Lucy, you got some 'splainin' to do!

I mentioned last week that we received our second Subaru legacy.  We were going to head to town in the old Legacy when Denise noticed damage on the back bumper of the new car.

We were a bit disappointed with the shipping company, Blue Ocean Transport so I sent some photos to them in an email.   A short time later I received a call from them and we had a conversation about the damage.  He explained that the checklist from the transport company they hired to deliver the car from Vancouver Washington to Florida had the damage indicated on the sheet I signed.  

They forwarded me their copy and sure enough it had the damage indicated.  The first thing I noticed was the light grey writing on all the tiny scratches they pointed out when they did the inspection, but the dark grey mark indicating the new dent stood out.  

You'd think that if the damage was there, and with the dark writing on the one above that you'd at least see some imprint on my bottom carbon copy in the picture below.  Scum bags damaged our car then marked up the paperwork later.  I guess the driver forgot that I was taking pictures of the car as he was inspecting it, and after he loaded it onto the trailer.   

Here he is inspecting the back panel in the Target parking lot.  

And here's his reflection in the back passenger window as I moved around to the back to get more pictures.  Hmmmm, no dent on the bumper.  Blue Ocean's off the hook and we'll see what they come up with, and the response from United Transport Van Lines when they see the document and the pictures I sent.  

We didn't let the dent spoil our day.  We went snorkeling on Sunday and went to a party at the Leatherback Brewing Company on Monday.  I couldn't drink the beer since I have celiac but we had some decent Sorrel, burgers and sausages.  I snapped this surprise picture of Denise as she was eating Cheetos.  We had a good time at the brewery, had dinner at Off The Wall later and had a nice walk along the beach at sunset.  

Kevin & Denise

Welcome to Agrifest!

Today Denise and I went to the 47th annual Agricultural fair.  It usually takes place in February, although hurricane Maria destroyed much of the booths and some structures at the fairgrounds.

We had a pretty good time talking with growers about plants, trees, fruits, bugs and heard some good music too.

Most of the police cars we've seen on the island are Ford Explorers but they had two of these at the fair.

Here's some pictures of the grounds and vendor booths.

My post last week I mentioned how happy I was that Denise and I were going to be able to grow fruits, vegetables  and herbs year round.  Today we found a larger list of the things we'll be able to grow.  We also met more suppliers and people that can give us great advice in the future.

We're going to take a tour of the farm pod on the island sometime next week.  Here's the link to the site: Farm in a Pod  We had a smaller version of this in Washington but the cats kept pulling out the herbs before we could harvest.  The top greenhouse disassembles fairly easily when a hurricane is on its way and is stored in the container below.  Hopefully more to come with pictures next week.

Humor of the day: Denise saw the sign above the goats and said, "The Virgin Islands Bureau of Corrections doesn't 'Kid' around!"

When we got home Denise looked out the back window and saw the sea grass in the shape of a fish floating by.  This is the first time we've seen it in any large group.  It's been floating by in long strings about 5' wide on average.  

That's all for now,

Kevin & Denise

The Newbaru has arrived!

Our second Subaru arrived on the island Monday and we were able to pick it up today.  Ferrol trucking received it and got it through customs, road tax, and did the vehicle inspection.  Tuesday we'll go back to the DMV to get it registered. 

If you didn't know, we liked the 2013 Subaru Legacy (The Bluebaru) so much we bought a 2016 (The Newbaru).  Both cars have the Eyesight with collision avoidance, lane assistance and active cruise control, but most of those features aren't needed on an 82 Sq Mile island.  Cruise control's not required on the short highway where you could actually achieve 60 MPH but the collision avoidance will still be valuable.  Right now most of the roads are still torn up so the lane assist usually gets shut off because you need to leave your marginally marked lane to avoid the holes.  The full time all wheel drive has been great on the hills.  The road to our property on the hill is in the middle of construction so it's gravel on many parts.  The car has no issues climbing on any terrain. 

Rumor has it our container will arrive earlier than expect on Monday.  Originally we were told June 12th so this is an added surprise. 

Denise and I have been keeping busy doing things around the house, going on walks, meeting neighbors and enjoying the perfect weather. 

Kevin & Denise

WooHoo! Fruit trees and herbs will be growing year round!

Denise and I haven't done much in the last few days.  We're waiting for the USVI seal on the house plans so we can pull permits and get moving.  Since I received the GPS unit we've gone around the property and marked the corners of the lot, and the house location.  Since I'm not the kind of person to sit around, I've stayed busy at Kent's house replacing a few ceiling fans and working on a few other things.

We went to a disaster preparedness expo today and received good information and talked with people from FEMA and DPNR about our plans.  All were positive on the type of house we are going to build. 

We're continuing to meet great friends from all over the island.  BJ (Bernard Joseph) and Kendra are friends of Kent's; we met BJ last week and met his wife Kendra today.  We had a very encouraging conversation about the fruit trees and other things I want to grow.  He'll be a great resource for us to get our trees growing on the property ahead of the house build.  This way we could have many types of edibles available when we're done.

