September 2010

©Ian Coristine/1000IslandsPhotoArt.com

Zavikon Island

The owners of these Islands are the only people allowed by both Canadian and US officials to cross the border without clearing customs. Their house is in Canada while their 'deck' in the US. The border runs between both islands.

Sarah House

Well, it's official. Our health care insurance company finally relented and agreed to allow us to finish Janice's cancer treatments in France when we return there for the winter. Meanwhile, she has finished her Chemo treatments and has begun her radiation schedule consisting of treatments 5 days per week for the next 6 weeks.

Janice found the 2 hour drive each way to the hospital was too fatiguing to commute daily and opted to stay at the Sarah house near the hospital. The Sarah house is like a beautiful and elegant Ronald McDonald house for grown ups. A former nunnery, it has about 10 bedrooms, 2 fully equipped and stocked kitchens, 2 large living rooms, 2 laundry rooms, a formal dining room, an office, a screened sitting room and landscaped grounds.

The Sarah house

I am staying with her for the first week but the plan is for us to drive down on Mondays and for Janice to spend Tuesdays and Wednesdays on her own. I will return on Thursday, spend the night there and return home with her after her treatment on Friday for the week end.

As great as the place is, it is a house of sadness. We got to talking to one guest whose husband had renal failure and had no insurance. Another had his 20 something son in the hospital. The kid had fallen asleep at the wheel, drove off the road and nearly decapitated himself on a piece of farm equipment. Someone's child was in the hospital burn unit and would be there for months. When asked why she was staying at the house, Janice said she was being treated for cancer. After an awkward silence, someone said "Oh..." You could see by the expression on their faces they were thinking "Is that ALL?" It's all relative.

We have visitors!

Christine and Matyas

This month we had our niece Christine and her friend Matyas from Montreal spend a couple of days with us. It had been some time since Christine was here, so many changes were to be seen. As with all visitors, we made the rounds of some of the Islands to give them a sample of what there is to see in the area, then ate, drank, and we were generally merry.

Kami and Alyssa

Then, daughter Kami and friend Alyssa spent a few days with us while returning from attending the US Open tennis tournament in New York City. Kami makes kid number 4 of 5 to finally get to see what mom and dad have been raving about for years. We hope to have daughter Amy's family out here at some point also.

Hurry Pop! You are not getting any younger...

This months project

Shortly after we bought the property a number of years ago, we decided to enlarge our dock area. The rules regarding permitted building on the river were becoming more restrictive all the time and we feared that by the time we could afford to get around to it we would no longer be allowed. So, with that in mind, we went ahead and hired a marine contractor to bring his barge over and drive the steel pilings on the shore of our island. (What, you thought I could do EVERYTHING myself?)

Before...

Even though the steel rusted to a 'natural' brown color, it was still an eyesore at the very front of the island that we had to live with for several summers. Too many priorities, too little moolah. Well, with Janice having a rough go of chemo # 6, I stayed home with her for a spell and decided to put this 8' X 20' (3 X 7 meters) baby to rest. This is now our lounging about area, as opposed to the business part of the dock for our boats and visitor docking. A plus will be that it will allow a place for the jet ski that we don't want but that Janice surely feels that we desperately need. Surely.

During....

It is not an easy life we lead

The Challenger...
is a challenge.

Neighbors like this make me look bad

Up until chemo #6, I was on quite a roll last month, getting the electrical done on the plane. Another week of dedicated work and I think I might be able to call it a wrap. Then, onto covering the fuselage. It seems counter intuitive to be building a plane from the inside out. It makes a lot of sense though when you realize how small it is and how much easier it is to reach through the structure to run wires, control cables and such.

The more I am crawling in and out of the innards, the more I am seeing that you don't so much 'get into' this plane as much as 'put-it-on' . There is enough of room for two but...that's it, folks!

The Starfire Aviation Division (AKA the 'skunk works') has been operating out of a storage facility at an undisclosed location for the past two summers. This year, the owners commissioned an artist to paint three sides of the building with a 14 ' X 200 ' ( 5 X 65 meter) long mural to illustrate the history of their business.

