September 1, 2008

 

New Casa Calypso- moving in day

 

Dear Dad,

 

You cannot believe the last week.  The good news is that we are installed in the new Casa Calypso – kitchen up and running and Manta Raya at the dock. 

It is amazing the effort of our team and the construction crew has put into preparing everything for the move.

 

We moved last Wednesday.

 

I am so proud of the Calypso employees.  They went above and beyond the call of duty.

This is how it happened:

 

Wednesday morning, after Manta Raya left on a tour with 85 passengers, the kitchen crew called the covered truck that brings our fresh vegetables every day and for the price of gas, the driver helped load all the appliances: three refrigerators, a freezer, four stainless steel tables and three stainless stands, three teak tables, a washing machine and all the pots, pans, laundry tubs, plastic food containers, plates for 100 people in various sizes and all the food and put it all into the truck and took it to the new Casa Calypso and unloaded it all.  Wow.

David and I had some shopping to do before we left San Jose and headed  for Puntarenas, but since we had planned on staying in Puntarenas for three days, we knew we would have time to help with the move.

It was a surprise to us when we arrived at about 4:00pm, that the three women had packed and moved and unpacked the Calypso kitchen. 

Everything was there, but not put away as I wanted it to be. 

Since it was getting dark and there were no lights in the kitchen yet, I made plans with the women to start re-organizing everything the following morning, our only free day with no tour.

In the meantime, the construction crew was busy with the finishing touches on the two new bathrooms and ceramic patio, a small army of workers.

Early the following morning, the last day of our contract at the Calypso dock and the day we HAD to move everything I met with the women in the kitchen.

In only three hours, I organized everything and all was put away.  We still didn’t have lights or a phone and the gas stove was not hooked up, but with all the pots and pans, bowls, dishes, plastic food containers in their proper place the kitchen was in order.  The cooks began preparing the food for the following day, another full group of 85 passengers.

While they were busy preparing the lunch, David went to ICE – the telephone and electric company – and was able to find a woman he recognized and who recognized him and in less than an hour we had not one phone line but two.

In the middle of mayhem, the laundry woman was able to wash and hang the laundry from the tour the day before.  She had a make-shift clothes line strung over the piles of sand and gravel and stuff that was on the ground everywhere.

David and I bought grout for the bathroom tile in San Jose and brought it with us.  We don’t know anything about grout and when the construction boss told us we bought a cheep brand, we were shocked. 

He told us that the grout, once placed between the tiles, has to be wet every day for three days or it will crumble and fall off.

This is ok, but when the workers ran out of the grout, they bought another bag in Puntarenas with the same color written on the bag.  Was it the same color?  No, of course not and luckily David and I were there in time to catch the mistake. 

Of course, the construction boss, who must be colored blind, assured us it was the same color and looked different because it was wet.  WHAT!!!! 

It was yellow and the color we bought was almond or an antique white.

Can you imagine if we weren’t there and we saw our beautiful bathrooms with a whitish tile and yellow grout instead of the nice almond color we picked? 

 

In the meantime the carpenter, with a helper, was busy putting his tools in his bodega (a bodega is a place to store stuff) He had to build shelves and used the form wood that was used for the cement work to make the shelves.  I could have made them faster.  It was the last day for his slow moving helper.

The bartender was busy organizing his third of the new tool shed.  To do this he had to remove some teak boards that were in his area.  It was pouring rain by this time and flashes of lightening made the work go more slowly that I wanted.

There was a team of a musician and two crew members taking all the trash to the dump. It took about 10 truck loads to clean the area of all the garbage.  

Part of the garbage was three 55 gallon drums filled with used oil and diesel.  Uck.  It was left there by the old owner.  We had to clean up his mess but needed to find someplace to take the old oil so that it wouldn’t get thrown into the estuary.

Luckily, we found a company that wanted the ¨aciete quemado ¨ or burnt oil and will use it when paving the streets.

Then there were branches that had been cut off the almond tree in the front yard when the front wall was raised.  Also, we had branches cut off that could have been used as a ladder for any thieves that might want to get into the property.

The man we buy the tanks of gas from finally came in the afternoon and connected the new gas line for the stove. He did a temporary installation because the tanks of gas are not installed completely, yet; but the cooks were able to bake the 15 cakes for the tour the following day..

There were too many workers and the work was sloppy in some areas.  David and I had a meeting with the architect and the construction boss and gave them……………………….our opinion.  Since we were paying the construction by the meter the price didn’t change for us.  Unfortunately the construction boss was paying his crew by the hour and if he left, they stopped working.  It was driving me nuts to watch.

While everyone was busy, I had a lock smith come and change all the locks on all the doors but one.  Which one?  The front door to the house has an antique door knob and lock with a combination that is too old to change the combo and make a new key. But the lock smith was able to change the rest and he even marked the keys with a different color for each key.

I am keeper of the keys and have quite a collection when you include all the keys from the San Jose office too.

We were an army, busy and not one complaint. I am so proud of the co-operation of all of our employees who went beyond the call of duty.  I think they are as excited as we are to finally have a Calypso home to call our own.

The new dock had to be ready with a new electrical hook up for Manta Raya and the ramp finished.  I certainly didn’t want to pay the $1500 p/month dock fees that we would have been charged if we were one day over the end of the contract.

The ramp was a bit too short and needed to be extended 12 feet so that Manta Raya would have water to keep her floating and not stuck in the mud at really low tide.  When David asked the construction boss to get a welder to extend the ramp another 12 feet, the welder was there quick as a wink.

