And then there was water and electric 🙂

When last I wrote about the cabana, I was still without water or power, but that was coming to the cabana soon. You will find that the word “soon” has a whole different meaning here in Belize.

To get the water system installed and hooked up to the “public” water system that runs under the ground in front of my house, I just had to sign up with the water distributor, in this case, The Plantation Resort up the road a mile or so. Signing up was a piece of cake, give them the address, telephone number, and a deposit, along with promising to pay the monthly minus of $15 Belize. However, the story does not end quite yet, because it would be connected the following week. Of anything, that was the easiest utility to get hooked up. The truck arrived when it was supposed to, and the dug the channel by hand from the road to the electric pedestal on my property, attaching it to a water meter.

All that was left to be done to get water to the sink, shower, and toilet was my contractor’s guys. First, they had to install a pressure tank and water pump to bring water into the house. Now the water pressure was good enough to bypass that system if it wasn’t for one thing.

The water company shuts off the water every day at 4 PM and doesn’t turn it back on until 6 AM.

So, if you want water during the night, you need a holding tank and water pump to provide stored water. After that was finally installed and set up, including a China produced “Instant Hot Water” system, another fun story, I had water to the cabana.

Next the saga of getting electric to the property. Months ago, my first builder, Kevin had gotten the electric company, BTL to my lot to show him where to build the electric pedestal. He then proceeded to build it to their specs so when the Cabana was brought in, BTL could install a power pole near it in front of my lot and run a power line from across the street to the pole, pedestal and then to my Cabana. Sounds like great planning doesn’t it? So the Cabana arrives, Kevin calls BTL to get a wood pole “planted” so their guys could run the power line. For two weeks almost every day, Kevin called them, and they said they would “plant the pole tomorrow”.By three weeks, I could feel the frustration emanating from Kevin, and amped by myself. Finally, he got an answer from then on why it wasn’t installed, “they were not “planting wood poles anymore, you have to build a taller pedestal”!

Following that response, Kevin proceeded to reach out to offices in Belize City and Independence and was finally told the pole would be “planted” tomorrow, and low and behold it was planted the next day. Of course, it was another three days before we could get the BTL guys out to run power, but alas, it was finally run to our property, and to our circuit breaker box, and we had light.

Did I tell you that my wife Marsha had arrived two days prior, and we were living in the cabana without power for two days? Needless to say, she was not very happy for those two days, but instantly smiling when the lights and ceiling fans came on.

And I will leave you with a beautiful pic of my beach here in Maya Beach.

Till we meet again, much as gracious for following my blog,

The Pirate…Gary