A close up of a portion of the mural above is seen below. The artist wanted to paint a plane towing a banner but had no model to work from. Spying me through an opened door, she stopped by to ask if she could sketch my project and paint it for posterity. The result is seen here.

Now for the bad news

I am not even in the air yet and
already they are out to get me!

August, 2010

©Ian Coristine/1000IslandsPhotoArt.com

Guess where that truck driver would rather be?
Around here, we are apt to say...
"If you are lucky enough to live in the Islands, you are lucky enough.

TIAFU
(Thousand Islands Air force Update)

I bought an aircraft carrier last month. No really…I am not kidding. OK, so it is mis-marketed as a ‘pontoon boat lift’ but I think that is just so the Russians don’t catch on. I bought it much sooner than I needed it as the plane is hardly finished, but it is another critical component to allow this wing of the Thousand Islands Air Force to patrol these parts.

What is this gizmo?

Pre-launch scratching, spitting and planning

It was used, but it was the only one I had ever seen of this size that would accommodate the floats on my plane. The way it works is by lowering the frame underwater and floating the plane over it, you raise the frame with the plane on it by turning the large wheel.

Working smarter, not harder. We
are going to float this puppy into place...

Opportunity knocked and I rushed to open the door. Because of its size, I had to disassemble it, float it across the river in my smaller aluminum boat and reassemble it on the island. The real event was picking the now reassembled 450 pound (200 kilos) unwieldy beast up and getting it out to its final resting place in the river.

Gently.....

I realize that no one really gives a rip about this thing but I spent many sleepless nights trying to think about every possible misstep and what I could do to prevent or mitigate it. Every step of this process required help. I am grateful to my many friends who risked life and limb to help make it happen. The whole event was injury free and flawlessly executed, due to meticulous prior planning and having the right tools. Good work, men!

No, this is not a Chinese fire drill.
This is a well oiled, coordinated work team.

I had planned for 8 of us to move this thing, including a neighbor who had allowed me to use a tool in his garage a few days earlier to work on a part for my airplane. Unfortunately, just as I was about to stop by and ask him, he was killed in a horrific motorcycle accident when he was struck head on by a drunk driver in the middle of the afternoon. He was a quiet but very competent man who a few years ago was instrumental in saving our island during our absence, when a fire started near a burn bin we had . We will forever be in his debt for that.

Success!

Here is how it works.
Pretend I am the plane. No, not some whacked out nut job, a plane.
As seen here I float over the submerged lift and...

...when the wheel is turned the plane is lifted out of the
water to secure it during storms, wake from passing boats, etc.

Speaking of the plane, I did get to put in a few more hours this month and I continue to chip away at it. The most visible part of what I got done was putting my instrument panel in and got serious about the electrical wiring. Getting serious does not mean I am done. It means I got seriously started.

Where does the purple wire go on the back of the instrument panel?

See? Piece of cake!

This picture ought to bring chills to a couple of my friends who have helped me with some electrical issues I have had in the house and was not able to figure out on my own. They know that in spite of having wired two homes, electrical work does not play on my strengths. Knowing that I will do all the electrical work on my plane will surely cause them to run out and take a life insurance policy on me, naming themselves as beneficiaries.

The business end of things.


My uncle Dave helping me install the windshield.
White paper covers the Lexan to protect it
from scratches until final assembly

Finishing the electrical does signify an important step though because when I am done, I will be ready to cover the fuselage (the main part of the plane you sit in), paint, install the engine, perform endless time consuming minor tweaks, adjustments and finishing touches so I can begin to fly. Cool huh? Meanwhile, don’t hold your breath or ask me in a month if I am done. I won’t be.

Birthdays galore!

We had a whole raft of birthdays this past month. For one, it was 10 years ago this month since we bought the Bee. We had come to the East Coast to attend my grandfather’s 100th birthday family get together when we spent a few days at a cottage we had rented nearby.

We toured the area on a tourist cruise ship and we were in awe. Later that day and on a whim, Janice and I drove over to the Canadian side to have cocktails at a riverside hotel when Janice picked up a real estate flier and spotted an island for sale. “Wanna buy an Island?” she said. The next morning we were on the agent’s boat and the moment we saw it we were in love (with the island too).

