Today Christi started the day by grudgingly performing a rain dance. Out came the brush, soap and hose. It always worked with the car, maybe it would work with the boat. She only washed the areas most in need of a good scrubbing, clinging to the hope that the rain dance would work and Mother Nature would take care of the rest. Oh, and Brad from Special Blend retrieved our ropes for us. Thank you Brad! Continue reading →

Wednesday June 6, 2007 — We went to meet Richard at the fancy hotel. We arrived early to explore the island with the hotel. There is an airport (complete with a passenger loading/unloading boat dock), three little souvenir shops selling jewelry made with locally raised black water pearls, and a couple of houses. The houses are farther apart than in town and have no fences. The views of the lagoon are beautiful. There are a lot of dragonflies around, too. We were surprised at the amount of trash strewn about. In addition to the usual bottles and cans, we saw a lot of broken sandals and buoys.

Back at the hotel, we watched some workers put a palm frond roof on a bungalow. There is a basic wooden frame. It looks like the two halves of the palm fronds are braided about a third of the way down from the stem. The fronds are laid down and nailed at the stem to the frame. The fronds are laid down a few inches apart and overlap one another. The fronds are covered with chicken wire to keep them from blowing away. Continue reading →