I had heard about Ephemerisle a few years back, but the schedule didn't work out until this year. Stellar Grey was nice enough to invite us on DIYsland, the 2nd main island after the Elysium complex. Much smaller, but also fewer sharp edges :)
While I wasn't able to help with the far away build in Oakland, I was able to work on a solar charging system that provided a lot of DC charging for cell phones, radios, lipo batteries, and other batteries:

happy customers

the word got around, more happy customers :)

1.6Kwh served after 3 days, not bad (about 1/3rd to 1/4th of what an apartment uses in a day)

Being on DIYsland meant that we had to boat everywhere though. Elysium was "just across" but not really close enough that you'd want to swim there. The current was strong enough that it was hard to get to with our crappy inflatable at times (which I chose over a kayak to avoid rollover risks)

it was long enough that patch kits didn't cover the tear. Duct tape did though

The problem with duct tape is that it's not really water proof. I was able to use duct tape to hold for a 5mn ride back to our island, and it prompty failed and deflated after that, thankfully when I was safely out of the water. Now, it's not that I can't swim, but I was full of electronics that don't like water at all, and ending up in the water at 02:30 in the dark and in strong current, is not the best thing ever. So, I superglued the duct tape for better water resistance and then duct taped the shit out of it:

It probably still wasn't long term water proof, but held enough to get me to Elysium and back on the last night, even if the ride back was somewhat enerving given that I had so much electronics on me (my shirt pants, and batteries don't really go in a dry bag).

My shirt is nice, but it just isn't made for swimming :)

Anyway, we drove to Pirate's Lair on Thursday and got picked up for a quick-ish boat ride to DIYsland:

our island because it got expanded a few times

we had entertainment :)

and evening music entertainment

On thursday afternoon, we went to Elysium to see the Sean Frenzy Commemorative Competitive swim that re-enacts Sean swimming away from the coast guard while on acid and running on land naked to get away from them (they did eventually catch him and released him later when he was feeling better :) ):

the winner won by quite a bit

for extra points he even ran to the helicopter

it went for a few flights during the week

also a water plane

The Elysium complex was "interesting", the connecting "roads" however moved and disappeared a few times during the next few days, temporarily standing people on one side or the other of the complex:

floating RV, nice :)

blues house

Interesting boats and floating things:

a bunch of other boats were rafted up together

great RV boat

submarine even

More Elysium shots:

humans vs zombies

I even managed to run into my friend Shawn on the last evening

Some overview pictures:

Some sunset pictures:

Night was "interesting". By then, you kind of forget that you're only on a small river. It feels like you're in the middle of an ocean and that you'd better make your destination, or you could perish at sea :) This definitely made a difference when I was riding that could fail anytime raft on the last night.

Johan made a remote controlled kayak that shot fire:

Of course, night had partying. There was an awesome DJ boat:

Blues House had music of course:

DIYsland also had dancing, music and singing:

Some other boats paired up on saturday with the DJ boat for their own party. I only went to check it out once due to the untrustworthy duct taped raft:

The barge had a big dancing platform:

The trip back on Sunday was "interesting". I accepted an early-ish ride back to Pirate's Lair, but in the end it took over 2.5h to get back instead of 10mn because we were towing platforms and people which divided our speed by 10x:

did anyone call for pizza?

it was a long slow ride...

this is what I should have brought ;)

after way too long, we got back to Pirate's Lair

Thanks to all for all the hard work building and then taking back down this big city on water.