Considerations

 There's a lot to think about when one considers moving to an island, especially if it's part of a whole 'nother country. Medical care and can I get the maintenance meds I need to function properly. Is the climate ok? Can I bring my pets? Will I forever have to drink bottled water? (Actually no, we have an incredible water filter called a Berkey that makes it possible to drink pond water a bear pooped in, and it's portable). Will I fit in? Will I make friends? Is there a church we can attend? Basically all the same questions I'd ask if we were moving to, say, West Fleahop, Arkansas, or maybe Idaho or something. Only without the winter clothes. And more fruit.

This upcoming week (June 26-July 3) we will be in Roatan, Honduras, an island about 35 miles off the mainland. Many flurries of internet searches and forums and blog reading by resident expats are encouraging. Low cost of living, decent health care unless you have serious issues (we don't), our pets can come, food grows on trees and shows up in boats regularly. No Walmart. No Home Depot. Sketchy electrical service. Did I mention there's no Walmart? This is not a problem to me.

A couple of weeks ago we were in St Croix, also investigating. It has a Home Depot but no Walmart. The cost of living is significantly higher, but it's also a US territory thus there's no funny stuff about moving there other than logistics. Capt has a standing job offer, but we want to look at Roatan first. I mean...the cost of living difference is substantial, unless we can find a very inexpensive place in St Croix..

Looking at Roatan...holy cow. 2 BR casitas (little house) ON THE BEACH for $350/month. Even an AirBnB house (includes utilities) that allows pets is $800/mo...beach view...screened...dang.  In St Croix the lowest cost we found was a 1 BR efficiency thing for $650, not including utilities, 3rd floor no yard.

Oh my word and the possibilities. See, Capt has a really nice flats boat for fly fishing. He wants to do charters for folks. "I want to spend the last half of my life helping people have fun" he said. The flats fishing in St Croix is limited. In Roatan, there's some of the best in the Caribbean. Roatan also has nice tax incentives for people bringing tourism boosters in. Same situation for artisans who make stuff there...y'know...like handsewn/embroidered goods/souvenir type things of a sort I do already.

None of this is written in stone. We may get there and decide "it's a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live here."  Our initial reaction to St Croix was just that and less so, until we took a tour around the island and saw the rest of it, and Capt talked to Ms Molly and got a job offer. That said, if we fall in love with Roatan chances are St Croix 2.0 will be cancelled and those funds will be reallocated to relocation expenses. 

Here's the nice bit...it may be a whole 'nother country, but it's still just a 3.5 hour flight from Atlanta. It may be a part of one of the most dangerous banana republic countries in the world, but it isn't really because it's a Honduran Cash Cow and they know where their bread is buttered and won't screw with it therefore the crime rate on that particular island is extremely low. However people still put bars on their windows and turn a guard dog loose when they're not home. (at least the person who's blog I read does) That may be why crime is low. My dog is about as far from a guard dog (other than being an alarmist) as I am from being a Victoria's Secret Angel. Y'know...the parts are all there but the proportions are very different. 

So this next week will be spent at a luxury resort there. 3 dives a day for 5 days, all the food and beverages (both Adult Libations and Otherwise) we want. Capt has said we may forgo one of the days and do some investigations. One of the things about diving is that you can't do it within 24 hours of flying, because of nitrogen absorption issues (complicated but just know it's a bad idea. Getting Bent* at 35,000 feet is a BAD IDEA) so we could take that final day and do some exploration.

*Bent/The Bends is a situation where a diver ascends too quickly and rather than being properly off-gassed back into your into your bloodstream, the nitrogen from the air breathed (air is 21% oxygen, ~78% nitrogen, and ~1% Other) forces it's way out in bubbles that get caught up in the diver's joints and skin and it's SUPER painful and can be life threatening. Even if you ascend properly during a dive, if you fly too soon after and the remainder of the nitrogen in your system isn't fully reabsorbed, you'll get the Bends (or "get Bent") as the airplane ascends. Thus, on dive trips like this one, the last day before the flight home is spent relaxing by the pool, consuming rum punch and delicious food, and maybe touring around looking for the perfect gift for your Mom who wishes she could travel.

