July 13, 2011

I got dirty today! I woke up and went for a swim out in the marina because it seemed like a more fun way of getting some cardio then jogging on the treadmill. First thing I did today was go to the storage facility – Sun Village – to see what kind of plumbing parts we had out there. The shark tank should be in place soon and we need to have all of the pieces to get it up and running. The most important piece is a 3” bulkhead that goes in the bottom of the tank to serve as a drain to the filtration system. That is ultimately what I was looking for. EVERYTHING that was sent over from Sac in the sea freight container is covered in a 1/2” layer of dirt. So while rummaging through these boxes I got covered in the stuff – and didn’t find the bulkhead.

When I returned to the Palace, Jonathan showed me a large wooden crate, about 3’ x 3’ filled with dirt covered PVC parts. He thought that maybe the shark tank bulkhead was in there, even though some of his other workers hadn’t seen it. Well, after digging around and pulling out all of the useful stuff I found in there, I stumbled across what I was looking for. It was at the bottom of the crate in the back corner, or course. Jonathan and Sam were both quite impressed that I had found it. It really wasn’t anything spectacular, but it was dirty. Anyway, I then had to take all of the other pieces (I filled an old Fish Planet shopping cart) and wash them off.

After lunch Jonathan asked me to wash off one of the retail fish tank racks (from here on they will be called MaRS units). There are about 25 of these things that need to be cleaned up and moved to the shop. Most of them have been cleaned up but probably not as thoroughly as they need to be. Jonathan wanted me to clean one up myself so that I could instruct the other guys as to how to do it properly. The rack was also covered in a thick layer of dirt, so much of that ended up on me.

I was very excited to have a chance to actually DO something today! It was quite warm out today but there was a nice breeze. By the end of the day I was even excited that I had gotten some color on my pasty, white skin. Unfortunately, after showering, all of that color was gone – so it wasn’t the sun, it was the dirt.

Tomorrow I will be taking the day off to go diving all day! I’m going on a boat trip with Desert Sea Divers for a 3 dive trip. We will be going to something called the Cable Wreck and a couple of different reefs offshore. I guess the wreck was some sort of cargo ship carrying a load of steel cables or something so there are these huge tangles of cable near the site. It is supposed to be one of the better wreck sites in the area. I’m very excited and will take lots of pictures so stay tuned to Facebook for those.

July 11, 2011

Yesterday was somewhat eventful. We spent the morning at the shop. The first step in the shark tank installation is complete and they were beginning the second part. The shop is on the ground floor but there is a basement parking lot under the building. A 5,000 gallon saltwater tank holds about 42,500 pounds of water - that doesn't take into account the weight of the tank, decorations, sand and sharks. So you can imagine, the owners of the building were none too thrilled about this project. In order to make this work, they drilled 5 holes in the concrete floor of the shop and dropped steel H-beams to the foundation of the basement (see pics here). Funny thing is, the beams were too long to just "drop in" so they actually had to cut them, them secure them back together with a titanium plate. The step they were beginning when we arrived was to now tie these H- beams together with steel I-beams. This will act as a frame for a steel plate which the tank with actually sit on. I will hopefully be able to get pics of each step of the process so you can see it because trying to describe it just doesn't do it justice.

Jonathan and Sam then spent about an hour figuring out how to steal some more floor space by making the check-out counter smaller and pushed further towards the wall. We are sharing a small portion of the shop with a flower shop run by one of the other guys who works here. His operation is small and consists of a small refrigerated room and a work counter (which you can see in the Facebook album Issham Aqua Shop).

I spent the afternoon pretending (and failing) to be a furniture designer/carpenter. Jonathan tasked me with creating some sketches for the stands we will have to build to support the "reef slice" tanks which will be in one of the walls in the shop (sort of along these lines, but flush with the wall, no frame, and without the living room). I'm not good at visualizing stuff, give me the parts and some tools and I can figure out how to build it, but I'm not a planner - I'm more of a do-er (and when it comes to carpentry, I'm not a GOOD do-er). So I came up with something, Jonathan made many suggestions for how it could be better and I started over. Then I decided to go get some better measurements of the tanks. When I came back up to do a new work-up, I noticed that the measurements I had for the tank were not what the measurements of the holes in the wall were. Turns out that the wrong tanks were originally used to get the measurements. In what might be a lucky turn of fate, it looks as though the 2 correct tanks might not have fit anyway - they would be too long. What we will probably do is use one of the "wrong" tanks and one of the "right" tanks. We are going to the shop today to take another look at it.

In other news, the dust that had been kicked up into the atmosphere has settled somewhat since the winds have died these last 2 days so it's almost blue skies again. I'll probably try to get in a quick snorkel today after work. I'm hoping to do a night dive this weekend with the full moon. One of my favorite dives from St Thomas was a full moon night dive where we turned off our lights and just dove using the moonlight that filtered down into the water - it was amazing!

I found a zebra shark egg case in one of the lagoons the other day. No sign of a baby zebra shark - doesn't mean it's not there, it may be hiding, but most likely it got snatched up by a larger fish or died from lack of food. They try really hard to find egg cases when they are laid but sometimes they are really well hidden. If they take them out just before hatching, the baby has a chance of surviving if they can be monitored in the indoor tanks. There have been quite a few successful shark births here in the past - it would be very cool to be around for one.

I'll post again later today if I can, fill you in on our trip to the shop and see what comes of that. Hopefully, we'll get the shark tank in place today or tomorrow.