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Fortress 5100Home \ Fortresses \ May 2000 \ 5100
Location: Lanikai Beach |
Wednesday,
May 10, 2000
Lanikai Beach. Fortress #10 on the 10th. All this time, I had been
timing the tides all wrong for a drainage system fortress. I figured I needed
the tide to be coming in for it to flood, which of course is true. Originally, I
would get to the beach sometime shortly after low tide, guess at how far up the
beach the high tide would reach, then build between the current level of the
tide and the projected level of high tide. This, however, presented two
problems: A) It required me to carry 5 gallon buckets of water from the
ocean to the construction site, which is a huge pain in the ass, especially on
hot days; and 2) I had to guess at the projected high tide level, which is
difficult to do. (The tide charts tell what time the tides hit, and they do list
a height, but translating that height to the distance water will travel up the
slope of the beach is too convoluted.) So the problem is, if I build too far up
the beach, the fortress will never flood. If I don't build far enough, the
rising tide will wipe out the fortress before I have a chance to finish it.
Finally, I thought of an obvious solution.
-Shut up and get to the pictures-
In theory, the plan entails getting to the beach about an hour before low tide and building right at the tide level, providing a convenient source of water, right at the construction site. During the next hour, the tide would recede and the fortress would be safe. Then for the hour after that, the tide would return, giving me a total of two hours of construction time before the tide would be back to flood the fortress. If I wanted four hours to build, then I'd get to the beach two hours before low tide, and so on.
But guess what? Not only is there a low tide and a high tide, more specifically, there's a low low tide, then a low high tide, then a high low tide, then a high high tide. Yeah, I know, "Shut up." But the result is, two sequential high tides will not reach the same height up the beach. But screw it, it's close enough, and this plan doesn't require carrying water.
So- Low tide was around 2:15 pm and I got there about 1:00 pm.
The new problem: At Lanikai, when the tide is low, I dig about 2 inches below the surface of the fine sand to find a layer of little bits of sea shells. I can't make a fortress out of that crap. So I grudgingly fill 5-gallon buckets half way full of water and cart them ten feet up the beach to where the powder sand is and fill the remainder of the bucket with it, making a nice bucket full of cement.
I did this all afternoon, throwing the wet "shell sand" around the base figuring, when I carved down to the shells, that would be the mark to stop carving. Then I would build the fortress out of the nice powder sand cement. It took me longer to construct the fortress since I had to move the cement to the construction site, but it was beautiful. A great day. Hardly anyone at the beach and barely a cloud in the sky.
I built a nice tower at the front, piling plenty of sand, although it was shell sand, at the base of the front to give the welcome gentler waves of Lanikai's tide something to erode besides my fortress. I constructed two 5 gallon molds behind it, down each wing to make into towers. In between the main, front tower and the two side towers, I piled up cement, and made them into arches. One was considerably larger than the other and these are the first real good arches that I have photos of. I think they were both beautiful.
I continued, building another rear tower, on the right when looking from behind towards the ocean. As I carved it, it ended up leaning pretty heavily toward the inside of the fortress, but since the sand was very wet and I carved it immediately, it stood strong. As I carved, I found a bad air pocket and so I cut it in a little, leaving the top portion wider than the shaft below. I didn't carve any fancy stuff into the top. Since it was leaning and top heavy, I left it alone. It was nearly four feet tall and I didn't want to push my luck.
I watched the tide as I built, but it just wasn't being very nasty, and I had some unanticipated time on my hands, so I decided to build another quick tower.
The rear tower on the left (from behind) had collapsed, but I made it into a nice, flat tower, shaped like a shark tooth. I didn't want this new tower to collapse, so after I made the 5 gallon foundation mold, I piled a bunch of sand, mostly the easily accessed shell sand, all around the base for support. I then proceeded to pile cement up to a rather impressive four feet above the level of the beach. It was beautiful. I carved it into a nice, triangular, cathedralish tower. It was the tallest tower of SF5100.
The entire fortress took on a more cathedral-like look. Not many futuristic properties in this one, but I really liked it and took many pictures. My brother Davey had been asking for some sense of scale, so I took a photo with my shoe in the foreground. Later, a girl passing by offered to take my picture with it, and she did, providing Davey with an even better sense of scale.
Even though it was a Wednesday, and there were not many people on the beach, I did have quite a few people pass by and tell me how cool the fortress was.
I waited for the incoming tide to flood SF5100, but it just didn't want to come up. I thought it would be flooding after 3:15 pm, but by 5:00, the tide was still trying to get up high enough. Eventually I had to leave, but it was nice to leave the beach and have the fortress in tact as I walked away. I did flood it a few times manually with a bucket of water and took some nice pictures of the drainage system in action.
I got some other nice pictures too. The photography really started to improve with this fortress.
Photo Placement Map
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Photographs Chronologically
| Since all photos of this fortress were taken at virtually the same time, a chronological list is redundant and unnecessary. |