A sunny place for shady people.

It was a challenge, but we've finally found a place to call home, and I'm proud to say that our home comes complete with no wicker. For about two months we've been our own version of Island House Hunters. I managed to con Matt into giving up precious fishing hours to cruise around the island with various landlords, real estate agents and a professional looking tablet in which I scrawled indecipherable facts and figures, complimenting the homes while secretly thinking “those yellowed lace curtains look like they were striped off a corpse” “I would be scared to sleep in that bed” “eww... there's a cockroach crawling around in here” or “I wouldn't be able to live with myself if we chose a spot that housed salmon and teal colored walls with 3 versions of pastel flower motif in the same room.” We had seen so many places that our real estate detective skills began to falter and we ended up looking at a couple of the same houses twice... by accident.

The up side of all of the housing stress was that we were able to check out every nook and cranny of the island. Real estate agents would drive us around for hours, showing us places, along the way, sharing their knowledge of the island's “little secrets”. We were taken to hard to reach beaches, and handed connection after connection. One thing we've learned from our trials is that everyone is connected. Tortola is a small world, or maybe just a very small island. Every one is connected in some way shape or form and everyone is very willing to lend a helping hand. For instance, a random man who scolded us for lifting the hood of his car that said FOR SALE by the side of the road, then proceeded to make a couple calls to check on availability of cars that would suit us. When our car overheats going up Joe's Hill, a hill so steep and long that our car needs “a breather” when trucking up it, at least 5 people stop to ask if we're ok within 5 minutes. A waitress serving us some delicious conch fritters and life saving smoothies ends up giving us some numbers for places to check out. Everyone seems so willing to lend a helping hand.

The new digs.

Captain Erdosy scoping out the tarpon situation from the front porch.

Watching Matt snorkel from our kitchen.

Our place is in Carrot Bay, which is on the North-West Side of the island. Of course, the reason I chose Carrot Bay is because Ginger Island is undeveloped, uninhabitable and buying an island is simply not in our price range. Carrot Bay has an 'old island' feel. It's not a touristy spot. It's a little fishing village with one church, a couple of hole in the wall bars/restaurants and amazing panoramic views. It's a 5 minute drive in every direction to amazing swimming beaches and it's on one of the only roads on the island that is actually flat and, believe it or not, has a name.

Stacy's new work desk.

When we wake up in the morning we can crack our windows, open the double doors and listen to the waves crash as we work through our $8.00 box of corn flakes.

It's quite hot here as of right now, so come 8:30pm you will probably find us strewn on the couches in our hybrid living-kitchen-room, watching The Wire (because Matt misses Baltimore desperately), zapping mosquitos with a battery operated electrified badminton racquet. If I had time, I would write a post strictly dedicated to my obsession with purging these blood suckers from my existence... but i'll save that for a rainy day.

Anyway, our search is over, we are settling in, and to my embarrassment, getting excited to hit up St. Thomas (which was recently called “The Detroit of the Islands” by a co-worker) for a K-mart run so that we can add a bit of color and perhaps get a small table so that we don't have to sit the desk top computer on our spare tire.

-Stace