©Ian Coristine/1000IslandsPhotoArt.com
Raleigh Island
Home to friend Ian Coristine, we have spent many enjoyable cocktail hours here. This harbor, home to his plane while he shot all the aerial photos for his books, now patiently awaits a visit by Janice's plane. It is a half hour from home by boat.
(Click on the pic for a close up view)
(Click on the pic for a close up view)
Da plane
It has been a while since I have brought you up to
date, but here goes. The short story is that it is not finished. Worse, it has become obvious that I will not be flying this season. The longer
story involves a frustrating effort to nail down an instructor. You see, early
on in the summer I scoured the North East part of the US looking for an
instructor who could train me in my airplane.
I found many available and willing instructors in my
area but they could only train me in what we tube and fabric airplane owners refer to as spam cans or tin airplanes. You
know, like a Cessna 172. It is a perfectly good airplane but does not share the
same flight characteristics as mine at all. I realize that to most people a
plane is a plane but the fact is that being unable to train me in mine meant
that I would have to rent an airplane plus pay the instructor.
It is the way it
is done but the goal of my building my plane first was to offset the expensive
rental portion of the process. US regulations would not allow me to fly my
plane until I had a pilot’s license so it would have to sit there while I
rented another one with an instructor.
After some time I also came to find out that there
were several instructors nearby on the Canadian side who not only owned and
flew my particular model of plane but were CFI’s also. (Certified Flight
Instructors) The problem was that they could not teach me on the US side of the
border and I could not bring my plane into Canada as I wanted to have it
registered in the US.
Granddaughter Maddie checking out Grandma's plane
If you are still with me, you can begin to see the
impossible dilemma I found myself in and this was burning up an awful lot of
time. Finally, my flying mentor suggested the solution. As my airplane was not
yet registered anywhere and therefore was not certified to fly, I could
“import” it into Canada, have it registered as a Canadian aircraft and be
instructed in it there as Canadian regulations permitted it.
Best of all, I got
introduced to the Canadian version of Sully “Miracle on the Hudson”
Sullenburger [you know, the American Airline’s pilot who landed the jet in the
water], Mr. Transport Canada safety expert himself, who is a Challenger CFI who
lives close to my area.
Finally, I found a space at the hangar at our local
airport that was half the cost of storing my plane where I was building it.
This allowing the additional benefit of being able to store Janice’s plane
there over the winter with wings on as opposed to having to remove the wings
each fall, tow the fuselage to a storage facility and reverse the process each spring.
The fix was in.
As only attaching the wings and mounting the engine
remains, the bottom line is that I fully expect to have it completely assembled
prior to our departure. With luck, I will have it certified by transport Canada (the
equivalent to the FAA here) and pickled for the winter at the hangar awaiting my
arrival in June. Training could begin immediately.
Show and tell
Not having a thing to do most nights between 1 and 3
AM, we decided to wile away the hours of our free time rebuilding our 220 sq.
ft. porch [20.5sq meters]. I say rebuild as it really would not be fair to call
it a renovation. Last summer I rebuilt and reinforced all the foundations with
new posts and sono tubes. These are the commercial yellow cardboard tubes that
are filled with concrete and steel rebar to create foundation ‘posts’ that
structures are built upon.
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Before...
This month, I tore out all the old screen walls after
Janice put the finish on all the Western Red Cedar wood we used on the ceiling.
Then, I sanded all the posts and framework for Janice to repaint while I ripped
out the wood floor that was 3” out of level. (5 Cm).
During...
I rebuilt the floor joists, laid a new plywood sub floor, covered it with ½” cement backer board, laid the slate floor, installed 300 sq. ft. (28 sq M) of new ‘weatherwall’ floor to ceiling screen and vinyl windows and topped it off with a custom made Spanish Cedar porch entry door. This gives us the equivalent of 2 bedrooms of usable space, sheltered from wind and rain, yet opened to a full view of the river.
We recently spent the night on the day beds on the porch during the rain storm cast off from hurricane Irene. Watching the lightning through 3 floor to ceiling clear walls was like being inside an Imax movie.
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| Delivery of weather wall windows, island style |
Janice finishing ceiling wood
Of course, I added some electrical outlets for
convenience, 4 new light fixtures and provided for eventual heating and A/C
duct work that will go to the upstairs bedrooms. Having that little task behind
us, we went to bed for a good night’s sleep.
After
I love having company. It not only gives us a break but a good reason to clean up our act and to see where things are at any given point in time. Invariably, less than 10 minutes after they leave Janice comes up with a great new idea for something for me to do and the place begins to look like this....
The kids visit
This was a great month for company. First, we picked
up daughter Mandy and her guy Markus from the Montreal airport (5 hrs round
trip) for a two week stay. I immediately put Markus to work helping me drag two
non-functioning washers and dryers to shore and bring new replacements back by boat.
I will spare you the drama, but suffice it to say it is the closest I have ever
come to dropping a $700. washer in the river while still in the factory
container.
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| Captain Markus obtained his boating license while visiting |
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| The 3 Musketeers |
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| Exploring surrounding islands |
A few days later I picked up daughter Amy and granddaughter Maddie from the Buffalo NY airport (8hrs round trip) and brought them to the island for a week long visit. We all toured the islands by boat and visited many of the local ‘must see’ sights such as Bolt Castle, the Thousand Island Park, Millionaires row, Fort Henry [Canada's West Point] as well as the local towns of Kingston, Alexandria Bay and Gananoque. We even visited the museum of civilization in Ottawa.
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| Markus and Mandy |
The kids got drug in two doughnuts behind the boat, explored
the area by canoe, and swam to their hearts content. Maddie even caught fish in
an empty bucket!
