Gulf Island Building.

cocobolo

On second thought, that end overhang looks more like 3' 6", maybe even less.

cocobolo

January 8, 2005. This is not a date I am ever likely to forget.

We had this..what would you call it...light dusting of snow? OK, it was a real dumping. In the early afternoon, the temperature went way up into the low 40's. Dead calm and gorgeous sunshine.

For all intents and purposes a beautiful day.

Then within a 2 hour period, some 3,000 trees came down on the island. Many small ones, but hundreds of really big ones. Nothing was spared from the biggest firs to some massive arbutus.

19 cabins sustained some sort of damage, many seriously.

At the time, I was in charge of the roads here. It was my job to organize everyone I could get my hands on to clean the mess up. It took us 6 weeks to finish the job.

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cocobolo

This is one of the many tress which fell. It came off the neighbours' property.

Not a particularly large tree, about 90'.

And you're going to have to take my word for this next part...it landed right on my wife's little 20' sailing proa. Matchsticks.

I spent 400 hours building that boat and gave it to her for a Christmas present several years earlier.

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tpolk

so hard to get perspective sometimes. looks like a small tree maybe 10" diameter

__________________
The older I get the better I was

Itsdanf

A mere sappling!

cocobolo

tp, I just went over and measured the tree. It is 31" at the base, and only 19" where it broke off.

There is a shard still standing which is maybe 9 or 10 feet high. Completely covered in dried sap which indicates it was badly shaken. No doubt, that's why it came down.

cocobolo

...mornin' Dan, yes I think you are right.

Some of the firs here are still not what you could call a large tree even at 90 feet.

There is one property towards the south end of the island where the owner simply will not cut anything down. The canopy is around 80-90 feet in the air, and almost all the trees are barely 8" at the butt. And no branches to speak of until right at the top of the trees. His ground below is also barren due to the canopy cover.

We've all tried to explain it to him, but sometimes you know they just don't want to hear about it.

cocobolo

OK, here's the bad news for the day. The missus has found half a dozen old photo albums, and two of them have pics of the house in progress. No wonder I couldn't find any pics in the envelopes.

The majority are way out of any kind of order, but I have found about 60 or so which show a good part of the building process.

If it isn't going to bore you to tears, I will get a few up each day.

We've got some decent weather this morning (it won't last the day) so I have to get outside and get busy.

gma2rjc

If it were 10 albums of pictures it wouldn't bore us. The more the better!

Shamus

There is a reason why so many of us check this thread every day. I second the vote for the pictorial story of how you arrived at where you are.

__________________
Shamus

cocobolo

Once again thank you Barb & Shamus.

I will get busy and start getting the scanning done. Still not too good at this, but at least the mistakes are becoming fewer.

There seems to be no pictorial record that I can find as yet of the time between the cabin being done and all of a sudden the house is part way up.

Where the house sits, I took everything off right down to bedrock. Can't find anything on that. That little process took the better part of two years on and off. Any trees that were there had every trace of any roots removed as well. That's what really took the time.

I did find some pics of the wife's proa from my boat shop days. I'll show you those and one shot of her in the boat in happier times. Which is to say before it met its' demise!

cocobolo

Here is the main ama (hull) of the proa. It was 20' long. Made from 1/4" thick cedar strips epoxied and covered with 6 oz fabric. The entire boat, which would include the main ama, the aka's (crossbeams) the outer ama or you may call it the outrigger, the webbing, mast and sail only weighed 105 lbs. all up.

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cocobolo

These are the aka's, or crossbeams. The whole shebang could be assembled in about 15 minutes. I also made three very lightweight folding "chairs" to put it on when we were bolting it together.

They don't look any too straight in this pic. While they were indeed curved (as I think you might be able to see in a later pic) it is the laminated light and dark cedar which is throwing the perspective off.

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cocobolo

The proa could be paddled as well as sailed, and I made two of these very lightweight double paddles for the purpose.

When we were sailing, the paddles were conveniently placed on the webbing out of the way.

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cocobolo

Here is "Haina" on the sand at Walker Hook on Saltspring Island, a local favourite c.o. beach.

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