Janice was a birthday girl this past month but I can’t quite say she celebrated. It was shortly after her chemo treatment so it was hardly a party or a picnic for her. I had my birthday also, truly a depressing time as I entered the next decade of my life involuntarily, kicking and screaming all the way. Funny, I don’t feel like I am circling the drain. There is a real irony in the fact that the best time of my life is happening at this age. Could my birth certificate be wrong?

I figure I have at least another 70 years of plans and projects ahead of me so I better either get moving faster or plan on living longer because people tell me the math is not adding up.

New Hampshire

We just got back from New Hampshire where we spent a week on a home exchange. As always, it allowed us the opportunity to visit little nooks and crannies in New England that we were not familiar with. With the Island rented out for a week during our travels, it gave us a break and a vacation from...well...eh... gosh, I dunno! What can I say, it was a blast. It was a resort home facing the pond within the Forest Hill Estates in the White Mountains.

One of the reasons Janice likes the home exchanges so much is that she often sees something that catches her eye that 'we' can do at our place. I am happy that she then has a reason to keep me around a little longer.

It was a real relaxing time for us as we visited the area.

We swam at both a local beach

at the foot of Mt. Washington...

and at a local swimming hole....

We crossed a number of New England covered bridges...

and took the Cog railroad up Mt. Washington. It is the highest peak in the North West US, with the record for the strongest winds ever recorded by man (231 MPH / 372 KPH). This was the worlds first Cog railroad, with the wheels only keeping the train on the tracks but supplying no power. The power of this steam powered train goes to the 'Cog' or gear that climbs a center sprocket between the tracks to prevent the train from sliding back down the mountain's 37 degree slope.

This, is seriously steep.

Another diagnosis...

You would think that with Janice battling Cancer, we would have enough on our plate to deal with. But no, having just past another un-welcomed milestone on the birthday calendar, we now find out that we have both been diagnosed with a new condition. Something called 'Islomania'. It is a little embarrassing to write about on these pages but there is a short description of the condition at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islomania
(You can copy and paste the link into your browser)

No, it is not fatal but then again there is only one known treatment and it is expensive. Currently, we have somewhat under control. As rare as it is, we actually know at least one other person with it.

How I spent my summer vacation...

Meanwhile, Janice continues with her chemo treatments and will begin radiation sessions in September. As of this date we are continuing to try to work things out with our insurance company to allow us to return to France for the winter and complete the treatments there. We will see.

Don't forget. You can click on any photo
for a much larger view.
Drop us a line, we would love to hear from you.

July 2010

©Ian Coristine/1000IslandsPhotoArt.com

The Canadian span of the Thousand Island bridge.
Our Island is just to the right of the island on the far right.

Mandy visits.

Daughter Mandy just spent three weeks with us. It is quite a milestone when a kid fly's half way around the world on her own nickel, lands on your doorstep and says “What can I do to help”? And help she did.


She crawled under the house to bring me cement to finish a project, painted our deck, cooked and helped with mom’s chores. Still, we managed a little fun in there too. She and I attended a concert together and watched the July 4th fireworks over Bolt Castle sitting while sitting in a boat in the middle of the river.

We picked raspberries and cherries and she made jam with Janice. We also went out to see the racing boats in our yearly local ‘Polker run’. We swam to our hearts delight. The point of the trip though was to be with her mom on her Chemo days, spending the days with her at the hospital. Unless you do this , it is hard to get your head around the fact that when there everyone you see has Cancer and is really sick. Janice underwent Chemo # 4 today and so is 2/3 done...
Chemo, that is. Treatments go on until next May.

Monique and Joe Schrettner dropping by for an overnight visit

No sooner had we sent Mandy packing that we had a drive by visit from family in California. The last time they dropped in was four years ago and they had very different recollections of the state of the place, with Janice still cooking on the deck as we had no kitchen. It is always great to see them .

This month at the Bee

One of the reasons I have spent so little time working on the plane to date was my reluctance to leave Janice with no practical way to get off the island in the event of a need to do so. I have a cell phone with me so I am always reachable when I am gone but still… She was not able to ‘pull start’ our old used outboard motor so she was stuck having to row our aluminum boat. We fixed that this month. We bought a new electric start , gasoline powered 15 HP outboard (push a button to start and go!) It is now easier to ‘drive’ than a car (no brakes). I added floorboards for dry feet and stability and installed a bilge pump so it never needs to be bailed out after a rainstorm. A couple of upholstered seats completed the upgrade.



