Do You Miss It? (Island Living)

Sometimes, people will ask me, "Do you miss it?"  The specifics they're ascribing to that question depend on the context of whatever we've just been discussing.  However, it usually falls into one of two scenarios:  (1) Island Living - the micro view of the challenges inherent in living on a tiny island, or (2) Big Life Change - the macro view of how dramatically I've changed my life.  Let's tackle the first one here today.

Island Living

I've described before just how very small this island actually is.  When talking about life here, which necessarily involves limited shopping and entertainment and other resources, people will sometimes ask "Do you miss it?" with regard to a host of things.  I suppose my general answer is that I miss some things, but far fewer than you'd expect, and certainly not enough to make me anything less than enthusiastic about living here.  

So, let's talk specifics . . .  Do I miss the following?

• Friends - Yes and No.  I miss those City friends with whom I can no longer get together for a quick lunch or leisurely dinner.  But, let's face it.  In our jammed schedules, we just didn't get together THAT often.  Also, I'm blessed with friendships that stand the test of time and distance.  My very best friends remain my very best friends, no matter where they or I live.  That said, I don't have to miss the enjoyment of friendship interactions just because I live on a tiny island.  Here, I've reconnected with old friends and made many new friends.  This small island is a hub of social activity and, given the community living, I see far more friends in any given week here than I ever did in the States.  Plus, I keep up with friends, old and new, through email and social media.  God Bless the Internet to keep far-flung folks connected.

• Grocery Stores - Yes and No.  I miss being able to read a new recipe and run to the store to buy every obscure item listed, at any hour of the day or night.  Food stores here are far more limited in size, selection and hours.  However, unless the freight boat is delayed (which happens all too frequently), I can almost always get the basics:  butter, eggs, cheese, apples, oranges, onions, potatoes, lettuce, green peppers, tomatoes, lime, basic canned food and condiments.  During tourist season, the stores stock more and I can even pick up mushrooms, occasional strawberries, feta cheese and tortilla chips!  Specialty items, don't ya know.  :)  Of course, please also remember the benefits of island living - my beau brings home fresh fish, lobster and conch!  And I stock several months of meat in my deep freezer.  So, our grocery options are just fine.  Actually, when I go to the big grocery stores in the States now, I find the selection positively overwhelming and quite daunting!

• Shopping - No.  Granted, I wasn't really much of a shopper before anyway, at least not of the type to relish wandering through malls or boutiques.  I would, however, put that attorney paycheck to use and indulge in occasional fits of online shopping, which I've since curtailed.  I just don't need much and, now on a tighter shoestring, I just don't buy it!  If anything, I'm glad not to have stores around tempting me with pretty window displays.  Nope, I don't miss shopping.

• Big Box Stores - Yes.  I miss Target!  I miss being able to run out for those random things that come up as needed from Target, or Pet Smart, or Bed Bath & Beyond, etc.  I'm forced to economize and improvise by (a) deciding I really don't NEED it, (b) coming up with some alternative creation/solution/fix, or (c) adding it to the ever-present list of Things To Buy Stateside that will go in my purse with my passport on the next trip home.  Currently on my list, for example:  non-standard-sized light bulbs, bath mats, stove burner covers, flea/tick medicine, cooler bags, file folders.

• Movies - Yes.  I didn't go that often, but I do miss being able to head into a movie theater for an escape, weekend event, or simple change of pace whenever the mood strikes.  When we have time during trips to Nassau or the States, ducking into whatever box office hit is playing at the time is a favorite thing to do.

• Restaurants - Yes.  We have two restaurants regularly serving dinners at the moment.  Of course, by now I know the menus by heart.  So, while it's still a treat to go out to dinner here and have the night off from cooking (no other carry-out options!), it's just not the same.  I miss going out to a new (or favorite) restaurant, enjoying the ambiance, sitting down and being served, perusing a delicious-sounding menu and tasting every item in my mind as I read the menu, enjoying an array of dishes from excellent chefs, etc.  But, it is what it is.  I enjoy my nights out here, and I enjoy the restaurant dining experience as a treat when I travel.  Moreover, I'll tell you what I DON'T miss about restaurants - the expense and the extra pounds!  I definitely attribute my bikini-ready self to healthy home-cooking and an absence of tempting restaurant options.

