays for us. We could not get the cistern designed until we had the sealed house plans for reference. I had a conversation with the owner of the engineering company and explained my frustration. I provided my plans for the cistern and he said his company could engineer it. I'm still waiting to hear his cost for performing this work.
Below is my idea for the ~ 30K gallon cistern which will double as a 10' deep deck around the 3 primary entries of the main dome. I'm not a great artist so I hope you get the picture. The design will allow us to minimally cut the hill for a level pad on the dome itself and have some space behind it. Without it we would need to cut deeper into the hill, build a wooden deck up front, or not have usable outside areas with our three northern 12' entry doors and sea views. Since that was not an option I decided to utilize the hillside for our water and use the top as our deck that won't blow apart during a hurricane. We plan on attaching solar panels to the vertical concrete walls of the cistern over the hill. This way they will be facing up and not visible from the house, or from below us on the hill. They will be removable for storms.
The second half of the delays is with the permitting department. There were issues caused by the hurricanes and a new permitting process will be implemented July 1st. I'm told they will not be accepting any new permits until that time. By then we should have the house and cistern plans and be ready to break ground.
Denise and I have been keeping busy at Kent's house and enjoying island life, so I really can't complain too much about the delays.
Mike from the Farm Pod called us yesterday to join him and Beecher for a planting session at the pod.
We had a great time and helped plant 10 or 12 rows containing various types of lettuce and basil, and also a few rows of nasturtium's, which are edible. The two closest rows in the picture above were planted earlier. Some of the fish are in the tanks now so it was great to see them. I enjoyed our Vancouver yard and garden and I'm pretty excited about having one of these on the property.
Denise and I went back to the Baobab tree today. We briefly stopped by on the day we picked up our second car and didn't have time to appreciate the size of the tree. This thing is huge!
The tree has massive trunks although it's one tree with a single root system. You can get a better idea of the size by our car in the back ground and me on the right hand side. Here a link to the story behind this tree for it's dedication in 2009. The hurricanes did some damage to the canopy but it's coming back.
It was a bit windy today with some clouds but as usual the day ended with a great sunset. Tomorrow we're going snorkeling with our new masks. They're newer versions of the full face ones we've had since last year but these won't dig into your nose and cheeks.
That's all for now.
Kevin & Denise
That tree is amazing!
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