Honey Bee is located in the International Rift between two large islands, one Canadian and another American. This area separates the two countries in the middle of this part of the river. The width of this ‘rift’ is as little as 25 feet (8 meters) and as wide as several hundred feet (100 meters). The rivers width right in front of our dock is about 200 feet (70 meters) This is the area we use to swim as our dock is there, the water depth is only 7-10 feet and the current is very gentle.

Incredibly, there are also several warm water vents that provide warmer streams of water and we often jockey for position right over them when swimming. The rift though, is a shortcut from the Canadian and US sides of the main shipping channels so on the weekends we can get a fair amount of slow going small vessel traffic.

Divers (swimmers) below!

This has concerned me for some time as these boats pass near where we swim. They may be going slow and they are watchful but…. I would hate for one of us to get run over. I had been contemplating how I could rope off a swimming area with buoys or markers of some kind, realizing that this is a boating channel and is not for our exclusive use. The solution came to me recently when I got a flag that is internationally recognized by boaters warning them of ‘divers below’. Now when we swim, I simply toss the float with the removable flag into the water and dive down to attach its line to a sunken cement block so that it remains stationary. Boats now give us a wide berth and everyone is happy.

National Geographic says
we are the bomb!

The Rideau Canal (a great boat ride from us) is the second best destination in the world, according to the most recent sustainable tourism survey by the National Geographic Society. The Society gave the region a long-sought stamp of approval last winter.

It’s Center for 'sustainable destinations' says that geotourism is tourism that sustains or enhances the geographical character of a place: its environment, culture, esthetics, heritage, and the well-being of its residents. In 2008, it rated the Rideau Canal National Historic Site, which is part of the biosphere reserve, second best among worldwide historic destinations in its global stewardship survey.

The Frontenac Arch biosphere, a nearly 3,000-square km region that includes the Thousand Islands, the Rideau Canal and much of the Land 'O Lakes area is only the ninth region worldwide -- and the first in Ontario -- to get the charter from National Geographic. And now you know the rest of the story.

One more time...

We never tire of trying to share the breathtaking images of our little piece of paradise and below is a video compilation of some of the images in our friend Ian Coristines latest book. If you want to take a peek, just click on the arrow in the center of the image below.

June, 2010

©Ian Coristine/1000IslandsPhotoArt.com

The "Fair Jeanne" in the Lost Channel

Coristine's magic

We recently attended Ian Coristine's book launch of his fifth picture book "The very best of Ian Coristine's 1000 Islands". Over the past several years he and his wife Mary have become very good friends and own a spectacular island a few miles downstream.

We met at one of his book signings when I introduced myself as a wanna be Challenger aircraft builder who wanted to pick his brains, as he was the former representative for the company in Canada. (The Epistle, November 2008) Over the years, he used his plane to take some 30,000 aerial photographs. Then, he got busy self publishing one coffee table styled book at a time and to date has sold some 60,000 copies in the local area alone. His latest is aptly named, as it is the very best with every page being like a liquid gloss book cover. Every month in the summer, he generously allows me to help myself to a photo out of his collection to open the months posting on my blog so I can share with you some of the great images of the area.

This months is no exception. The scene above is of the tall ship "Fair Jeanne" coming through an area of the river called "The Lost Channel". Janice and I sailed on her last year but this picture captures the first time in 249 years that a tall ship has ventured into this particular area of the 1000 Islands (minutes away from our dock). The last time was on August 14th, 1760 when Britain's HMS Onondaga was lured into the labyrinth by French attackers. A boat with 14 men was lowered to warn HMS Mohawk away, but was never seen again. On failing to find even where it was lowered, this spot became known as the Lost Channel. Ian was the only one to capture this latest scene.

Aside from having sold his plane (an unforgivable mortal sin in my book) and insisting on using a fruity computer (you know the kind that has an orange or a banana...no wait!..an 'apple' as it's logo), it's hard to find much wrong with the guy. It's not every day one gets to brag about a friends accomplishments, but dude, ya done good! We are very proud of you.