• Services - Yes.  I miss easy access to doctors, dentists, vets, hair/nail salons and a host of repair services.  Sigh.  (Note to self:  time to remember your Choosing the Better Life principles - it's all good.)

• Garbage Disposal - Yes.  In fact, this may be the home amenity I miss most!  I can make do quite well with sea baths when the water is off, frequent electric outages, hand-washing dishes, limited A/C, etc.  But MAN do I miss having a garbage disposal.  Newer homes on the island do boast garbage disposals, but our system isn't adaptable to it.  (I'll spare you the intricacies of water/sewage/other pipe set-ups and systems.)  Yeah, I'm trying to create less waste and compost what I do make, but let's face it - I miss a handy little garbage disposal right there in my sink!

Interestingly (to me anyway), as I read over this list, it seems like I'm listing a lot of things that I miss when I feel like, overall, I don't miss much at all!  I think it's because this island life GIVES me so much more of things that I really value and didn't have before, that I don't really miss even those things outlined above.  I get to eat fresh fish, go snorkeling, see sharks and iguanas, walk down the road in flip-flops visiting friends along the way, romp on the beach with my dog, go to friends' houses for dinner, witness breath-taking sunsets, etc.  It's a great life!  

Perhaps the other reason I don't feel like I miss all that stuff is that I still have access to it.  I travel back to the States and elsewhere frequently enough that I get my "fix" of movies and restaurants and change of scenery.  I schedule doctors and hair cuts when I need them.  I stock up on groceries and big-box-store stuff.  I take advantage of the City amenities, but also get just enough of the City traffic and other hassles that I'm ready to come home to the island!  But I still miss my garbage disposal.  :)

Do you wonder if I miss other Stateside/City daily living amenities that I didn't mention?  Just tell me what you're curious about and I'll let you know!  As for Big Life Change and whether I miss things in that context, to be continued . . . !

Random Things I Didn't Know About Island Life

After visiting this island for 25 years, sometimes for long stretches, I really thought I had a pretty good handle on the ins and outs of island living.  Silly, I suppose, given that there is ALWAYS something new to learn in any venture.  Also, I thought I knew how tough the ever-present elements of salt, sun, sand and humidity were on materials.  Nope.  I’ve had plenty of surprises, small and large, or simply things I hadn’t considered before.  Such as:

• “Stainless Steel” means what is says.  It will stain LESS, but it is not rustproof in the way I took for granted in the States.  Even my best kitchen knives bear rust spots here and there.  And I had to put away the cute silver soap caddies I brought with me because they were leaving rust spots on the kitchen and bathroom counters.

• Elastic just doesn’t last.  Waistbands of underwear seem to suffer the worst, followed by cute little bikinis that I probably paid too much for.  They just stretch and stretch and become unusable.

 

This elastic hanging in there - so far.

• A bottle of conditioner in the shower alongside the shampoo is simply not enough.  I also keep a bottle of heavy duty detangler conditioner on hand to battle the wind snarls after a day on the boat.

• You know how your mother may have told you always to wear clean underwear before you leave the house in case you’re in a car accident or whatever?  Consider having to purge the dresser drawers so that only decent-looking underwear remains - because it will be strung out on a laundry line every week for all of the neighbors to see.

• Golf carts don’t have gas gauges.  As a teenager, my father drilled into me that there is no excuse to run out of gas in the car.  As soon as that gas gauge even approached dipping below a quarter tank, I’d fill up.  Apparently, I didn’t realize how reliant I was on the gas gauge.  Although I know my golf cart needs gas refills, it just doesn’t occur to me very often.  For the first time in 40 years, I’ve run out of gas.  Sorry, Dad.

• Rainbows happen more often than I’ve seen in the States.  I suppose it’s the vast expanse of reflective water, bright sunshine and frequent little rain squalls.  No matter the reason, I love them!

So much more breath-taking in person, but you get the idea.

• Men (generalizing, sorry) pee in the bush far more than I would have imagined, even when a proper toilet is not that far away.

• Although I will always and forever be a strong proponent of education, book learning pales in comparison to the value of mechanical/electrical/carpenter and all ‘round handy-man skills.

• I don’t get tired of eating fish.

• Forget steel wool – scrubbing a scorched pan with sand in the salty sea works far better.

• Even when the power goes out (with unfortunate frequency), I can still cook dinner since my stove/oven uses propane gas.  Cooking by flashlight and candles!

