BobnRox in Ecuador

About noon today, the big Cat Excavator finished up shoring up the house next door, but we had no idea what the next project might be, since there were no more boulders.  I asked the honchos on the job, and was told that rain and road construction were slowing down the trucks.

Finally, they arrive, and drop off huge, and noisy, boulders--some even shook the house when they hit the ground...

In the meantime, I had been chewing the fat with the chief on the project, and we discussed timing.  I mentioned that I thought that we had until February 17 to get rock laid down to protect us from the big waves--He said, "not true" and pointed out that the actual high tides begin of Feb 16, but more importantly, the beginning of Carnival Weekend is four days from now--and all trucks will be slowed to a crawl, in that they have to drive 90 minutes from the quarry on a good day.

As I write this entry, I notice that the excavator operator, who had been here since 7:00 am, was finally turning off his lights and parking the machine after a 13 hour day.

We even had one of the men tell us that they could have gotten us prettier boulders if the job had not had to be done in such a hurry.  We hastened to tell him that "if they save our home, they are beautiful to us"!!!

Here is Rox posing with the equipment...

Here is the first boulder arriving...

Everything in this picture looks pretty to me...

 As of now, we have a string of pretty big boulders fronting our property...now, we don't know if the plan is to double up on these tomorrow, or not.  We also don't know if they plan to make an additional "breakwater" in front of the eight affected properties, or not...here are a few of today's pics...

 They were still placing rocks as we ate dinner to this great sunset, artistically framed by Rox...

More tomorrow--stay tuned!

It's Monday morning, a week after all of the news broke about the Coast "falling into the Ocean".  We had been hearing that we were scheduled to have some help, but we felt it was smart not to rely on anything until we see the rock piling up in front of us.

To that end, we have had the guys re-doubling their efforts to fill sandbags.

 We heard the big excavator working on the former project this morning, and went on down to see what was in store for us...The operator said that trucks with rock were coming, but also mentioned delays due to detours and rain...here is the job that he is finishing up...

We were thrilled to see a ten yard truck arrive with a bunch of boulders, and dump it next to the home that was slated to fall over with the next huge tide...

 The owner of this home does not know that he has suffered any damage, like losing his whole front yard, and all of his fencing, plus his front deck...Nor does he know that the government is adding boulders right up next to his footings, just to keep his house upright...to say that he is in for a surprise would be putting it mildly.  The fencing that you see here was retrieved from the surf and nailed up to side of the house after the deck was destroyed. You will notice in the above picture that the foundation footings are sitting about 8 inches from the sandbank...so this excavator pushed two ton boulders right up to the side of the bank--hopefully that will be enough to stop the waves erosion...

All of this is happening right down from us!!!  We now have our fingers crossed that the job continues just fine, and we have protection soon.

As all of you readers know, bad news sells papers, and good news is a big yawn...and we have to say, that the photos that were printed showing damage to us and the Coast, could hardly have made matters look any worse!  We are writing this little note, because so many of you have expressed great concern that we are even staying with the house!

The fact is, we are just fine!  At this time, we are having very low high tides, and almost non-existent waves--the reason we think, is that the moon is causing trouble on the other side of the planet.

Even though the photos made it look as if our place was sliding into the sea, we still have a ways to go before the house is in any real danger.  I would say that we have 40 feet of undisturbed yard at this time, and the guys are reclaiming some everyday, with sand bags.

We have no problem with access, in that our property is a block wide, and we enter from a safe, paved street, through our gates, where Agripina and Isidro live in the two bedroom cottage, then walk about 100 feet before reaching the back of our place.  Our house is pretty long, and then you have another 40 feet before you reach the sand bags...

The next test, according to the TV News, will be February 17, when huge waves are predicted.  I presume that is when the moon will be exerting more force on our tides.

We think that we are on schedule to handle the next bunch of big waves, but we would appreciate all of you keeping your fingers and toes crossed, anyway...

We are a little behind on our correspondence right now, but please know that we will be replying to everyone who wrote...

Thanks mucho!!!

  Bob & Roxanne

Zowiee!!!  We didn't realize the "star-power" we had, until Rox, Coquita and I took a short walk around the town this morning, just to see what kind of projects might be shaping up.   We sort of began a discussion of our damage, with one nice little ol' lady, and soon drew a crowd of folks all wanting to put in their two cents about the terrible waves, El Nino, the Government, and various remedies, etc...Most of these folks wanted to let us know that they helped get the TV crews and government representatives over to see our damage... 

It seems that we are actually being treated like celebrities in our little town.  We have had calls and emails from people we know, all over Ecuador, expressing concern, and wishing us well.

After lunch, we had figured that our 15 seconds of fame had passed, so we got down to more mundane stuff like getting more food in the house and another 200 sandbags for the guys to fill.  Seems as if 200 is a lot when you are buying them, but when they are filled and placed, you realize that you seriously underestimated how many it takes to fill a big void in the front yard...

So...off to Salinas I went, for a quick turnaround, no lunch, no fun, just buy stuff and get back home...

Now it gets a little more interesting--As I walked into SuperMaxi, (a very Safeway-like store), I was immediately approached by clerks and the Asst Mgr, to inquire how I was, how was Roxanne, how was the house, and what was going to happen next, and these folks immediately passed the word that the guy from Manglaralto, who was in the papers and on TV last night, was in the store!!!  Now, you couldn't confuse this treatment with the treatment Brad Pitt gets, but, for me it was a first!

It seems that everyone wanted me to know that they also saw me on TV, and that they were concerned and wished me luck.  They also said that they hoped that the guv-mint would help us out--as this was my theme throughout the interviews...

I enjoyed the "nice, warm feeling" all the way home.

So folks, stay tuned...

I have to say that, even if our damage is limited to a destroyed fence and some serious erosion, it is extremely photogenic, and obvious to anyone.  This is in stark contrast to the poor guy two doors down from us, who has a post and pier within an inch of the sandbank, that erodes about a meter a day!  His house will begin to slowly sink into the beach today or tomorrow, but it just doesn't photograph so well--sort of like watching paint dry or ice melt.

Alfonso and his wife showed up this morning carrying two papers featuring our house and fence prominently, in articles that carried dire warnings that our house would soon be "no more"...they sort of liked my description of the creeping erosion.  Also, they said that we were carried on all the TV Channels yesterday...

Here are some of the pictures from the papers...

 I know this is a duplicate, but I wanted you to see the spread...

This is a shot of how the project looked yesterday...we are leaving the poor ol' palm tree in place, 'cause it helps slow down the waves.  The guys have put in 300 sand bags that weigh over 200 pounds each.  We are still hoping that the State will show up with huge boulders to help us out. 

I am in daily email contact with the State Engineer who was so sympathetic with our problem here.  He is telling me not to give up hope...but it's the government, so who knows?

We have had three rather benign high tides, but as I look out the window at the present one, I see larger waves building far out to sea...so we are rooting for the big boy boulders to come thru...