As we bounced around the Caribbean on boats with our boys as they grew up, we went to most of the Islands.  The boys learned to dinghy drive, scuba dive, and to instill in the youngest brother an irrational fear of stingless small jelly fish that abound in the waters.  We welcomed the lack of communication in the days before the invention of smartphones.  This type of boating was camping without the dirt, living in the outdoors but with nice facilities.  I reveled in the games the boys invented in the lack of computer games, social media, etc.  One of their favorites was “Navy Seals”. This was “King of the Mountain” played on the dinghy, amazingly with relatively few injuries over the years.

I knew I had accomplished my fatherly mission when during one of these trips all 3 boys were involved in a death match over possession of a particular stick on a beach full of sticks. World disconnection complete!  As you can expect a lot of this play involved salt water and sand, both became the bain of the boys as they grew older and more sophisticated.

An attitude grew that being “Salty” or “Sandy” was not a state to be admired, as well as a retreat into more sophisticated past times like Nintendo Game Boy (We should never have let them on the boat!).  Then came the realization that every Island is the same, once you see one turtle you’ve seen them all, and the ever popular diving on shipwrecks is just like going to a junkyard.  Eventually as the years rolled by a full on mutiny developed, the culmination of was me saying “Pack up, we’re going on the boat for a month” and the boys separately coming up with alternative plans for that month.  Didn’t have to tell us twice, finally my sweetheart and I were able to ditch the baggage!

Water Island

One place we went to repeatedly over the years was Water Island, USVI.  We would usually stop for a couple of days when going from the BVIs to Vieques or Culebra.  Back in 2001 it had one beach and one bar.  In 2017 it has one beach and two bars. Progress! Not much else on the Island, not a lot going on.  A local tradition we admired was Monday Movie Nights on the beach.

The beach itself is one of the best in the USVI, very busy late morning through early afternoon then nearly empty as Cruise ship visitors return to the ships.

So when we began to look for property my sweetheart decided to look here first.  Quickly it became apparent that we couldn’t afford anything that was already built.  There was some undeveloped land available, so contact was made with Realtor David Roselle of http://homesonwaterisland.com

David quickly came up with a list of properties for us to view on our upcoming 3 week boat trip. As I packed for the boat trip my other half zoomed through a Google Earth flyover of her future nest sites.