• With one notable exception, it is almost impossible to make bubbles with soap in saltwater.  On those occasions when I take my bath in the sea out back because the fresh water supply isn’t working, I lather up with the one and only Joy.

By Procter & Gamble, but not a paid advertisement!

• I float pretty well (part of my problem with diving), but I am a GREAT floater in the summer.  The combination of warm water and more salt in the sea in those months increases buoyancy.

• Telephones go out with great frequency (not a surprise to me), but phone service actually stayed on during Hurricane Irene when we were hours and hours without electricity and in winds of 70+mph!

• Beautiful sunsets are not a rare treat.  They happen spectacularly almost every single day – and I appreciate every one of them.

Little Island Bursting With Life

In order to make sense of some of the things I’m bound to say as we blog along together, perhaps I should first describe this little island in more detail.

I live on a small island in the midst of a chain of 356 small islands in the Bahamas.  This island is teensy-tiny for as much as it has going on.  It is less than five square miles, with fewer than 100 native residents.  Added to that are a handful of full-time others – like me – and a host of multi-month residents, vacation home-owners, tourists and boaters.  Because of a highly successful marina/club, and a reputation for friendly people and gorgeous scenery, this island gets a lot of traffic.  Mega-yachts and patched-together sailboats alike pass through, along with a steady stream of vacationers to the rental cottages and private homes.  This revolving door of people from all walks of life and a host of countries provides a culturally rich environment with international flair and loads of great people-watching.

The local Bahamians are the cornerstone of this community, in my opinion.  Most are black or dark-skinned (from the legacy of slavery) with wide smiles and even bigger hearts.  They boast a genuine love for their community and are proud Bahamians.  With a solid understanding of the import of tourism to the local economy, the local people are gracious hosts, quick to laugh and eager to share their love of the island.  

To generalize, the locals support themselves in three main industries: (1) Tourism - bars, restaurants, housecleaning rentals, etc., (2) Construction - booming development on the island and nearby islands, and (3) Water-Related - local tour guides by boat, fishermen, boat captains, etc.

I mentioned how small the island is, right?  And you may have seen my Photo Tour pictures of the nurse-staffed clinic, one-room school and gazebo-like airport.  To encapsulate it, the island offers:

• One small general store, which also sells food, and two small food stores.  I don’t use “grocery store” lest you imagine anything akin to a Publix or Whole Foods.  This isn’t even a 7-Eleven size.  More like a small bedroom stocked with shelves of canned goods, whatever produce was delivered by the mailboat, and miscellaneous razors, toothpaste and laundry detergent.

• Two currently-operating restaurant/bars with full menus, another bar that serves native food at lunch and some Friday evenings, and a bar that somewhat arbitrarily opens on special occasions.

• One health clinic with a nurse, one school, one church, one library and one unstaffed airport.

• One “government building” where itinerant doctors pass through on a monthly (or occasional) basis.  This is also where the local electric company shows up for a few hours once a month or so – we must scramble over there to receive and pay our bill when we hear they’ve arrived!  No online bill pay, or even reliable mail-in service.

• A dive shop for scuba/snorkel gear and related items.

• A telephone company with a small office to pay bills, buy cell phones, etc.

• A small boutique with gift shop types of items; also a gift shop in the marina/club.

• A bakery of homemade bread operating out of the small kitchen in a local home.

• A small shop sporting ice cream and snacks that also serves as a hub for golf/boat/vacation rentals.

• Numerous businesses without a physical office:  local guides, divers, fishermen, police officers, housecleaners, construction companies, landscapers, purse-makers, etc.

And that’s it!  Truly, nothing more.  No golf course, no spa, no mall, no hair salon, no gym, no nail boutique, no dry-cleaner, no American-style grocery store, no Target or Wal-Mart or Costco, no fast food, no gas station (we buy fuel at the marina’s fuel station), no clothes store, no shoe store, no movie theater, no bookstore, no coffee shop.  Get the picture?

But I can’t emphasize enough – and I hope this gets conveyed over the course of time and blog entries – this is not a small-minded, back-water hick town.  Turns out, the island really does have (almost) everything that you need to get by (most days).  And, here, life is not lived for “stuff” anyway.  It is lived for the bountiful experiences on, in, under and around these pristine waters, as well as through the meaningful relationships with the special people here.  It is a vibrant community, bursting with life and laughter.

This is where I call home.