Building big ponds in the Caribbean.

The Buccament Bay project is well underway.: The landscaping is all that is required for the front of the holiday site. Some of the cabanas could be used already.I had a phone call from Ken Picknell, the project manager for Ridgeview Construction, who was on St Vincent in the Caribbean. He was part way through a large project sponsored by an English company called Harlequin Property. The project was to build, what on the face of it, seemed like a very ‘upmarket’ holiday camp in a bay called Buccament Bay, not far away from the bay in which a lot of the filming of “Pirates of the Caribbean” took place. Fans of the films would recognise a lot of the landscape and seascapes.

But why did they want me? Well, part of the original conception was to lend the site an ‘old worldy’ feel by building the holiday chalets, or ‘cabanas’ as they called them, in an old plantation style, then to add to that a lush growth of plants and lots of water in the form of ponds. As I was to find out, these large ponds would be well planted and full of fish and would have the dual purpose as acting like catchments and large open drains for the short but incredibly heavy downpours of rain that happen on an almost daily basis on the island. Each pond would be linked to another and an outfall would eventually take any excess water to the river that ran down the side of the site and out to sea. The whole ambience would be of luxury habitation in amongst a natural and wild environment. There was never a project more tailored for my skills, but what was the problem?

The site of one the ponds can be traced by the red topped pegs. This is one of the smallest.The problems were manifold, but not insoluble. Basically the project had been started with plenty of brilliant inspiration but very little forethought. A project like this had to be thought right through, step by step, to the end, before a sod of earth was even touched. So if a problem is likely to emerge part the way through a project, the solution is already there. You see these ponds were big, big for even big ponds and if fact they are more like small lakes. The average size was roughly a third of an acre, the largest being over an acre at 5000square yards. With that size of pond if you have to back up on yourself you are talking a lot of man-hours and major engineering. Fortunately Ken Picknell is a Project Manager with plenty of foresight and he realised at an early stage that the advice they had on pond construction was somewhat flawed and inconsistent and he felt he needed someone on site to see the construction of at least some of the ponds through to completion so that his men and staff could get to grips with the materials and the techniques.

So that was the situation when I was invited out there to make an assessment and a feasibility study. I metaphorically paved the way by presenting a few ideas in advance and providing one or two rough plans on theA rough sketch on site gave the lads on site an idea how I thought it would look. construction techniques I thought suitable. This pleased the guys on site and made them feel confident that I knew what I was talking about. I also asked a lot of questions, some of which could be answered and for the answers to the others, I would have to see for myself. (see also the news item: http://www.watergardenermagazine.com/node/1855 )

An idea to be knocked on the head

The standing water is the result of the last rainstorm, ironically this water roughly covers the area of the site of Pond1One of the ideas that I firmly had to knock on the head right on the first telephone call was the intention to stock the pools with koi carp and tilapia. The idea was that the koi would do their usual bit of looking pretty and provide a bit of visual entertainment, whilst the tilapia would clean up all the mosquito larvae that might bug the tourists. Nobody was able to think far enough ahead to when the tilapia had run out of mosquito larva and also what they would do in their spare time. The poor koi would be harassed to death, and if not there would be a combined effort to destroy all the vegetation and stir up the detritus constantly to make the water as turbid and unattractive as you are ever likely to see outside of a swamp.

First things first – Questions that needed to be answered

My rendition of how I saw the completed pond with jetties and a bridge over the narrows in the distance.So what fish would be suitable? I would need to see for myself what sort of conditions they would have to tolerate. But my main concern for the present was to see what sort of liner material they had on site and what they had to put it together. It seemed a vast quantity of EPDM rubber pond liner had been ordered and also some of the glue to weld or splice the liners together. The choice of accessories and tools for applying the glue seemed more like the kit you would need for waterproofing flat roofs, so I was particularly concerned that the EPDM rubber was not the builder’s grade, because using that for pond lining slowly but surely kills any fish you might introduce to the pond due to chemicals used in its manufacture. Fortuately the liner turned out to be the excellent Firestone .045 Pond guard which is pretty tough stuff. Just aswell really because it was just sitting there at the end of the building site for months just basking in the sun.

A pond already in existence at the back of the site. Rolls of liner stored on the left.: Here talapia and koi and plants were kept and grown on for a possible future in the new ponds on site. You can see the fish have eaten all the plants. The water is 32C.Next I wanted to check the quantities of liner in respect to the amounts of splicing tape and primer used in the splicing process. Also I understood the liner had arrived in various pre-spliced sizes that were intended to be matched up to the first ponds to be excavated. I had to try to work out an economical combination of fixing them together to line out the ordained shapes.

