Relentless

It started during the early morning hours of October 7th, although I was not awake to see the beginning.   

Rafts of Sargassum drifting in to shore.

More Sargassum seaweed (see my previous post, here) washing up.  But this time it was different - it was full of trash. 

It doesn't look like it amounts to much, except that it just keeps coming.

Hour after hour it accumulated on the shore in overwhelming amounts.

The view of our dock from the veranda.

 It just kept coming ...

The view of the south beach from the dock.

And the north beach.

I could hardly bear to take these photos, but I felt like I should document what was happening.

Floating plastic crap mixed in with Sargassum.

 It was physically gut-wrenching to me to see this.

So much crap.

Sticks and logs were mixed in with the Sargassum and the trash.

The accumulation was several feet deep, 10 or more feet wide and extended as far as the eye could see.

 I learned later that similar amounts were washing up in Punta Gorda, 30 miles to our south, and along the entire Placencia peninsula, 15 miles to our north.  It may have been along the entire coastline of Belize.

These large logs probably washed out of Honduran and Guatemalan Rivers with the floods of the rainy season.  That is probably where the trash came from as well.

An amazing number of logs (called "sticks" locally) washed up just to our north. 

One place in particular seemed to collect plastic.  This looks like a landfill.  

It is almost impossible for me to comprehend the magnitude of this mess.

 It is no exaggeration to say that the accumulation is several feet deep.

And still floating in the water is more Sargassum with small bits of styrofoam and other plastic.

 New accumulations more or less stopped by Oct. 10th, when the next photos below were taken.

The first Sargassum to wash up has dried out and turned dark brown.

We have had 3 people working 6 hours a day to get the mess moved off the beach.

Allen, Matthew, and Lloydie worked steadily using wheelbarrows, pitchforks, and rakes to clear the beach.  

 For almost 2 weeks, the 3 guys worked 6 hours, 6 days a week.  They were able to cut back a little and get back to construction for a few hours a day after that. 

Some of the Sargassum and trash washed back out to sea.

Only to be washed back ashore.

Gradually, they made headway against the overwhelming mass and we could begin to a beach again.

By October 11, the sheer bulk had been dramatically reduced.

 Uncountable wheelbarrow loads were massed in shallow pile on our south lot.

We kept the pile shallow so that the Sargassum could dry out.  The center of the pile had originally been about 3 feet deep and is only a foot or so deep now that the Sargassum has dried.

We will rake through and pull out the largest plastic things like shoes and bottles to bag up and take to the landfill.  But the remainder of little bits of plastic and styrofoam mixed in with Sargassum we will burn on site and then take the resulting plastic slag to the landfill.

Meanwhile, the beach just north of us is still covered with trash. 

This is a spot north of our property where more plastic accumulated than Sargassum.

Lots of little tiny crocs for toddlers in the mix.

To our south, we see little styrofoam bits washing back out into the water from their temporary stranding among mangrove roots.  This, of course, then accumulates on our beach.

 Eventually we will extend our cleanup efforts to the beach to our north.

Our beach, at the left edge of the photo, is pretty clean now, but the north is still trash-covered.

Some of the larger items that will get taken to the landfill.

 It is now to the point where we can walk north on the beach at low tide.  At high tide we have to pick our way through the trash.

Still not pretty.

 One neat thing that washed up is pumice.

Pumice is a volcanic rock that is so filled with minute air-bubbles that it floats.  We think this washes out from the Guatemalan Rivers and originated, perhaps centuries ago, from volcanoes in Guatemala.

Lots of pumice washed up ranging in size from these small pieces (some no larger than cough drop) to football-sized chunks.

The last shots show how our place looks now, 4 weeks after the influx.  We still have trash washing up, but it is manageable.  I can look out at the beach and feel happy rather than sick to my stomach, due almost entirely to the efforts of Allen, Matthew, and Lloydie.

Only 1 errant bottle in sight! 

Once again, the sand calls to us to walk barefoot along the beach.

This is how we like it.

There is still lots of work to do - sorting through the big pile and getting it burned.  Hauling the plastic and slag to the landfill (first by boat to get to our car and then to the landfill), cleaning up to the north and south of our property and staying on top of what washes in from farther away. But it seems feasible and the overwhelming despair is gone.  I've even been swimming again.  Paradise regained.

Two Birds - Large and Small , Slow and Fast

Last evening, we saw a tiger heron on our south lot.  There was not enough light left for photos, but I spent a long time watching it hunt for crabs in the deepening dusk.  What a bird!  It moved in slow motion as it eased up on its prey, first shifting its weight to its front foot, then slowly lifting the back foot, bringing it forward, and setting it down ever so gently.  Then it lowers its head forward with its neck extended.  Still not moving its feet again, it retracted its head a bit and then slowly wagged its now prominent chest from side to side - almost like a horizontal metronome before resuming its slow forward progress.  I saw it go through this stalking series several times, but before it caught dinner, I had to retreat back into the cabana as the evening mosquitoes feasted on me for their dinner .  :-(.

