The Crawler

The Big Crawler machine finally arrived to mark the commencement of Shoring and Excavation works. 60% of the site has been approved for earth moving operation by the local authority.

It was also the day when we began receiving visits from local authority officers from various departments. The purpose of this visits it seemed was to get us familiarised with the many forms and document to be filled prior to performing any type of works on site. The proactive nature of these officers differs greatly to those we experience back home. Back then, the only time we will see those so called local authority was when its CFO time.
Back to the Crawler, it was assembled on site within a day and ready for oepration the next day. It will start piling in shoring H-beams approximately 1 meter apart along the perimeter of the plot.

Cables, Cables Everywhere

For start, we had to dig and exposed all cables that could be found around the substation area. Digging in the site was not so much a hassle because it were on the open sandy soil. The oil-filled 33kV cables were again big enough to be located.

Its those smaller cables on the pavement and asphalt area that gave nightmarish moments. They were layers upon layers of cables and pipes and fibreoptics. The deeper the digging, more and more cables were found.

Who would expect that such criss crossing of services existed in the middle of nowhere?

The Works Commenced

This is our first structure wholly managed and built by ourselves - A Temporary Substation!!! 5 days of 24hours cycle supervision in the hot June. Our first contact of how the actual construction procedures and detailings were carried out. This Substation were constructed to allow for the Main Substation located in our site to be decommission so that the actual excavation could be carried out.

View of The Substation that make the whole mess of getting the Approval from the Authority. This structure is located right in the middle of the site with its accompanying incoming and outgoing cables dissecting the area. Since the whole site needed to be excavated, this structure need to be removed and in order to do that the incoming and outgoing cables will have to be relocated and transferred to the the Temporary Substation we built.

Soccer among the Dunes

Argentina Vs Baseball Team in Dutch Color with Portugese referee?







Curveball attempt ala Beckham?








The Final Showdown!!!