Unbuilding the Grace and Pearman Bridges


For Sparky and myself, curiosity drives passion which in turn fuels our life's engine. Our passion was capturing the story of both unbuilding the Grace (1929 - 2007) and Pearman (1966 - 2007) Bridges and discovering the unbuilders. It takes a lot of passion to track a project from July 2005 until April 2007 - rain, shine, hurricanes or moving to Singapore. We discovered the joy of discovery learning. Ken Canty opened the front door for us - then Steve Testa, Ponch Billingsley and Mickey Rogers opened many side doors. Below are the highlights of what we discovered, who we met and what we learned.

And a reminder from T.S. Eliot (East Coker from the Four Quartets)

Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.

February 17-20, 2007: An adventure to Batam

This weekend is Chinese New Year - and we have Monday and Tuesday as holidays. Some friends invited us to a kelong in Batam - one of the nearby Indonesian islands. We went, we enjoyed, and we'll probably go again. Friendly faces, plenty of opportunities for swimming, fishing and my sport - insect photos. More important, we traveled over a cable stay bridge as we left the island of Batam - with a span that exceeds that of the Ravenel Bridge. Here is our story - well, part of it. The whole story is on my Adventures in Indonesia

Getting there - we took the Batam ferry from Harbor Front - and wound our ways around the cargo ships to Batam. Then by van to another island, then by boat to Lincoln's place. Here are our GPS tracks

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To get there, we had to cross from Batam to another island over a cable stay bridge

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A closer view

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We took the ferry from Singapore to Batam - and then overland, to a small river where we loaded everything on a small sanpan for about a 45 min ride to the kelong. A kelong is a small wooden home on stilts built for fishing. Loading

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The boat trip to Lincoln's Kelong

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The Kelong where we stayed

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A nearby home

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Lunch - a seafood delight

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Some fished

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Evening of the first day

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The next morning, we found a Praying Mantis - cleaning its antennae. She / he starts at the nearing part to her / his head and gradually builds a loop until the entire antennae is whatever

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A small loop

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A larger loop

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An even larger loop

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Finished

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A view from the top

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Then off I went in search of insects - more focus practice. First I found a small small grasshopper inside a flower

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Then Sunday morning - Here are two mating brownish dragonflys

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A red dragonfly from the top

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an aqua damselfly (I think)

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Another red dragonfly

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What I call a tiger dragonfly - sort of tiger stripes

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Another red dragonfly

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A blue dragonfly

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The morning of our last day (Tuesday) - just enjoying the quiet

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Reflections of the poles that support the nets

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Bringing back the morning harvest

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A last look along the boardwalk

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Checking the fish nets

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Breakfast - fried noodles, prawns and eggs

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Leaving our weekend home

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A bit further away view

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Another kelong - in the middle of the channel

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Going home down the last river

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Unloading and off to the Batam Ferry Terminal

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

C. Frank Starmer

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