This morning, though, we did see it catch a shore crab and knock it senseless before swallowing it.  And, although the morning was quite cloudy, I did get some shots.  The following are all cropped pretty heavily (because I don't have a long lens yet!), but not too bad given the circumstances.

A juvenile Bare-throated Tiger Heron, Tigrisoma mexicanum.

Bare-throated tiger herons are year round residents of Belize.  They tend to stay pretty local without any seasonal changes in territory.  Their species range is coastal along the Pacific Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean Sea over most of Mexico, all of Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and El Salvador, and most of Panama. Tiger herons tend to be solitary; I know we have only ever seen one at a time.

"Anybody home?"

"You in there?"

Not finding any crabs in their holes, it wandered under a Noni tree toward the back of the property where the Mangrove swamp is.

Tiger herons will perch in trees - I have seen them in the Noni trees before.

On its way to the mangrove swamp, where Tiger Herons love to hang out and nest, it had a little fluff up, as seen in the series below.

The striking black and gold stripes are much more pronounced on juveniles like this one.  Adults have a more finely streaked back and wings that are a duller brown color and they have a black cap.  This is one case where the juveniles are more colorful than the adults.

After watching the tiger heron, I went to check on the American redstart that hangs out in the small orange tree.  To my surprise, in addition to the redstart, there was another warbler that I did not recognize.  It took no notice of me as I snapped away at it; it was focused on catching its breakfast while I was attempting to focus on it.  It moved around very quickly, in stark contrast to the slow-motion tiger heron.  As it foraged on the insects in the sparse grass, it hopped closer and closer to me.  A very pretty little bird that Dennis identified as a female Magnolia Warbler.

Female Magnolia Warbler.

 She hopped around, very actively feeding on little insects.

White spot on tail, streaked yellow breast, white eye ring, grey head, white wing bars on dark wings, olive upper back.

And don't forget the white underwing pits and yellow rump!

 She pranced and danced and fluttered around, showing off her good side - and they are all good sides!

Lovely little bird that spends its winters here in Belize as well as a large part of Central America in general.

A fun morning of bird watching with the continued sounds of construction in the background.

Snake OnThe Beach

While we admit to being focused on our construction project, there are times when tropical Belize gets our attention.  Such was the case about 3 weeks ago when we looked out from the veranda (where we spend most of our waking hours) and spotted an unusual long green thing on the beach amongst the drying Sargassum seaweed.  Now, we often see a green iguana making its way up and down the beach, but this was much longer than the iguana.  As you undoubtedly surmised from the title of this post, we had a snake on the beach!

A green vine snake (Oxybelis fulgidus) close to the water's edge.

 These snakes are native to Central and the northern part of South America.

They can reach up to 2 meters (6.5 ft) in length; I reckon this one was around 1.5 meters (5 ft) long.

Its slow, sinuous glides moved it remarkably quickly across the sand and various sticks and logs.  

It would stop periodically and raise its head up off the ground. 

Flicking its green tongue to taste the air for me as I stalked it with my camera.

It has a long pointy head.

That pointy head houses its rear fangs.  It preys upon small rodents and lizards. From above, it bites them on their heads and lifts them into the air until the quick-acting venom works before swallowing them.  

Even thought they are venomous, green vine snakes are not dangerous to humans, unless you happen to be a particularly stupid human and stick your finger down its throat.   Even then the bite normally causes at most a little numbness.  Of course if you are particularly stupid and also terribly unlucky, then you could have an allergic reaction that might be more serious.  Not being stupid, I kept my fingers on my camera.  ;-)

Still trying to check me out.

I back off from it a little bit and it decides to continue on its way toward a Noni tree.

Still testing the air now and again.  Look at that beautiful pale yellow strip down it side.

You can really see how slender it is in this shot.

 I circled around from the other side for another angle.

A lovely ribbon of green.

Snazzy dark green line through its eye and there is that forked green tongue!

 It made a break for the Noni trunk and was up the tree in a flash.

Seeming to climb straight up the tree trunk.

 This is a very agile snake.

I took photos as quickly as I could, but the snake was quite at home in the tree and too soon was up in the leaves.  My last view of this beauty was this:

A well-camouflaged snake.

We have seen this snake before and I hope will see it again.  They spend most of their time in trees and after eating they retire to a tree top for little rest.  I like to imagine that this one is frequently looking down on us from the tropical almond tree in front of our cabana.

References:  Wikipedia and Venomous Snakes and Their Mimics of Panama and Costa Rica (Ray and Knight).