Turns out we can grow basil year round and not just the 3 months like Washington.  I'm pretty excited to have Bananas, Mango's, Papaya, Star Fruit (or Star Apple), Soursop and other fruits.  Herbs and flowers that were annuals in Vancouver will now be year round.  I'm really looking forward to having over an acre of plant playground to experiment with.

Kevin & Denise

Yesterday: Moving Day

Denise and I have been renting a room at our friend Lenny's house since we arrived on the island.  We were looking for more room, closer to our property and Lenny had us covered until we could find something.  Right in form with how our entire move has gone, we found a place to rent about 500' away from our property.

We met Kent, the owner, back in February when we were looking for a place to buy.  We'd been up and down his road for 2 days with the realtors selling the property, and on the 3rd day Denise and I were by ourselves hacking and slashing brush to see as much of the property as we could.  Long story short is we had raised the curiosity of the neighbors as to why we were poking around.  I walked down to Kent's house to introduce myself and the response I received was, "You're on my property!"  A short introduction, and explanation of our intentions of buying the property around the corner and the mood quickly changed.  After a good conversation with Kent, another neighbor Ryan, and his son Tyler, we knew this was going to be a great place to live.

I won't go into all the details but we ended up meeting with Kent again when we moved and rented part of Kent's place.  It's good for him since we're able to help him, and help out around the house, and it's good for us since it's right down the road from our new house.  He's a great guy and has introduced us to many of our neighbors.  Everyone in the surrounding area has provided a warm welcome.


I've been playing around with panoramic camera apps for my Android cell.  I haven't been able to find a decent free one that provides a good 360 degree panoramic picture; most are only 180 or less.  If you know of one please post a comment.

I did find the Google Cardboard Camera App and like it so far.  It's a panoramic Virtual Reality camera that also has the ability to record sound.  You can load the images onto your phone and use the Google Cardboard viewer to see the VR pictures.  You don't need the external viewer but it does help to give you the feeling of being there.  The pictures appear to save as a .VR.JPG (dot VR dot JPG) so they're view-able as a standard JPG too.

Here's a 180 degree panoramic view from where we're staying, which is west of our property.  Tomorrow I'll climb a tree on our property and attempt to get a good panoramic view of what we see.  I'll also post a 360 degree panoramic with sound we took Saturday from the beach below our property.

Hermit crabs are all around the north side of the hill.  Kent has an area where they come out every night to feed on vegetable scraps.  

We're still waiting for the engineered sealed house plans, but did go out to Frederiksted to the DPNR building and picked up our building permit application.

Kevin & Denise

We spent the first night on the property

Denise and I took a few days and did various things around town, spent time with friends and enjoyed the island.  We had planned to go do some work around Monday but stopped by Kent's house, a neighbor down the road from our property.  We ended up going to dinner with Kent, his son who is on island, and another neighbor down the hill.

We met with a surveyor on the island earlier in the week.  The placement of the house will be well within the property lines and setbacks, but I wanted to see what they had on hand, and what they'd charge to do a GPS survey.  Since he was in the same building as the realtor we used to find the property, Joe and Julie San Martin, we stopped in to meet him.  Gary was great and had some papers printed up for me with bearings and other useful information when I arrived.  I have a GPS unit being delivered soon.  My intention is to find the GPS coordinates of the marker we found, then use the map Gary provided to mark the other locations.  I'll do this with the help of Denise's brother Mike who has been helping convert the readings.  It's more for my own curiosity to see where our property goes along the hill.  We have ideas for trails, archery and other things. 

Denise and I triangulated the other south side marker locations by stringing lines from each section and thankfully, all the triangles met where they were supposed to.  This gave us a pretty close estimate of the SW corner and allowed us to cut in a path down the hill in the proposed driveway location. 

Can you see a potential driveway in the pictures below?  We can, but it helps to have walked the property for days. 

The shape of the property gave us a 90' path to follow along our string run, then we were left with creating the best driveway path to the house location using the hillside curve, surveyors tape and skill.  I had estimated another 155' and sure enough it landed at the pile of rocks I had set earlier to identify the center of the main dome. 

Along the way we trimmed trees with the loppers, and cut in steps along the route with a pick axe.  I turned around to say something to Denise behind me when I saw this: 

Look for Denise to star in DeadPool 3, Island Takeover! 

We were able to identify and mark the location of each dome, rooms, the link,entry locations and directions they'll face to provide the best view.  The future master bedroom site provided the perfect spot to hang our hammocks and stay the night.  The actual bedroom will be about 10' lower when that section is level but we had a good time pretending. 

The stars were amazing!It's been awhile since we were able to see that many without the light pollution of a larger city.  It rained a little for about 2 minutes as a cloud passed over but afterwards the shooting star show continued. 

We woke up early today and decided to clear the roots from the turn around/view area we created last week.  The Tan-tan roots can be a real pain to get out but we got them. 
Before:

 After:

Besides the hammocks to camp down on the property, we also brought the tent which will fit nicely on the cleared spot.  

Kevin & Deadpool

Happy Birthday Denise!

