These pictures were taken by our guests Tim and Saskia who are from Belgium. They were sporting some serious camera equipment and you can read more about them in our previous post, “Sneak Attack”.

Thanks Tim and Sakia for taking the time to resize and send us these amazing bird pictures from Costa Rica. The first three pictures were taken at and around Sabalo Eco Lodge… enjoy!

Scarlet Macaw – photo by Tim, Taken at Sabalo Eco Lodge

Chestnut Mandibled Toucan taken at Sabalo Eco Lodge

Fiery-billed Aracari- Photo by Saskia Taken near Sabalo Eco Lodge

Quetzal – Photo by Tim

Cuckoo – Photo by Saskia

Peregrine Falcon – Photo by Saskia The fastest flying bird in the world!

Tim and Saskia from Belgium open the new tourist season at Sabalo Eco Lodge

We have been working hard getting Sabalo Eco Lodge in order for this year’s tourist season. The tourist season generally kicks off in mid December when we, like many lodges, start filling up during the Christmas Season. Last Sunday, November 15th, exactly a month before the tourist season kicks off, around 5:00 pm, as it’s starting to get dark, Holly came to get me in the gardens. I was covered in dirt and sweat when she informed me that a friend of ours from Sierpe just arrived at our lodge and wanted to drop off two tourists that he had brought in by boat; the tourists wanted to spend a few nights here.

Living remotely as we do, when unexpected visitors show up, we don’t have the convenience to be able to run to the store for extra supplies. That takes a forty minute boat ride and then a twenty minute car ride to get to the nearest grocery store. We rushed back to the lodge from the gardens where we met Tim and Saskia who where standing there with their backpacks looking a little exhausted and overwhelmed. They had been traveling on a bus all day and with the last few hours of sunlight left they chartered a boat ride through the maze of mangroves into Sabalo Eco Lodge arriving here just before dusk. As it turned out we had just gone shopping for food several days before so our fridge was somewhat stocked. Since they both were pioneering enough to find us on their own out here in the jungle we decided to work with what we had and host Tim & Saskia for two nights. Note to future tourists: if we don’t have food we cannot host you, please email in advance when you can  ;-)

Even though we were not prepared for this “Sneak Attack” lol, everything turned out very nicely including the roast turkey dinner with gravy, mashed potatoes, veggies and homemade cake for desert, Mmmmm & Whewwww!

Tim and Saskia traveled to Costa Rica for 18 days from Bonheiden Belgium. They are 27 & 26 years old respectively; Tim is a Technician and Saskia is an Industrial Engineer.  They both love photography (6 years now) and it shows — just check out those cameras in the picture above. They have been taking night classes to expand their knowledge of this art and they had plenty of subjects to photograph during their short stay with us. They were very excited to have photographed a Quetzal in the mountains of Costa Rica. They had one last wish and that was to get pictures of the Fiery-billed Aracari (Tim loves toucans).  Their first morning here started with a visit from a troop of White-faced Capuchin monkeys, then a few Chestnut-mandibled Toucans, followed by several Scarlet Macaws.  The Bare-throated Tiger Heron proved to be too illusive for Tim  ;-)

Resplendent Quetzal

Fiery-billed Aracari

Holly suggested Tim & Saskia hike up the road a bit in the late afternoon. Holly had noticed Fiery-billed Aracaris crossing the the road lately when she was walking the dogs. Sure enough Tim & Saskia returned with smiles on their faces and great shots of these colorful little toucans. The Aracaris then flew through our grounds to greet Tim & Saskia on their triumphant return.

They both enjoyed their quick stay here and next they were going onto Drake Bay for several nights and to visit Corcovado National Park, accessible only by boat on this side of the Osa Peninsula. Saskia was also looking forward to seeing dolphins and whales along the way. We have been promised copies of the best of the best of their pictures. We can’t wait to see them and we’ll be sure to post them on the blog in the photos section.

