All 11 of us went to the International Bible Church (www.bonaireibc.org) this morning for their worship service at 9 am.  The church has no air conditioning, but has large windows and doors to let any available breeze pass through the building.  The message on the finished work of Christ was such a good reminder that our salvation does not depend on our works.  The pastor reminded us that we should be concentrating on ‘renewing our minds’ rather than trying to do works in our own strength.

After church, Daryl and Carol Van Dyken invited us to convoy with them on a tour of the north end of the island of Bonaire.  We had a quick dinner at our duplex then met them at 1 pm.  We took the road north on the west coast to Gotomeer (lake with a few flamingos).  Since there was a cruise ship in port, there were tour buses and cars blocking all the scenic points.  We traveled on to the Rincon, the first town on Bonaire established by Spain in the 1500s.

We then arrived at the east coast of Bonaire where there are 12 large wind turbines.  The wind is almost always blowing out of the east, but like with any wind or solar energy source, there is still need for oil fueled engines on standby to make up for this power when the wind is calm or the sun doesn’t shine.

At the south end of the line of wind turbines are some undercut rocks with ancient paintings.  From there we traveled the shorter route back to Kralendijk, the capital of Bonaire.  It is the second, and only other, town established on Bonaire.

Normally no one works at the site on Saturday, so we took the day off to relax and recover. Since our whole team of 9 men will be here next week, we will request to be allowed to work next Saturday, unless we are way ahead of schedule with the work we want to do.

Six of Ralph’s grandsons (one is actually a grandson-in-law) arrived on the 1:30pm flight from Newark. They had all flown to Newark the night before (3 from Michigan and 3 from California) and spent the night in the Newark airport. Their names are Steven, Paul Phil, Brian, Bruce and Jake — ages 17 to 32.

Since the TWR Toyota Hilux pickup that we are using can only seat six people, Ralph rented another Hilux pickup like it (only newer) at the airport to accommodate our crew for the next two weeks. Maryjane and Virginia had lunch ready for everyone when we got them back from the airport. Even though our numbers only doubled, plus one, the amount of food eaten nearly quadrupled!!

After lunch, Jim and I took these young men by the transmitter site then on to the salt pier. The smaller ship that we saw yesterday was already filled and gone and another, even smaller ship, was getting ready to receive its load of salt. The two ship loads of salt that were taken hardly seemed to have even made a dent in the ‘mountains’ of salt waiting to be loaded.

We then went to Coco Beach, by the TWR office north of town, where we swam with Daryl VanDyken, the project manager, his wife Carol and two men that also just arrived from Alabama. Jim, Ralph’s son, taught all of his nephews the basics of snorkeling and ‘they were off’ to check out the beautiful fish found on Bonaire. All but the one who swallowed too much salt water through his snorkel were elated by what they saw.

Maryjane and Virginia had a huge pan of spaghetti, vegetables, and salad ready by the time we all got back from the beach, got the sand rinsed off in the shower at the back of the house, and then showered inside to get the rest of the salt water off.

After supper, everyone sat around the table and sang hymns. What awesome singing, with all the parts! Someone counted that 22 songs, nearly all hymns, were sung including all the verses. Rarely did anyone have to look up the third or fourth verse in a hymnal.

After not getting a good night of rest on their trip here, all the young men were in bed by about 9pm and quiet.

The weekly staff meeting was moved from the office to the site this morning. There were around 15 individuals in attendance.

After the meeting we removed the 800 amp distribution panel from its pallet inside the building then moved it into the power room. This is the heaviest of the five panels that goes into the power room. (I don’t think I have mentioned in precious messages that the floor of the power room is about 5 feet above ground level.)

Jim discovered when reviewing the air conditioner schematics that a 110v circuit needed to be run to power an auxiliary outlet in each condensing unit. Normally, these wire should have been pulled in at the same time as the large 150 amp wires. We pulled back the ground wire to each unit and were able to use it (with a lot of effort) to pull in wires for the outlet. Today, I learned a technique from Ralph and Jim for freeing up apparent ‘jams’ in the pull by keeping tension on the wire being pulled in while pulling back on all the other wires in the pipe. Worked great!!

