It is always exciting to see a theme park being born - especially as the finish clock winds down and the opening day quickly approaches. On those last days a construction site transforms into a finished park in seemingly amazing speed. Concrete walls give way to theme work. Greys give way to bright colours and dirt and gravel are replaced with welcoming walkways. The landscaping is always near the end and that marks the biggest change of all as the hardscape is softened and greed up. Even though I knew what to expect as I arrived this visit I was amazed to see the rapid progress on Skallywag Bay. The beautiful rock work (by Trent and team of Wavestone Sculpture) is ready for paint, the pools are almost complete and the paint and thatch is well underway on the train station, We are working hard on the final grades of the adventure golf. Elsewhere in the park many teams are labouring hard and making fabulous progress. It will be some time yet before we are done but the countdown is definitely on...
Back on island time
When I left Skallywag Park ten days ago things were beginning to ramp up quickly. It was like many projects of this type. Progress seems slow as all of the infrastructure, underground conduits, drainage footings and retaining walls are built. When the work progresses beyond this stage it seems like things are progressing much faster. The reality is that the progress is visually faster for the work you see is going vertical. and the steps they are taking are the final ones, built overtop of the starting work. When I left the site ten days ago they were just finishing the pour of the bumper boat pool. Other areas of the park were quickly shaping up as well. Where we formerly walked in mud there is now largely concrete in many areas.
This evening I arrived back on the island to oversee the work being done in the adventure golf area. We placed many of the features last visit and since then I'm told the crews have done much of the shaping of the ground in these areas. It is our hope that in the next few days the crews will begin the pouring of the greens at last. I'll be laying out these areas and overseeing many more finishing steps around the park. Stay tuned for some exciting pictures over the next few days...
Mine car extraordinaire!
Designing projects is always a whole lot of fun. Supervising complex projects is always a challenge and I enjoy that process as well. I thoroughly enjoy helping to lead a wonderful and talented team as they work on projects which I have imagined along with Peter. But the most fun aspect of my job is to roll up my sleeves and actually build a project - at least once i n a while. If I get to do it from start to finish that is even better yet. It doesn't happen often but this past week I got such a chance. The team was busy in the shop building the big mine shaft and surrounding mountain. I snuck out to the metal fabrication area to build the mine car. The design process was relatively quick and the MultiCam CNC plasma cutter made short work cutting the scores of bits and pieces from the 1/4" and 1/8" plate steel.
My task was to fit the many pieces together, tack them into place and then pull some nice long beads of welding to make it a seamless fabrication. It is a magical process to pull my welding helmet down and get in the groove. The project came together quicker than I imagined, in less than three days time including the design and fabrication. That was even including all of the inevitable interruptions to do other daily tasks and meetings. We'll still do a little sculpting to build the rolled of rocks inside the bucket and a base around the bottom but this looks to be the fanciest hole marker ever for an adventure golf!