Perhaps more important than anything in regards to the feasibility was the condition of the soil. Was it sandy or stony? After all we were starting only about 50 yards from the water’s edge on the beach. Come to that, what was the water table level like? We would need a good depth to the ponds in order to help keep the water cool.
If we were to try a basic excavation without any foundation by using the ‘v’ trench technique for the edging, we would need a good firm, well-consolidated soil in order to maintain the profile once the pool was dug.

If there was a lot of stone in the soil, the liner would need a bit more protection than just a layer of sand. I wanted to see if the geo-textile I heard they had on site was suitable as an underlay protection for the liners.

Next I had to discuss the ideas I had put forward with regard to keeping the ponds healthy and clear in the light of the climate and the availability of plants. I was initially asked on my recommended methods of aerating theOne of the outfalls for one of the ponds.: The pond needs to butt up to this and overflow water makes its way eventually to the s ponds, but I had to explain that would not be enough on its own in order to ensure algae free healthy water. Biological filtration backed up with a large ultra violet treatment and the use of a large quantity of reedy type plants in a reed bed-cum-‘swimming pond’ method of keeping water clear was what I had in mind. It was pointless trying to think in terms of plants that I was familiar with. I was sure most of those would have been banned from the island even if they were able to grow. The island is rich in some of the most vigorous plants on the planet, the last thing they need is the introduction of any competitive alien species. I needed to find out what was indigenous, allowable and capable of helping keep the water clear. I needed to see what nurseries there were and look up gardeners and gardens. I was destined to meet up with just right man on this score.

Apart from the general profiling techniques for the pond excavations, there were the details of the inflows and the outflows. These had already been constructed in concrete and were already linked. Somehow the pool liner had to blended into to these details. Also the fixing of the liner to these concrete constructions had to be worked out as details.

Another question I had to ask was: being so close to the sea and being in the hurricane area of the Caribbean, was inundation likely?
The answer was, “Yes….”.
“…We’ll deal that when it comes. If there is the sort of inundation from the sea that gets as far as the ponds, then the least of the worries is going to be ponds.”

Seeing is believing

When I arrived, I tried to get a night’s sleep but being five hours ahead in English time I was still in a muddle at daybreak. That next morning Ken took me to the site. It was Sunday morning so there was relatively little activity and I could concentrate on the problem to hand.
The river running down the side of the site. This is where all the overflow water runs to.: Eventually a health spa with quiet areas and gardens will be built on an island in the river.The water table on site was found to be well below the required depth, and this season was the most rainy season of them all.Now I had assumed from the start that a purely natural looking pond system was what was in order, which was what seemed to hit the right keynote. This meant I could keep well and truly to the “Keep-it-Simple” philosophy. However the ‘simplicity theory’ got a little bit shaken when I saw two pipes running below ground into one of the outfalls when I was examining the potential site of the ponds. At some point someone was thinking of having ‘bottom-drains’ to the ponds. That would have been great in a normal sized and well-engineered koi pond. Unfortunately, in situations where we are dealing with bare fairly moveable earth, I don’t like to cut into the bottom of a liner. Also having been already inserted through the concrete outfall they were actually limiting the depth of the pond to less than a metre. I could see the advantage of carrying any detritus away down the outfall, but it would require too much of a precise installation in a situation where precision just was not available. We would be conducting a largely unskilled workforce, which was evident in the fact the outfall according to the plan was over 30metres out of position anyway…Hhhm.
I sorted a solution to that latter problem out by saying what a great place it would to have a stream from the pond to the outfall! That was a very welcome suggestion.

An excavation down to 2 metres where the first pond nearest the ocean would revealed a water table over 120cm (4ft) down, which should give us a good depth of pond. The soil is compacted but soft, and it is black and as humus rich as far as the digger could reach. There are a few layers of silt but you can see there has been rich vegetation right down to the edge of the sea for thousands of years. The tide only moves a few feet up and down the beach, and the bay is protected against the prevailing winds that might drive the sea up into the bay and make life difficult for plants. This looks reassuring for the welfare of the ponds and plants.

Landscaping, Architects and Plants

Plants grow like there fed on rocket fule in St Vincent but in truth gardeners hardly never use fertilizers.: One thing the plants all have in common is to be tolerant of regular drenching of water combined with a blissful humid but soothing heat.Asta's nursery of cuttings growing strong
The island of St Vincent has a live volcano on it at one end. The ash and larva from this volcano, mixed with the high humus soil, are like rocket fuel for plants. Cuttings just inserted into the ground burst into life. It is either that or the incredibly green fingers of the inhabitants. It is probably a bit of both and Riverview Construction had their own gardener who spends his time maintaining the green areas of the site and building up acres of plants standing waiting for the big day to turn Buccament Bay into a forest. This was Asta the Rasta, a devoted plantsman and a man who knew everyone on the island. If he passed anyone in his travels in his pickup that was pruning plants or cutting back hedges, he would stop and load up all the brash into the back of the pickup and take it back to Buccament Bay and plant it up as cuttings. The result was veritable tropical jungle nursery. There was obviously no problem with the soft landscaping supplies although when I looked at the landscape architect plans there seemed to be a very different story.

