While we were out there, we explored the cliffs called the "Pillars of Hercules", which are large sandstone formations along the Atlantic side of English Harbor. They're quite amazing and surprisingly accessible. There was a stunning amount of sea urchins in the cracks and crevices here. Found a nice amount of shells here. On the way back to the car, Cohen and I searched for more black sea glass and weren't disappointed. I even found a nice piece of white and blue china, but I have no way to determine the vintage. We also found a nice, octagonal black sea glass bottle bottom. I still have no idea if these fragments are worth a darn, but I have a few pounds of it to take back with us.
After finishing work, we finished packing and headed back to Bumpkin's on Pigeon Beach for dinner.
So some retrospective now that the experiment is over.
Could I live here? Most certainly yes, though I'd miss a lot of the creature comforts of the Pacific Northwest. Perhaps a snow bird type of scenario where its half the year. Jenn and the kids were "beached out" by the 4th week here, but that's after visiting a beach almost every single day. That's not a realistic lifestyle here. I tolerate the beaches a lot more because I'm into the photography aspect. There's a dozen things to photograph when we're out and about, out or in the water. In a living scenario, we wouldn't beach nearly as often as we did in our 30 days here. We'd settle into a normal living pattern of waking, working, running errands and getting dinner made.
Working for a West-coast company means I either sleep in a lot or work independent for 3 hours a day. I am not sure if the bandwidth at the house here is a limitation by the ISP SLA or if its the island's pipeline? Its about 50k/s on downloads and much slower on uploads. The cost of living: western food items have a premium price, but there are generic alternatives. Gasoline is 20-30% more expensive, however "cooking gas" (propane) is nearly half the price of the U.S. We did have a hard time finding good, fresh salad greens that wasn't iceberg lettuce. The local lettuce has a strong flavor. The fruit is not a problem, however. We did prefer the local black pineapple over the imported stuff.
30 days is not enough time to truly miss some of the things we take for granted in the states. I would miss friends and family. I would miss dearly the coolness of the mountains and actual seasons, but there's a new type of weather to experience here. I got very into watching the progression of Tropical Waves from Africa, seeing if they'll evolve into tropical depressions or more. I was hoping to experience some convection-driven tropical lightning, but unfortunately missed out.
Will I be back? Most certainly. When? A year? 5? No idea. But I will be back. I've had the opportunity to visit a large number of islands in the Caribbean, though there's almost an equal number of islands left to explore, but for Jenn and I both, this island speaks to us. Its underdeveloped (for now), it is English-speaking and it is small. There are a lot of hoops to jump through to make it any sort of permanent residence, but we'll cross that bridge if we come to it. Antigua is definitely our island, though.
