El Ranch ISO

About the boat dock

The whole reason for this project is to create a place to keep my boat and to have a "day house" for hanging when boating and swimming. The ranch already has a big house but it's 8 miles across the ranch road.  The logistics of launching the boat or using existing marina slips are a nightmare that swallows a day in one gulp.  We want a place where we can go in the morning, stay all day, get on and off the boat and be able to take a nap or get in out of the 100+ degree heat. That doesn't seem like a big request but it is no easy feat. Thus, the idea of building a "cabin" out of shipping containers was born. By using shipping containers, we will be able to build a lot faster. The nightmare of forgetting a screw or a board and wasting an entire day driving 70 miles round trip to get a critical piece will be greatly reduced if we take everything we need in to the site in components.  Modular boat dock, modular "house" components, modular everything.

Also, there exists the possibility that we might just up and decide to move the whole thing to another location someday. With a modular design, everything can be picked up and moved in a day or two.

Therefore, we have chosen a product called EZ Dock. We hate the color but we love everything else about it.  Here are photos of how the dock has progressed...

The boat is on a Sunstream Floatlift...  Find it here:  The coolest thing about it is that is is completely self-contained and uses a battery with a solar charger for power.  We actually launched the lift at a boat ramp and I pulled the lift along with the installer to the site using my own boat.

There will be a canpoy over the boat but because I have a wakeboard tower, we have to order extensions for the canopy.  "We" means Rick at Advanced Boatlifts www.advancedboatlifts.com

We love Rick. He also designed the arms for the Ez Dock. They move up and down as the lake level shifts. This lake can drop as much as 10' in the summer and rise 6 or 8 feet in a couple of days. Since we are not there all the time, it needs to work without being monitored.  In the case of an extreme drought, we could actually un-bolt the whole dock and float it out to deeper water.

The water under the dock is about 20' deep when the lake is full so it would take some major global warming to get us into trouble.

So, this is the raison d'etre for this container thing. In case you were wondering....

View from above

We are fortunate to have some arial photos of part of the property. The First one shows the ranch road that leads to the lakefront. It's a long road and when it rains it is like a giant river of mud.
   

The red dot on the right side is the approximate location of the lot. The turnoff to the lot is a mesquite tree maze. We will have to do some major clearing for access.

This shot is the penninsula where the lot is located. 
The lot is actually just off the left side of the photo. It faces the slough that cuts in from the main body of the lake. The location is very private since it is up the slough but access to the main lake is just around the corner.

This is a very cool lake.... 

The ranch extends for about 18 miles of the lake shoreline and goes as far as 8 miles inland. (I told you it was a big ranch).  The lot is about 3 miles inside the nearest ranch gate.

Whole lotta lot Part 2

Here are more photos of the lot when we started:

We had to clear some old junk from the site.

This is a view from the lake. The water level is down but it gives a rough idea.

The deck between the containers will be centered on the clearing so that when viewed from the lake, it will be possible to see through the structure to the trees behind it.

Trailer detour

We firmly expected to be knee deep in container world by now.... However, there is this tiny detail  about ordering and manufacturing the necessary elements. It seems that the manufacturing people can't wave a magic wand to get us everything in 2 days. Hmmm. Bummer.

It is going to take about a month to get the SIP panels and we have not yet been able to weld the frame due to the county-wide burn ban. We should be welding within a week or two but we are now facing scheduling hassles as access is impossible when it rains. We need rain and are happy to see it, but getting trucks to the site is impossible for 2-3 days after moderate rain.

The containers have been purchased and are sitting in a yard waiting to come to the site.  We will have them delivered as soon as we get the Bobcat out there to make the access a little wider. Even then, the roll-off truck will not be able to get all the way to the building site. We will have to tow the containers the last 1/4 mile. There are a couple of options for doing that and it shouldn't be difficult to do. If we have to rent a lift, we found one for $300 per day that will work but right now it looks like we can just pull them in. We will decide what to do after we see how skillful the delivery driver is and how far away they end up after he dumps them.

So, we have decided to use the time to gut the nasty trailer. Apparently, there is a whole community of fans of 1950's travel trailers. There are many resources for information on restoring them. We don't really want to restore the trailer, we're just interested in gutting it, making it water tight and semi-clean inside so that we can use it for storage.

That's the plan anyway.

A Whole lotta lot

This is what we started with-

The lot is on the edge of a very large 12,000+ acres) ranch property about 110 miles West of Dallas . The cabin site is at the lakefront and is about 1 acre. There are no paved roads for the last 2 miles of the drive across the ranch. There are gravel/dirt roads but the last 200 yards is very difficult to reach without the use of a 4 wheel drive vehicle.

Click on photos to enlarge-

Someone left a 1951 Glider Travel Trailer on the property. It has been sitting undisturbed by humans for over 15 years. However, it has been frequently disturbed by non-humans. They lived, they procreated and some of them died there. The trailer is disgusting but makes a handy marker when wandering around looking for the place. Verdict- Keep until no longer necessary. Possibly gut and refurbish provided a ample supply of laborers agree to enter what is basically a toxic waste dump environment for low pay.

The site is about an acre. It faces the lake and the view looked like this before it was cleared:

The lake front looks like this: