It's taken 2 years, yes 2 years but finally courtesy of the MOD Christopher now has the Eager Beaver on George Island and Shaun has his Surf on Speedwell. It was a close run thing. If you remember the first date set to bring the machinery out was November, then December. These dates came and went and in the end I gave up writing about it because I thought it was never going to happen. Yesterday morning the MOD and FIG were still struggling to get insurances and disclaimers in place for the vehicles to leave Mare Harbour in the evening. I've got to say when I got a phone call at approx. 10:30am saying our government had to have all the paperwork sorted by 11:30am and there were still obstacles in the way I thought its just not going to happen again. Then finally we got word it was sorted and the tug would be leaving Mare Harbour at 1:00am and be at Speedwell for 7:30am. 9:30am arrived and I got a ring from Lynn in Stanley who has been working hard on getting the project off the ground asking how it was going. Sorry Lynn its not here. Approx. 11.00am the tug came around the point with the barge in tow. 20 minutes later the LCVP was lifted off the barge and finally Shaun's Surf was on its way to the beach. The LCVP was awesome and came right up and dropped her bow ramp on the beach. Two minutes later Shaun drove his Surf off, one happy bunny. By 12:10pm the tug, barge and LCVP were on there way to George Island to drop off the Eager Beaver. The Port troop boys were great and it was all very successful. Of course I took my camera down especially to take photos and the battery was flat. I will borrow some of Shaun's over the next couple of days to show you. So that was the highlight of the week for sure. It has taken a long time to happen and I'm sure only happened this time because of the people who have become involved in it over the last 3 months. On our side 3 people have worked really hard on trying to get it off the ground. Those people being Lynn Brownlee, Steve Dent and Simon ????. Thank you.
I am glad you are getting your equipment moved around. I know you have being trying to get this done for some time. It amuses me that you call the fork lift and "eager beaver". You do not have beavers on the Falklands. In Canada, we refer to a person who is enthusiastic about getting to work on a task that needs doing, a eager beaver. Do you also use this expression.
ReplyDeleteBeavers are wonderful industious animals. They are the national animal symbol of Canada. The Americans can have their beautiful predator the bald eagle but we prefer to have the lowly, but hard working, beaver, which creates so much liveable habitat for so many other animals in the forest. Perhaps, this says something about our national characters.
Hi Philip,
ReplyDeleteYes eager beaver means the same here but it is not a phrase that you really hear any more.