While one was extending the dock another man was making new electrical lines to plug in the giant cat at night and keep the cold box cold and the batteries charged for the following day.

.

By the end of the day I would like to say all the work was completed but it was and is not.  However, it was at a point where we could move Manta Raya to her new dock and that is what we did.

As the sun was setting, our captain proudly brought Manta Raya to her new home.  It was a big event and all work stopped to watch the beautiful yacht as she glided up the estuary to Casa Calypso.

One of the crew (Leo of course) had been on board all day washing and polishing the giant catamaran and she was gleaming in the last light of the day while all of us stood and watched in pleasant fascination as she was brought up to the new Calypso dock and her bow and stern lines were thrown to waiting crew.  It was a proud moment and we all cheered.

David and I spent one more day watching and supervising the work at the new Calypso house.  I am sure that by being there everything went smoother than it would have if we had not been there to direct the different jobs.

If we had a written script it could not have gone smoother.

Yes, there were a few glitches but nothing that cannot be fixed.  We are going back tomorrow to see what there is left to finish.

The bathrooms were not completely finished when we left, but should be ready to place the hardware: toilet paper holders, soap dispensers and a stainless steel hand rail for the passengers in a wheel chair. 

Even though our passengers were not able to use the bathrooms on Friday, no-one seemed to mind. By the end of the day most of the garbage was gone and most everything was put away.  Best of all the Calypso employees are happy and so are we.

 

Today is Monday the 9th.  David and I have driven back and forth to Puntarenas for over a month watching the construction.  It is nerve racking and there have been a few re-dos and we have found new jobs that are unexpected too.  Are we finished yet?  I would like to say yes, but sadly there is more and more to do. Hopefully, today the bathrooms doors have arrived as well as a new kitchen door too.

It would be wonderful to have a Home Depot here where you could buy doors, but alas, they have to be made if you want a real solid made from wood.

The man making the doors, on a contract, only makes an appearance in the afternoon.  He promised the doors would be finished almost two weeks ago and we are still waiting.  He is also making the windows for the new bathrooms and the windows we cut in the kitchen to give them more natural light.

Hoping to see everything more advanced when we arrived from San Jose; imagine our disappointment when we got there and saw there was still a lot to do.  As soon as we got to the new house, I looked at a window frame on the outside of the bathroom window and could see instantly that it was crooked.  When I pointed this out to the workers they stopped and stared at me as if to say, it’s not that crooked. I put on my sweet face and reminded all of them that we are paying for a 100% job and not less.

The ceramic tile on patio has been dug up twice and the grout between the tiles in front was so badly put on that for more than four days some of the workers has been picking it and removing the old cement to replace it and do the job correctly.

The sand we are using for grout is sand from the mine at Punta Coral.  It has tiny pieces of broken shells in it and we mixed it with cement and did the grout on the floor at Punta Coral and it is really attractive.

There was so much rain, due to all the hurricanes in the Atlantic north of us that Manta Raya was not able to stop and pick up the needed bags of sand.

Our main Captain took a day off and he went with the architect and the builder to look at the floor at Punta Coral and pick up the badly needed sand.

When they returned, David and I had arrived from San Jose.  The looks on their faces told us that now they understood what we are looking for in the finished floor.

Another group of guys spent a day cleaning the bottoms of the floats on the floating dock.  The results are amazing.  The welder strengthened the dock where it was bending in the middle. 

At low tide it was possible to see all the trash that has been thrown into the estero or estuary since the house was built 100 years ago.  David contracted the same group of guys to clean up the garbage in the muck.  They filled 11 big bags with a mixture of all sorts of garbage.  Now, if you walk down the ramp at low tide you will see only mud. This is a great thing and will help us on our quest for a rating in sustainable tourism.

David and I have kept a watchful eye on the construction.  It is a good thing we did or there would have been a lot more ¨mistakes¨ that might have gone unnoticed until it was too late to repair them.

One man was painting the walls of the new bathroom without sanding the old paint off first.  We had used old siding to place on the cinderblocks so that the new construction would match the rest of the wooden house.  David was able to send out a piece of the existing window and door trim to make new boards for the new windows.  It is a special order and made here in
San Jose near the airport. We didn’t want to make new boards for the walls and wanted to make use or recycle the boards that were removed for the new construction.  The walls are not flat and this is why we save all the wood that was removed and even took down a whole side of the house, (that is not visible of course because it is in between two houses) and although a lot of the wood was bad, rotten in places after 100 years, there was enough to cover the small area on the new bathroom walls. This was a good thing to do as the whole side had to b re-constructed because of rotten wood.  Another expense not planned for.

David and I know that as soon as we leave the workers stop too.  There is so much construction going on in Costa Rica that it is impossible to find crew that fit into our budget.

Are we almost finished?  With the first part, yes.  Then we need to finish building a second floor above the laundry area for an office and some repairs to the cement posts under the house and strengthen the parquet floor. 

We found a carpenter to repair the floor and he will start as soon as he is finished with another job.

The underside of the house is a big job and does need repair, but when?  I am not sure as it will be expensive.

We are officially in the slowest part of the year; the months of September and October.  We even lowered our rates for these two months. 

Our group sizes have dropped considerably and now I will start giving vacations to the crew and employees.

Across the street from Casa Calypso, stood an abandoned run down remains of an old high school.  It has been a haven from crack heads and to our wonderful surprise, when we arrived at the house we saw that it is finally being torn down. 

 

We are off to Puntarenas tomorrow.  Will write more next week.

 

Besitos,  Cecs