Not all Sun & Sand: Things that are harder here

I think when people think about moving to the islands, they think of the great weather and more of a vacation life, but when you live here some things come harder. The way I see it, though, is not having these conveniences actually helps you have more patience and not have to move so fast. For me, it is part of the fabric of being here and adds to the experience (as strange as that sounds)

Water

Water is pretty key to almost anything we do in our house, but island-living requires some extra time to make it all work.

Filling the Cisterns

The water to our house is collected with rainwater and stored in cement cisterns under our house. Our house has 22k gallons. We conserve *a lot* of water - think boat showers everyday. If we run out a truck will come delivery ~4kgallons (I think) and, of course, it is very pricey.

Drinkable water:

On a weekly basis, we have to take our 4 five gallon jugs down to the laundromat to fill with fresh drinkable water. If we run out, there really is nothing to drink (I have looked in the cistern and seen cockroaches - I will never drink it, not even boiled)

Wash Veggies/Feed Dog Water

Every night and every morning we boil water to use for drinking water for our dog, washing veggies, brushing teeth and making coffee.

Electricity

Cell Phone Ambiance provided by a bartender in one of the power outtages

This is by far my least favorite thing on the island. We lose power ALL THE TIME! We have had to buy two back-up batteries to keep our Wifi and laptops running on days where it can go down for 6+ hours (!). We have a roll-out generator in the worst-case scenario. People around here say it is not caused by Irma and Maria (actually it was much better once they got it running right after the hurricanes), but in the last year it has gotten extremely bad and there is so much politics around fixing it - I really don't understand how this hasn't been fixed (even with political problems in the mix). Also, to add salt to the wound, take your electricity bill and multiply it by 4 - that is what we pay for the wonderful service :/

Jobs

The biggest eye-opener for me on the island was how hard people work to live here. Most people have more than one job and many people have had to re-invent themselves many times to make it work here. I count myself very lucky with my job, but to live here full-time you would really need to be willing to take a lot of risk and start things completely new (or develop a brand new skill)

Trash

There is no trash pickup - you need to put it in your car and bring it to a dumpster. Losing this convenience doesn't bother me in the least, though. It reminds me of my childhoold and driving to the dump with my dad - for some reason I thought it was interesting. Funny enough, my son mentioned the same thing - he likes running our trash to the dumpster with us and we have the best conversations. It also makes you 100% aware of what you throw out, because it stays on the island, so we do our best to not throw out too much.

Shopping

Christmas

I am a planner, but planning for Christmas while in St. John takes it to another level. I started on November 30th and I already feel like I am behind. Shipping is not always easy - and no site is guaranteed to ship here, plus you need to add on a few days for it to get to you. The basic plan is to find someone who is state-side to ship to, and then pay them to ship to St. John. So far the only sites that will ship *some* things are Ebay, Walmart & Amazon - but it is very time consuming to find.

General

If you are really in need of something (or need to do a larger grocery shopping trip), you can hop on a car ferry to St Thomas and there is a Kmart there ($50 round trip). There is also a great company called Time Saver VI that will pickup and deliver to you.