The scam

As most or all of you know by now, we had our email account hacked last month. I woke up one morning, fired up the computer to check on emails and could not get in as my password was not registering as valid. Thinking that I made a typo, I tried again and again. Truly frustrated and annoyed, the phone rang with a call from a friend telling me my email account had been hijacked.

Unless you have had it happen to you, it is hard to understand how powerless and violated it makes you feel. It is the digital virtual version of being raped. I began getting calls from friends in France, California and parts beyond asking me what the heck was going on. It seems that the nice man from Nigeria that hacked our account changed the account password so that I could no longer access it. Then he sent an email to everyone in my address book as 'me' with a sad tale of Janice and I being robbed in London England, and needing money wired to us immediately.


Some recipients knew immediately this was impossible as we were at the Island and Janice was undergoing treatment for cancer. Others were confused but wary. It took me 24 hours to contact Yahoo and work things out with them, change my password, profile, ect. My greatest fear was that someone would succumb and send money before I could warn them.

The unnerving part is that to this day I have no idea how my account got hacked. I have always used a password that has combination's of letters and numbers that is considered very secure. Of course all bank account and other locations where we use a password had to be changed also.

At first I was relieved and pleased that not a single person was duped. Then I thought.....hey....NOT one person sent me money in what they thought was my time of need? A fine bunch of friends you turned out to be! Shortly thereafter the comedians came out of the woodwork asking when they could expect the thousands of dollars they 'sent' me back?

This might be a good time to check that you have our correct email address and that you did not inadvertently end up with the hacked one. Our email address is starfireproductions@yahoo.com. If you have anything else, it is wrong. Some people have asked how they will know if an email from us, is truly from us? It's simple really. If the email is asking you to drop us a line or ask about news from your end of the world, it's from us. If the email ever asks you for money, it's not from us.

From the project dept.

Every summer when we first show up at the cabin, we run around to make sure everything is OK and has survived another winter and long absence. So far, so good. The one thing that has clearly deteriorated are the seams in the drywall. Because we do not heat the place in the winter, there is some expansion and contraction that occurs and a fine gap can be seen where the drywall sheets meet. Fortunately there is little drywall in the house as it is mostly logs, as one would expect in a log cabin. However, there is drywall in the kitchen and these minor gaps could be seen developing on the ceiling.






In the bedrooms we had trusses that were part of the roof supports that crossed the length of the rooms. Clearly structural, these bad boys were not removable but hardly fit the decor. We killed two birds with one stone last month by fitting beams over the kitchen ceiling gaps and softiting the trusses with beams also. You can see the results above and judge for yourself.

The Cancer thing

Janice had her second Chemo this month and was quick to point out that she was a third of the way through. A third of the way through Chemo maybe, but only one tenth of the year long process. She will have a total of six Chemo treatments, three weeks apart but still needs secondary weekly treatments. People ask if the treatments are easier to support the second time around. The answer is no. The treatments maybe more effective but are still no picnic.

A "Bee" of a BBQ

She is not allowed to be in the sun much. On the island for the summer, that is like taking a kid to the candy store and saying “look but don’t touch”. To level the playing field, we got a commercial 11’ (nearly 3 meter) umbrella for the dock so she could be outside but not in direct sunlight. This beast is attached to a 250 pound (113 kilos) base filled with wet sand so that it won’t blow away in the wind. I set it up and within an hour in a light breeze it was in the river.

Before

After shaving head (with wig)

It would appear that it is designed to be in a backyard, poolside or in some place that is sheltered. This was a month ago so the water temperature was still cold enough to cause an instant (virtual) sex change to any man who would dare venture in it. We drew straws and as luck would have it she told me that I drew the short one so I had to fetch it. Funny how that works.

This time I was going to work smarter, not harder. I bolted the sucker to the dock, then filled it with the wet sand.

The plane

I have started back working on the plane recently. I had the engine delivered and I am moving forward one step at a time. With weekly trips to the hospital and other non aviation related activities and obligations, I will clearly not have the time I need to devote to this pursuit to finish it in the time frame I had planned for. No matter, I will get it done as I am able and I will fly or die trying. Hopefully, not as a result of.