On a side note for all you photo enthusiasts, here’s the specs on the cameras in the photo above:

Saskia

Camera – Cannon 400D
Lens – EF 300mm 1:4 with extender 1.4XII

Tim

Camera – Canon 30D
Lens – 100-400 F 4.5;5.6 IS USM

Thank you for reading our post,
Dan & Holly Pesta - Owners Sabalo Eco Lodgewww.sabalolodge.com

photo www.schloerb.com

Sabalo Eco Lodge is located in a unique environment within the Osa Peninsula. Living off the grid requires us to generate our own electricity. We need enough electricity to power two computers, Satellite Internet, a small fridge, a few outlets in the main lodge and energy efficient florescent bulbs through the structures. We have a robust solar system but because this area gets an average of 200 inches of rain a year (mostly October to mid December), solar power does not work as well on the very rainy days.

Our property is a flat open eight acres next to lowland primary rainforest and mangroves. We have a fairly fast moving stream that curves around one side of our property as the water heads out to the mangroves. This stream flows all year round and we have been trying to figure out how to use the force of the stream to create electricity.

Holly mentioned the challenge to our friend Johnny who is a Tico living in San Jose. He and his mother run a family business that does die cast lighting fixtures for hotels, commercial properties and residential homes.

Johnny had built us a custom trailer to haul our two ATVs and motorcycle; projects he likes to do on the side when business is slow. He decided to take on the challenge – armed with the internet, a brilliant mind and a can-do attitude, Johnny amazed us with his water wheel/brake drum alternator solution and thus the inspiration for the title of this article.

In order to generate electricity you first need an alternator. Johnny found his inspiration for the idea on the web. Someone was converting a brake drum from a car into an alternator.  Here’s Johnny’s original email to us with pictures of his alternator constructed from a break drum, magnets, wire and a few other items, MacGyver would be proud…….

Let There Be Light!

Hi Holly,

Well… here you have the pix of the Frankenstein’s Alternator

I’ve just tried to follow the designs shown in the website I’ve told you at http://www.otherpower.com/otherpower_experiments.html. The only difference is that I used a slightly smaller (and a lot cheaper, I’m an eBay bargain hunter you know…) 1.5″ x 0.75″ x 0.25″ rectangle magnets instead of the 1.8″ round or 2″x1″x 3/8″ rectangle magnets they use. It’s supposed to start charging at less than 200 RPM instead of 410 RPM, but it is still low rpm compared to a car alternator which requires around 2000 RPM.  I also used 14 AWG magnet wire with 60 turns per coil as they did, so the output voltage depends on the number of turns and the strength of the magnetic field. Coils with thinner wire and more turns will produce more voltage at the same RPM, but less Amps.

Below is the alternator viewed from the back. As you can see the roll of steel laminates (scrap metal strips used to tie down things on pallets) makes the stator produce more power by “aligning” the magnetic field across the coils that are “sandwiched” between the rotor and the laminates. There is also a design that uses a second disk brake rotor with a second set of magnets instead of the laminates that doubles the power output, but it´s a little bit more complicated…

The DC output can be connected directly to a load like the bulb shown or an inverter to power 120 V AC devices (I’ve already tried it with mine to turn on a 120 Volt CF bulb, believe me, it was very funny…) but is necessary to pedal at a constant rate (RPMs) to keep the voltage within the operating range of the inverter (11 to 14.5 volts). So the best option is to connect the DC output to a charge controller and a battery (or bank of batteries) to store the power.

Below you can see the entire assembly made of scrap metal from my roof project (hehehehe…. more free parts…). I just removed the front wheel because I’m not going anywhere…

I calculated the RPM´s using the bike’s digital speedometer (making the conversion from km/h to rpm).

Here is the alternator in action…   (it’s quite difficult to show the movement in a still picture, isn’t it?)

So, the alternator was connected to the bikes back tire to power it with motion which created electricity, yeah! Now that the alternator works next question is, “how to build a waterwheel and connect the alternator to it”?

Powered By Nature

Johnny being the thrifty inventor that he is quickly figured out the solution for the water wheel using an old wooden cable spool.

As you can see, it has cast aluminum brackets holding the PVC paddles in place.

It also has one coat of sealant and two coats of marine grade varnish applied to the wood structure. Now, it’s time to mount the entire assembly on a metal frame and add the necessary shafts, bearings and sprockets to step up the RPM´s for the generator.

It was decided that the best solution and least intrusive on the environment would be to create a floating platform for the water wheel. The platform would be buoyed using plastic or metal tanks.  The last item to figure out was the sprocket and chain mechanism to turn the alternator using the force of the waterwheel. Here’s what Johnny came up with.

