Eleuthera, or "freedom"

It always fascinates me, discovering how people ended up here. In the gift shop in Gregory Town, you'll find T-shirts, caps, and more, all proclaiming, "Eleuthera, it's not for everyone." It's true. The power goes out regularly. When the internet goes out, it means going into BTC's offices every morning when they open for up to two weeks before anything will be done. You have to go into their office, because the phone company has a strict policy of not answering their phone. Sometimes the water will go out without warning (okay, that one thrilled our daughter, who was not keen on having a bath anyway). The scary thing is that because you've had no warning, you also don't know when it will come back on. Twice, we've had weeks where our 15 gallons of drinking water was salty and undrinkable. What do you do if your potable water is non-potable?

We're renting a cosy little two room cottage across from an exquisite Caribbean beach. We're very thankful for this cottage, as our building plans seem to be a couple of years behind our planned schedule and we feel very fortunate to have a house that we can afford while paying our mortgage, which did begin billing on schedule. Unfortunately, our darling little cottage is not exactly critter proof. I don't mind the lizards, or even most of the spiders (we have some that are really good at eating no see ums), I'm not keen on the no see ums that sometimes swarm our bed at night, the ticks (although we've managed to get rid of them), or the occasional scorpion or centipede. I'm not fond of the wasps either, though I confess being more concerned for our cat when they're in the house. She caught one once and it stung her paw, which then swelled up to twice its normal size. She was limping for days.

So, why exactly are we here? Well, we have a dream. We're going to build the first eco-hostel in the Bahamas. In fact, it will be the first hostel in the Bahamas. The time is ripe for eco-tourism, and we want to work more with the 99% more than the 1%. It's a business with a triple bottom line: social, environmental and economic impact. Sounds great, no?

What does this mean for us? Well, the higher your environmental ideals, the more work you have to put into what you're doing. There are a lot of details. For two years, I've been changing our own life habits and researching better, more environmentally friendly ways to do things, then introducing them into our household in the least disruptive way possible as kind of a test run for The Whistling Duck. The challenge is that when looking at products, I have to decide based on a combination of price and sustainability. Something might be made with fewer resources, but will it last a fraction of the time as other ones, thereby resulting in more waste?

There is no recycling on the island. I spent the last year getting our family of three down to one, not quite full, kitchen trash bag per month. Of course, we had a bin or two of recycling every two weeks. Often, our food choices come down to packaging and waste. Until we're growing much of our own food, it's going to be very difficult.

On this blog, I'd like to share the journey, for all of its frustrations and joys. I'd also like to share some of the incredible resources that I've found inspirational on our path to more sustainable living. I hope that you'll share as well. Perhaps you've read or done something that you think might be useful. Perhaps you are an artisan who makes something that you think could have a place in our lives and dream. We are very open to trade, most of what we'll have to trade is a beautiful, safe and spiritually minded place to stay on an incredible island.

I can just see some looks of concern...you're remembering the insects and such, right? What is it about this island that I love? While it's true, the frustrations and challenges are many, once you let go of the need for convenience and instant gratification, and insect fears, it's heavenly.

Every evening, the sound of the Atlantic on the other side of the island, in peaceful competition with the sound of the Caribbean, soothes me to sleep. The night song of the frogs is enchanting, like water squishing between your toes as you walk in wet galoshes. I revel in the laser light show that the fire flies put on, or discovering a baby nursery of brightly colored tropical fish in the shallows while snorkeling. My heart overflows with joy, that after months of listening to a male bird sing his heart out just beyond our bedroom window, these days I hear the cheep cheep of baby birds begging to be fed. The sound of crabs retreating, shuffling into the woods and shrubs all around when I walk outside to hang laundry, never fails to make me giggle. I fall in love with the sky each and every night, and when I wake from a dream in the wee hours of the morning, my eyes reach for the stars that I can see from my bed, my favorite being a particularly large red one. It's as if the stars are telling me that everything is fine, they're watching over me, I can sleep in peace.