Excitement at the fort

You wouldn't think much would happen at a remote island 70 miles offshore. Let me assure you, there is a surprising amount of activity. For Robin, running the fort is a lot like running things at Glacier Bay. Water, power, sanitation. My work however, is, well, not work at all ... unless you consider snorkeling, taking pictures and catching sharks work.

See some pictures now of the construction project, the first lemon shark I caught, Robin working and more -- or keep reading this exciting blog entry.

There is a big reconstruction/preservation project going on here. The brick keeps falling off the fort and they keep putting them back on. More than 16 million bricks were used to build this place so that's a lot of work. They barge in bricks, offload and the masons go to work. Of course, offloading can have some glitches -- like the forklift drivers getting stuck in the sand -- which caused some delay. (That entertained me for about 45 minutes one day!)

Much of the maintenance has been sorely neglected and kept barely running. Fortunately, Robin, the man who can fix anything and works like crazy, is here. He has plenty to do. For example, he makes fresh water by using the reverse osmosis machine, which pulls salt water in from the moat and filters out the salt. Pretty cool! The moat water has to be less than 500 ppm of salt to do this, which again, isn't every day. Needless to say, water is at a premium and conservation is strictly encouraged.

He keeps the diesel generators, the power suppliers, running. He maintains the santec/sanitation. He fixes boats. He does it all!

Other exciting events have been the US Customs and Border Patrol paying a visit, the medivac helicopter doing a test run and going fishing.