The alternator to the left is connected to the waterwheel by a series of bike sprockets and bike chains. This allows the rotating motion of the waterwheel, powered by the motion of the stream, to turn the alternator and create electricity. That will flow from wires to our battery bank where it will slowly charge our batteries 24/7.

Johnny added metal drums for this picture to demonstrate how the platform works. We intend to have plastic barrels. Johnny also built a metal cover for the gears and alternator to protect it from the weather. We will be picking up our new sustainable source of electricity very soon. We can’t wait to get it installed. Johnny, amazing job… thanks!

Bonus Water Pump!

Johnny apparently wasn’t finished yet and came up with a device I have been trying to figure out for four years now.  I’ll Let Johnny tell you about it…..

“Meanwhile I’ve also thought about what to do with the other end of the main shaft of the waterwheel and I made a small but effective water pump using 4 standard 1/2″ check valves, PVC fittings and an old stainless steel pneumatic piston (I’ve collected a lot of pistons few years ago because they came along with a lot of aluminum junk). You have to see that! (I haven’t taken pictures yet). It takes a small amount of water (about 20ml. per strike = approx. a bucket per hour) but with the high torque at the shaft it’s possible to pump water very high (high-pressure – low flow). So if you want to attach it to your water system, just add the proper filter, fittings, and hose to match your existing pipe, and you’ll have a 24/7 sustainable water pump filling your tank. Don’t worry about the cost (donations are accepted, money back guaranteed…).

Not using your gas powered water pump… Priceless!”

We’ll post picks of the piston water pump when we get them and let you know how everything works out once it’s installed.

Thanks for reading our post.

Dan & Holly Pesta
www.sabalolodge.com

The shoreline around Bocas del Toro is a display of colorful buildings on stilts.

It’s rainy season again and that means a break in tourism for us. We decided to take a break ourselves and journey on down to Panama and visit an island off of Bocas del Toro called Bastimentos Island. Bastimentos park is located here and is one of a few protected areas of Latin America that preserve, simultaneously, the wildlife and habitat of beaches, coral reef and mangroves. We rented a house on the southeast side of the island called Salt Creek where a small Indian community of some 300 inhabitants live in houses on stilts made of jira (a type of palm thatch for the roof) and wood.

This is also the beach where they filmed Survivor Panama (which we only found out about afterward, this was not a selling point for our vacation, lol).

We admit we are being “Total Tourists” taking this picture 

We rented a house along the beach (one of five for rent in this little enclave) where beyond the beautiful homes life thrives as it always has here, native style. The Ngobe Indians still live in communities and small villages beyond the mysterious mangroves inland surrounded by rain forest. Their main occupation is fishing and lobster catching. You will see many boats paddling the shore in search of lobsters and fish along the coral reef that encircles the island in this area. Tours are also available for the community of Ngobe Indians at Salt Creek, 300 residents, as well as a guided hike into the rain forest. The hike does take several hours as a side note.

Michael our tour guide and host with Holly as we enter a Ngobe village by kayak through the mangroves.

Three typical structures: homes on stilts, metal, palm frond and plastic canvas roofs.

Ngobe children posing for a picture. They loved seeing their photos on the LCD screen of our camera.

The homes for rent although different in style all utilize similar sustainable practices to be as eco friendly as possible to this protected area. We were impressed with the various things they have implemented such as rain water catchment systems that supply them with all their household water needs. There is even an ultraviolet water purification system providing drinking water. Solar power, self composting toilets, low wattage refrigerators and DC ceiling fans round out many of the practices implemented in these eco friendly homes

A variety of tours that benefit the indigenous people, protected park and reef areas for snorkeling (Zapatilla Islands on Michael’s Hobie cat, two thumbs up!) or miles of shoreline to explore is all waiting for you at Salt Creek Bastimentos Island.

Michael and Christine are your hosts and they are both wonderful people and will help to make sure your stay is as comfortable as possible in this remote region off the grid.

Our beach home for 5 day.

You can find more photos of our vacation in the photo album section of the blog. We’ll end this article off with the picture below.

Artsy shot, dusk along the shoreline.

Thank you for reading our post,

Sincerely,
Dan & Holly Pesta
www.sabalolodge.com