How Many Cows

We spent the entire day trying to resolve our filter pack (the material that goes between the borehole wall and the PVC casing) dilemma.

We spent the first half of the day breaking large rocks into pea-size rocks. Hours of hammering rocks resulted in only half a gallon of pea-size gravel. We wanted 10 gallons, but could have settled for five. Even so, five gallons was a high hope considering how long it took 7 of us breaking rocks to get 0.5 gallons. It was also quite painful. Guess it wasn’t so smart to put 7 people close together banging on small projectiles (no worries all you parents out there – we all had on glasses!). Since making our own gravel was not working, we went to Plan B.

Plan B was more involved and more expensive, but it was really our only option (and A LOT more exciting!). Bobby (our host) took us to another island where he anchored the boat about 100 meters from shore and we waded to a beach that had some small shells on it. We scooped them up by hand and filled 6 large sacks and carried them back to the boat. We all enjoyed the experience because it was like a mini adventure. We also took a ton of pictures (but those are on Jessica’s waterproof camera so I’ll have to share them later).

Even though we didn’t touch the borehole today, I feel a lot more optimistic going into tomorrow because the filter pack issue is resolved. We still have a lot of work to do to complete the Well (washing, disinfecting the shells, cutting the screen, finishing the pump, etc) but we are getting closer!