Almost There!

Holy Smokes!

Our container has arrived to Puerto Cortes, in the northern part of Honduras. It was quite the journey to get there and I think our container has had an interesting journey. It took nearly a month to find a company that was willing to take on the shipment of a used container without the required certifications. I'm glad that Google exists - that's how I found the company.

In early June, we spent about a week packing and securing everything inside the container. Our research group at the UTEP Center for Inland Desalination Systems are troopers and I am grateful for their help. During packing, we got to use spray paint, stickers, and a Sharpie to put identifying marks required for transport. (I'll put some pictures below.) After we had removed everything from the exterior of the container and placed new labels on the four sides of the container, it had to be inspected for seaworthiness (whew! it passed). The container was loaded onto a chassis on July 15 and was transported to a rail terminal in Santa Teresa, New Mexico. The chassis and container were loaded onto a train and off they went to Houston, Texas. The container spent some time in Houston and was loaded onto a shipping container. The first part of the journey took the container to the Bahamas (WHAT!), where it was loaded onto another shipping container. The container arrived to Puerto Cortes on July 5 and we are waiting for customs clearance before it is shipped to the pilot site in Tegucigalpa. Our UTEP team will depart next week and the fun will begin!

Truck - Train - Ship - Ship - Truck

Big equipment is always fun to watch in operation. Permian Machinery Movers does an amazing job of loading/unloading our equipment. This is the biggest forklift I have personally seen.

Loading the container 

All Loaded Up & Ready to Go!