I went back to the power room to bolt both the 800 amp distribution panel and the ATS (automatic transfer switch) to the concrete wall. I needed to locate a hammer drill, concrete bits, and the rawl bolts necessary to accomplish the job. Being new the site, this involves quite a bit of time rounding all of these things up. (This process is getting a little faster each day, as I learn where certain tools are kept.) By the time this was accomplished it was time for lunch.

Home for lunch and a siesta!

First the 800 amp distribution panel was bolted to the wall. This was relatively straight forward as there were holes in the back of the panel specifically for that purpose.

Next followed a discussion of how to bolt the ATS to the wall. As there were no holes for that purpose and the removable back panel is only held on by 6 small screws, Daryl suggested drilling through the frame. After I discovered that drilling through the frame would also mean drilling through the back panel, I decided to look for an alternative method. The frame is built much like the familiar 19” frames used for rack mounted equipment. The side panel is recessed into the frame. By cutting a length of 2 X 2 X 1/4” aluminum angle into 2 inch long pieces and shortening one of the 2” sides of the angle to match the distance from the back of the panel to the recess for the side panel, a clamp was made that could clamp the ATS to the wall without any drilling through the cabinet. Fabrication of the clamps and completing the installation took the rest of the afternoon.

While I was doing this, Ralph was completing the wiring to the condensing units and Jim was making holes through three solid concrete walls large enough to allow the installation of all 12 coolant lines plus conduits for all the control wiring that runs between the condensing units and the air handlers.

On the way home, we noticed that salt was being loaded on the ship we saw yesterday, so we drove south to get a closer look.  There is a large conveyor belt with a shoot that drops the salt into the hold of the ship.  Two huge front end loaders dump the salt into large hoppers that feed the conveyor belt.  This process continues 24 hours per day until the ship is loaded.  Judging from the how deep the ship seems to be sitting in the water, it appears to be about half full.

Ralph, Virginia and I went for a cool down swim at Bachelor Beach before supper, which consisted of canned ham, baked potato with sour cream, green beans, other Dutch beans (translated “soft garden bones”–To me they were like the bean seeds you find in green beans that have been left on the vine too long. You cannot eat the pod, but the beans inside are still good–, and salad with craisins and sunflower seeds. Later we had a special treat—ice cream!

This day has been one filled with quite a flurry of activity!

Right after morning devotions, the large crane arrived at the same time as the first, of two, air conditioner condensing units arrived on a small truck. This small truck also had two special transformers for supplying the proper voltages the two condensing units. The site tractor was used to move the transformers to the power room while the crane offloaded this first condensing unit and placed it on its foundation. This truck then left to retrieve the second unit. The crane then lifted the standby generator, which had been offloaded onto the ground yesterday, and gently lowered it onto its foundation will we feed six feet lengths of eight large power cables through its power cable opening. Within an hour, the second unit arrived and was also offloaded onto its foundation.

By the time all this was done, it was time for lunch at home and a siesta. Virginia rode with us back to the site after lunch so that she and Maryjane could do some more shopping this afternoon. Virginia handled the transition to a manual transmission like an expert!

After lunch, the 2” electrical conduits for the two condensing units were extended from their foundations to the disconnect boxes.

The ATS (automatic transfer switch) was moved to its final position in the power room and lifted onto a 6” high platform to allow room to route the large power cables from the generator into the bottom of the ATS.

Next, the two transformers for the condensing units were moved into their final positions in the power room. A last minute change in their positions was required to ensure easy access to their power cable connections. Having determined their final positions, it was now possible to cut the required 150 amp cables to length and pull three cables into each of the 2” conduits to the condensing units.

By the time this was done, the day was finished. Tomorrow the door will hopefully be installed on the power room. After that we plan to move a 1,200 amp breaker box, an 800 amp breaker box, an 800 amp distribution panel and a 400 amp distribution panel into the power room.

On the way home, we noticed that there was a large ship repairing to load salt at the Cargill salt pier, just south of the transmitter site.  While Ralph, Jim and I took a short swim at Bachelor Beach to cool off, Maryjane and Virginia had prepared a supper of hotdogs, macaroni and cheese, green beans, salad (with dried cranberries and sunflower seeds) and applesauce.

At noon we discovered that the internet for the whole island of Bonaire was down. This outage has continued into the evening, so we’ll have to wait to send this message until the internet returns. We have been able to make urgent last-minute orders for parts using phone messages.