Denise and I spent the past few days exploring the land and surveying the property to finalize the best house and driveway location.  It's a hill in a rain forest with a ridge on one side, and you can't see very far ahead, so every 20 feet or so has been a new adventure.  We found a rock today that's about 4' high, 10' across and flat on top which will make for  a relaxing area with ocean views away from everything.  We spent about 15 minutes on it today taking in the sounds and scenery.  We also found interesting trees, flowers and really cool bugs around the area.

Below is another view of Salt River Bay from the pull out/turn around area with sitting area we created the other day.  We spent about 20 minutes up there last night in the dark looking at the lights of the bay, Christainsted to the right, and the many stars above.  It's still fun to see Orion and other constellations at a different angle at this latitude.  The arrow indicates where the next picture was taken from. 

This is a view from the guard area for Salt River Bay looking up at our property location and the view area.  800' up and the sounds of the ocean waves are still strong. 

Today was my beautiful wife's birthday.  Happy Birthday Denise!  After the work on the property we had a Sunday drive on the north shore and had dinner at one of the restaurants along the drive.  We had a nice conversation about island life with Heidi and Bob from Utah and hope to see them back on the island some day. 

Just over a week for us and we still wake up and say, "We live on a tropical island!" 

Kevin & Denise

It's all down hill from here! (The road)

Today we made it to the end of the level section of the road and cleared about 30' past.  The picture below shows the view from the start of the road, all the way through to the corner.  The car is around the corner and now out of view. 

If you didn't know, you can click on any picture in the blog to enlarge it.  The topographical map below shows our property on the upper right hand corner.  The two red lines show the road we've cleared so far.  The orange lines indicate the approximate location of our driveway and the two blue X's indicate the approximate position of the domes.  They'll be on a saddle, or flatter area and since we're on a curve we should have at least a 170 degree view. 

The picture below is about 40' into the sweeping right hand corner with the car directly behind me.  The area on the left was full of Tan Tan trees.  They're an invasive species on the island with large seed pods.    Our plan for that area is a pull out/ turn around area with great views of Salt River Bay. We'll have the excavators dig out the bases when they develop the property.  Just over the edge, about 4' down is a flat area about 50 sq' that will make a nice place for a bench.  

This is a better view of the bay near the edge.  Looking to the bottom right of the picture you can see how the road goes down about 40 vertical feet over 210' to the end of our property. 

Near the end of our day we cleaned up and took some time to enjoy the view and take some pictures.  Denise went down the trail to get some pictures of what's left so I took the opportunity to grab a picture of her. 

We're leaving the down hill clearing to the excavators since they need to pull rock from the hillside on the right side of the road.  There's a few larger rocks that are small enough to move by hand but why bother when they need equipment in there anyways.  

We'll spend the next few days surveying the property and identifying as many of the boundary markers as possible.  I've taken the official property plot diagram and created multiple triangles within the property, along with their distances and angles.  This way we can put some flags out to mark our potential driveway and house site well within the setback requirements.  

This is of course weather permitting since the first tropical storm of the season may be coming Saturday.  

Kevin & Denise

Just over 200' today

Today's clearing was a bit tougher than yesterdays.  I started out cutting down the tree that was ahead of the entry to our road (see previous post).  We finished clearing the first 30' of the entry then moved down the road to where we left off yesterday. 

The area right in front was covered in fallen trees yesterday.  We had ended the day by cutting them and pulling them out of the way but didn't have the energy to tackle the road surface. 

We continued to work throughout the day then took a break around 2 pm to get some lunch.  When we returned we had about 2 1/2 hours to work before it started pouring.  We continued to work in the rain for another 30 minutes because it felt great, and cleaned us up a bit too. 

By the end of the day we had cleared the road 120' along our property where it starts to head down hill.  That area is about 50' beyond where the car is in the picture below. 

We have another 220' to clear tomorrow but it's going to be rough.  There's rocks and trees across a lot of it, along with the grass but the rain today should loosen the soil and hopefully it will be easy to pull out.

Here's my Super D taking a quick break after hacking away at the brush and branches with her machete. 

Kevin & Denise

300' of road cleared today

Denise and I headed to the property today and started clearing the road. 

Here's what we started with:

Here's what we accomplished today.
We cleared just over 300' from where the yellow surveyors tape is in the picture below.  We left the first 30' with grass on the sides but will clear that in the morning.  I didn't preview the pictures before we left and see that it doesn't show the width of the road very well. 

Here's looking back towards the road entry.  There's hard packed 1/4 minus rock under the branches and other stuff on the road.  When our container arrives I'll be able to use the 36" landscape rake and clear it off.  I had that in our garage sale and nobody wanted it so I'm glad it ended up in the container.  

If you look close at the end of the road in the picture above you'll see the tree below.  This has fallen since we were here in February.  I'll cut this apart first thing tomorrow and continue on with the road. 

We have about 100' left to clear before we reach the start of our property, then another 300' to go until the end.  Tomorrows clearing should be easier than today's since there's less trees across the road.  

Kevin & Denise