Arthur seems to have bitten the bullet and decided to put a well in. Currently water here is supplied by a bucket on the hillside. Because of the substantial rainfall, this has not been a significant problem in the past, but in the past 6 months we’ve had two “droughts.” Last summer there was an extended dry spell in August/September. And this past February we had an extended cold spell, which froze the precipitation preventing it from getting into the water tank. Both of these might be one-time flukes, or they might be part of a climate-change trend – even Arthur is open-minded with respect to the latter possibility.
Anyway, to address water insecurity even here in the rainforest, he’s decided to pay for a well.
This is a substantial investment.
Here are the trucks of the well-drillers. They are putting the well in on the edge of the new parking pad on the western lot, close to the property line and close to the existing water tank (cistern) infrastructure on the eastern lot.
They got down to a bit over 200 feet, yesterday, and it’s giving 3 gallons per minute. This is not great, but it’s adequate for a house or two. We’ll let it go a bit further, and see how it goes. Another resident down the road has 8 gallons per minute at 220 feet, while yet another gets only 1 gallon per minute with 370 feet. So the water table under the very hard rock of the island is a bit of a crap-shoot, apparently.