There was a landscape architect, Kevin Talma, who was over in Barbados. He and his team had drawn up some very impressive and detailed plans, but even on first sight they didn’t correspond with anything that was going on the ground, certainly in regards to the shapes of the ponds. Here the ponds where convoluted, pinched in places and running off into lagoons and backwaters. It looked good on paper, but flaunted the ‘KISS’ principle to the detriment of the pond health. Large complicated shapes meant stagnant areas in the natural convection of the ponds. Added interest to the shape of the pond can easily be achieved with swathes of plants intruding out. Ken told me to keep to the original ground-works engineering plans. When it came down to meeting up with a member of the Landscape planning team, Adrian Walcott, in Barbados on the way back, he claimed they thought the ponds were swimming pools. Ahhh! I knew then that either there was a distinct lack of communication in the landscape designer’s office, or between Kevin and Ken, or I was talking to someone that just didn’t know anything. At least he knew the time of day and I wasn’t late for my plane.

The botanical gardens on St Vincent, once a sugar plantation.
Anyway, I spent the a couple of days working out liner sizes, surface areas for plant estimates’ working gallonages and then what extra materials we might need for splicing the liners together. That will be fun. The liners have been lying around for so long that the labels marking their size have long since faded or disappeared. So sorting the 30 foot by 100 foot from 50 by 150 should be easy, what about the subtly different 35 foot by 100 foot from the 30 foot by 100 foot? Ah well, there are plenty of willing hands to help. The people are lovely and the first thing the St Vincent people are regarded for is their obliging nature.
There is a pond just outside the office where I was working. This was to be the nursery pond for the fish and plants that could be bred and propagated for all of the other ponds. The water is thick green and you can see the occasional fin of a fish rising to take a gulp of something on the surface. I’m not sure what they were but they didn’t behave as though they were at the peak of health. The water temperature was a sweaty 32C.

Asta took me to the National Botanical Gardens on St Vincent where i knew that there was some quite sizeable water gardens well planted. He knows the head gardener there, and everybody else and they proudly showed me around. This was a plantation of breadfruit that was originally brought here by Captain Bligh. It had been his intention to get here on the Bounty before the mutiny but as you know, those plans were scuppered. There is still a largebreadfruit tree here that is a cutting off one of those original breadfruit trees brought here by Bligh a couple of years after the mutiny.

Indigenous water plants of St Vincent: The minature papyrus or umbrella plant and a tropical lily.

This seems to me to be the only indigenous lily. Can anyone confirm to me that it is Nymphaea ampla?

The infamous water hyacinth, Eichornia crassipes.: The disdain that this plant has in Florida and South Africa is reserved for the Water Lettuce, Pistia stratiotes here in the Caribbean.

Coconut palms will be a dominant feature on the site.

The tree that produces the delicious breadfruit.: This one is a cutting from one of the original plants brought by Captain Bligh.

As for the ponds in the Botanical garden, they contained a remarkably limited number of plants. There was just one species of tropical style lily, umbrella grass and water hyacinth. Not very impressive on that score.

Now I am back in the UK preparing for my next visit with more plans, details and some research into suitable plants and fish. I have written to the landscape architect with a suggestion that he should come up with some water plants for the ponds since he is in a better position make suggestions. I refrained at this stage from putting any of my own ideas forward on the basis that it may look like: ‘I’m trying to teach my grandmother how to suck eggs.’ I learnt a long time ago that landscape architects are very sensitive brethren, very easily upset and totally unforgiving when the have been upset. But I do have a list and also a list of some great fish. I haven’t heard from them as yet for developments their end. So watch this space for future developments.

Further Developments

The foundations for a quay and gabions as sea defenses.: All this will be hidden under beautiful beach sand. The quay will allow access to a galleon in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" theme, which will actually be a luxury restaurant.Remnants of the Caribbean's dark history will be made into interesting features on site.
Yesterday I went to the Harlequin Offices in Basildon Essex and met with designers from Italy, also Ken and some of the other guys on the ground in St Vincent, some of the accountants and solicitors and one of the figureheads of Harlequin Properties, Dave Ames. The message was that the pressure was on to get the project finished, but it was still to wet for digging. It seems I’m booked up to go back in about three weeks time. Meanwhile I’ve got to build a rapport with Kevin Talma the landscape architect and ordering some of the filtration equipment for the first two big ponds.