A Roof to Keep Us Dry

I seem to have succumbed to Island Time with regard to my blogging frequency.  Not that we are on an island, but you couldn't tell it from our view.

The increasing frequency of rain squalls are a sure sign that the rainy season is gearing up.  Our goal was to have our addition dried in before the rainy season, but we didn't quite make it.  The top photo below was taken Sept 25th. No roof, no windows, and 4.3 inches of rain in our rain gauge in the previous week.  It seems the rainy season was not aware of our timeline.  The bottom photo was taken today, 23 days and 20 inches of rain later than the top photo.  Now only 1 more door and 1 more window to install and then we will be totally dried in. Yea!  

Another view of the sea. 

 Here is what happened in those 23 days:

The wooden straps that support the sheet metal roof were put in place along with the boards needed to make the eaves.  Those dark things in the sky are dragonflies.  Tens of thousands of them migrated through the day I took this photo.  It was amazing to see them.

 From the inside you can see the roofing trusses and upper level walls. 

The large Santa Maria wood roofing trusses are bolted together with iron plates.  These babies ain't goin' nowhere.

From below you can see the 2x4 wood straps to which the sheet metal (called "zinc" here) will be screwed.

We love these blue sky days.

Another view from below showing the crew securing the last 2 sheets of "zinc" on the north side of the roof.   

Given the irregular shape of the roof, we actually had to start the courses of 10x4ft zinc sheets at the top of the ridge line and work down instead of starting at the bottom and working up.  The next course had to be slipped under the first course.

We used mostly 10x4ft sheets of zinc along with some 8x4 sheets for the corners.  Oddly, the undersides were different colors.  Luckily, that won't show from the inside once we are finished.  However, it isn't uncommon around here for the zinc to be exposed, i.e., for the roof to be the ceiling.  We will be installing rigid insulation against the 2x4 straps and then some sort of finish over the insulation.  Not sure what yet, maybe tongue and groove mahogany paneling.  Suggestions are welcomed! 

Another view of the roof from below.

This is with all the roof, including the ridge cap, up and most of the doors and windows.

 Before and after shots of the north side are below.

Before the zinc and windows.  You can see how the gable end eaves extend out. 

After the zinc, windows, and 3 of 4 doors.

 We had the windows and doors custom made in Spanish Lookout by Peters Glass Shop; we highly recommend them.  I am so happy with how they turned out.  We will be putting up the exterior trim around them next week.

The crew working on the south facing roof.  This is the side on which the solar panels will be mounted.

The sheets of metal roofing are all installed.  Next, we will come back and finish off the gable ends with sheet metal covers and then install the soffit.  That will keep it weather tight.

The collage below shows the southwest corner and the south facing roof during the construction.  Either 18 or 20 solar panels will be mounted on the roof.  A small shed room will be added to the windowless wall to house the inverter and the batteries will run under the windows along the wall on the right.  The space the batteries will be in is on a breezeway that will be covered by a shed roof that links the old cabana with the new addition.  The breezeway will be screened in.

 Once the roof was up, we took the tarps off the Santa Maria wooden beam.  You can see the beam and some of the posts in the collage below.  I had thought that putting the roof on would make the space seem smaller, but it doesn't.  The space is nice and open with plenty of light coming in through the windows.  I'm sure that will change a bit when we put the loft in, but with 10 foot ceilings under the loft, it should still feel open and airy.  

There is still an amazing and daunting amount of work yet to be done.  Getting the solar panels, inverter, and batteries up and running is our priority now.  The panels are being shipped, the batteries and inverter have been sourced and will be ordered next month.  Things are happening!

Looking more like a house every day.

August is almost gone

Here it is, already August 28th!  Where does the time go?  We finally have some relief from the weeks of windy weather that blew the sargassum seaweed ashore, although piles of sargassum linger.

Lovely, calm sea in the view looking north from our dock.

The calm weather was helpful for getting the next batch of lumber boated over.  As usual, Dennis and I are consumed by the construction process.

And our cabana as viewed from the dock.  The siding is up on the 2 gable ends of the addition.

We are making slow, but tangible, progress.

A closer view with the scaffolding moved to the inside to start on the interior roofing trusses.

A view of the north side of the addition.

Getting the first of the 5 interior roofing trusses up was a big milestone.

The first of the interior trusses is now complete.  It was a challenge to install because the west gable-end truss is not parallel to the remaining trusses.  Tricky measurements were needed.  The next ones should be easier ...

You can just make out the nylon lines that were strung to keep everything lined up right.

And here is the view from the back showing the west wall with the back door and windows.  The windowless wall is where the electrical inverter will be housed.

Like Dennis and me, Max takes a keen interest in the construction.  Every evening she makes her inspection of the day's progress.

Max on the job.

 It is tough and tiring work.

Exhausted by her efforts, Max takes a little break, still keeping one eye open.  Sort of.