Our Move To The "Simple" Life

Getting here

We departed on time, arrived on time and kids and pup were expert travelers. We took cars, planes and boats to get where we were going with lots of help from super-friendly people along the way. The heat and humidity is going to take some getting used to, Kaya in particular doesn't enjoy it and is taking some time to adjust. The most enjoyable part was the ferry ride over to St John and feeling a bit of ocean air breeze.

Our new home

The island of St John

The United States purchased St. John from the Danish West India and Guinea Company in 1917. In 1956, Laurance Rockefeller donated over 5,000 acres of the island to the National Park Service. With two-thirds of the island designated as a national park, St. John has some beautiful beaches and very lush vegetation. There are a lot of sweeping hills and mountains - that keep driving very interesting (I haven't had the guts to actually do it yet). There is one very steep hill to get to our house that is going to take some getting used to.

Our house

We live in an area called Chocolate Hole (Don't laugh..OK laugh, but know that it is beautiful) We have a house that has gorgeous views, but also some extra space for visitors to come and stay with us. Here are some pictures:

Making it home

Our rental house has been a weekly rental for a long time. So, on Day 1 I did a deep clean. I am pretty sure I cleaned 25+years of caked-on dust. Going through that process and making it more organized to our family, really made it feel more like home. It was the first night in a while where I slept so soundly and finally felt a sense of peace, knowing that we are well on our way to feeling more settled.

A note on "simple"

One of the reasons for this move is to make things more simple, but "simple" is all a relative and depending on the situation it can be delightful or sometimes difficult to get used to. Everyone who has moved here says there is a big adjustment in the first six months (and you will all be alongside as you hear our journey and, likely, culture shock).

Some things will come easy about getting back to the basics, for example, the #1 rule on the island is to always greet someone with a "Hi! How are you today?" and take the time to listen to the response. This is the simple that is going to be easy to get used to.

The part that will be difficult is not having the conveniences here as easily accessible as we have on the mainland - our first taste of this has been needing some basic supplies that we need to drive a car to a barge, ferry over to St Thomas and then get what we need and then take the barge back. I have heard it is a 4 hour adventure when doing the simplest of trips there. We haven't quite gotten there, yet.

Another thing is our cars and container have not yet arrived at our house. They are in port, but cars are not road ready and we are not really sure about the plan to pickup either. I am sure this will be a part of our move where we need to exercise some Caribbean patience. Stay tuned!