by Tim Rasmussen Fortunately, the damage was not quite as severe as we had first believed on the breakdown of the Mayhew rotary rig upon which rests all our hopes of really making progress bringing water to remote villages in the Peten region of Guatemala. With careful disassembly, cleaning, readjustment of the pinion and ring gear clearances and reassembly, the crew in Guatemala (under the able leadership of Edgar aided by careful counseling and consultation with Jon and Gary) were able to get the table working again. They are being very careful with the rig and hope nothing else goes wrong; it is up and running again. Meanwhile, Gary, Jon, and Seth scoured the country and found suitable repair parts from a drilling contractor in Minnesota. He had a rebuilt table at a fair price, which included an upgrade of the transmission to a five-speed with reverse, which will be better than the original three-speed, so we made a deal. Some of our generous donors got together and made it possible. The table was shipped to us and is now sitting in Gary’s yard with various pallets of pipe and other supplies. Materials and equipment were just gathered for shipment. I have been reading about delays in container shipping to and from the U.S., but our shipping agent assures we do not need to worry a great deal about it. At any rate, we are hoping the container will arrive near the end of the month. Another mystery related to the container was last year’s need for a license for the bentonite chips we use in drilling. After 15 years of no issue, suddenly they almost refused to let the container enter because we did not have a license to import this environmental product. Somehow, Berny and Henry got around this issue and they let the container in. (I do not use the word “bribe”, but words like “special fee” or “special permission” come to mind.) Anyway, Henry tells us there is now no need for a license to import the bentonite. Go figure. If you would like to help, contact Gary Bartholomew at 208-907-0010 or 509-939-1941 Tim Tim Rasmussen may be contacted via e-mail to michele@worldwidedrillingresource.com WTR 19 SEPTEMBER 2021 WorldWide Drilling Resource®
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