27 September 2013

Facebook

     False Bluff now has a Facebook page at www.facebook.com/pages/False-Bluff/142899219245180 and you can 'like' this blog on your own Facebook page. 
     We've created a Facebook page to cover things that might not be happening at False Bluff but that are relevant to False Bluff and the part of Nicaragua where it lives...resources or other information that might be of interest to people curious about this part of the world.  
     For instance, if you land in Bluefields and want to visit False Bluff, how do you get here?  Can we recommend a good and reliable boat captain?  Yes, we can and we will...on our Facebook page.
     And for those of you who might have visited Bluefields and been concerned about the plight of street dogs, in the (near, I hope) future we hope to be able to post on Facebook the creation of a group to take positive action on behalf of these animals.
     So check out the page from time to time and see what's going on or who's being featured.
   

22 September 2013

Covenants and Restrictions and Electricity

     In preparation for offering some house lots for sale at False Bluff,  I'd spent some time writing covenants and restrictions...including a portion dealing with electricity for the houses that would call for the installation of solar power as primary power source, with generators to be used only during construction or as emergency back up. 
     And then one day during a walk on the beach I met a man who asked permission to bring his boat up our creek.
     Our language difference made clear communication awkward, so when we got back to the house I phoned a friend in Bluefields who helped the two of us get at just what he was asking for.   A crew chief from Enel, Nicaragua's electric company, he wanted to be able to bring his crew up our creek because the creek presented such an easy way to get the crew to their current work area.   
     Under his authority twenty guys showed up the next day to continue chopping the right-of-way they had begun far to the north of us (they're not all shown below).   These guys were followed a week later by the chain-saw crew, cutting trees that were too big for machetes.  


     The machete crew does the first job in Enel's project to run power from Kukra Hill north of False Bluff south along the coast to El Bluff and then across the bay to Bluefields.  Actually the power lines will run all the way across Nicaragua from Managua to Kukra and then down our section of the Caribbean coast.  The poles are being delivered by way of the sea and have already been installed from Kukra about half-way down to False Bluff.
     My reaction to this life-altering event is the same as that of everyone else who's heard it:  simple disbelief.   Electricity along any of the RAAS coast was not on anybody's radar, but it's happening.
     


     

20 September 2013

Smokey Lane Lagoon - RAAS, Nicaragua

     I've posted lots of pictures showing the Caribbean....beautiful and hard to miss when you're at False Bluff.   
     But somehow Smokey Lane Lagoon seems to have been lost in the shuffle.  We're always in a boat when we get to the lagoon and maybe it's just worry about what a bad combination water and cameras can be that keeps the camera packed away.  
     The creek that we opened early in this project connects the lagoon to the docks at False Bluff.  Being on a boat in the creek is like floating through a tunnel that wanders through a mangrove jungle all the way.  
     Here we're about to break into the bright sunlight on the lagoon leaving False Bluff for a run to Bluefields, eight miles away.



     And just outside the mouth of the creek there's a good view across Smokey Lane to Kukra Hill.



13 September 2013

A night on Nicaragua's Caribbean coast

     When there's literally nothing else around for miles, full moon nights are beautiful.

Looking east...
 and looking west.

06 September 2013

Coconut tree's incredible root system

     I've planted hundreds of coconut trees primarily for their looks and their impact on the environment.  My employees and most of the visitors from Bluefields agree the trees are nice to look at but they're mostly interested in the food-producing capabilities of the trees and have advised me that I've planted so many the trees won't produce very well.
     An excellent reason for planting coconut trees is their extensive root system and what that root system does to stabilize the environment.   The trees are lost sometimes:  a poor start that didn't allow the root system to get a good grasp at the tree's beginning;  years of people hacking at them with machetes; encroaching seas that wipe out what the roots hold onto.  
     Here's one that got a bad start and then was chopped at for years.  Planted just to the right of the trunk are two small plugs of a grass that may help this (see May 16, 2013 post about the grass).


     But none of them give up easily.   


Photo by Andre Shank