Maybe I've lost my mind, maybe I found it.

 

You know, on the surface it seems...kind of...Frivolous? Half-cocked? I can safely say with a great deal of confidence it's neither of those things. The simplest take is that, at the age of 53, I was in a place in my life to meet a person who's dreams for the future perfectly matched mine, and he has the gumption to actually pursue them in a tangible way. And we have given it a LOT of thought.

Here's probably where I'd be right now, if we'd not met: I'd be living in this house we're in right now, working during the days as a caregiver or perhaps an office administrator. I'd come home, cook supper for myself and my parents, watch a couple of hours of Murder, She Wrote with Mom, then come home, go to bed, lather, rinse, repeat. Occasionally I'd watch a documentary on some exotic location, but never consider the possibility of actually visiting it. Probably now and then I'd think "gee wouldn't it be fun to (insert fun thing)" but never actually do it because I'd have to get up the next morning and lather, rinse, repeat. I wouldn't have bought a truck for myself, or a camper/RV thing and traveled to Florida to figure out that further South is where I'd rather be.

Honestly, I think my world would be small. It would rotate around parents and children and I wouldn't even give any thought to what I wanted/wished for. I'd go to church on Sunday, do laundry on Monday, eat pork chops on Wednesday, and have a glass of wine on Friday. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I think about that a lot...if I would have the courage alone to do the things I am doing now. Probably not. In the grand scheme of things I can be fairly cautious. I want to make sure all the bases are covered. All the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed. Twice. And I can get kind of nervous when they aren't. When you have 4 kids and are the one who does all the household management while they're growing up, it is necessary to be careful about all that stuff. 

Now, though...they're all grown and tending for themselves. Oh sure, they still need Mom but the support role is drastically different now. Most of the time they just want to tell me something, ask cooking advice, or sleep in the backyard hammock. That can mostly be done from anywhere. If I'm not around with an available hammock, they have the resources to ask a brother for help.

That gives me a lot of leeway now. I mean, I can go to...I don't know....Central America, Palau, Outer Mongolia, The Moon...and their lives would not be drastically affected and I might have a good time more so than the Laundry on Monday Wine on Friday routine. I've also got a driving force named Capt who says things like "why not?" when I say stuff like "but..."

And now he's got some very viable plans to make other people happy by taking them fly fishing in beautiful parts of the world, teaching other people how to "have the most fun you can have with your clothes on" (scuba diving), and I get to participate by being in those lovely locations and doing things I enjoy (helping other folks) and if I can do it with the philosophy of making their good times be as good as they possibly can be, then there we are. 

I don't know exactly where I am going to fit into the place we wind up- wherever that may be. But I've usually managed to find a place to serve. I'm excited though, that we are actually probably GOING somewhere that makes other folks go WOW. What would they say if I said HEY GUYS I'M SO EXCITED WE'RE MOVING TO WEST FLEAHOP, ARKANSAS (Missouri, Idaho, Vermont)?

Definitions

 I have been using a lot of acronyms, and will continue to in the name of efficiency. That said, I'm going to list them, as well as what certain other things actually mean, so you can follow along (also so I can follow along....so many things to remember!)

SCUBA: Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus...also a thing people do when they think they have more money than they actually do....Also a sport that is very gadget-heavy. There is ALWAYS One. More. Thing to get. Or something wears out. Or a better version comes along 3 months after the return policy expires. Or it comes out in another color.

PADI: Professional Association of Dive Instructors. Also an agency that trains and certifies people for SCUBA diving. Capt is a PADI instructor, so he can train people to become divers

SSI: SCUBA Schools International. Another certification agency. Capt is also an SSI instructor

DAN: Diver's Alert Network: A multifold agency that handles the medical issues associated with diving. A DAN certified person is, in essence, an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) trained in the emergency treatment of dive/marine injuries. DAN also provides medical insurance coverage for dive trips. Capt is also a DAN instructor- so he can train people to be DAN certified.

Regs: regulators.....those things that have tubes and hook onto the top of the tank and go to the second stage part that the diver sticks in his/her mouth. They take the high pressure compressed air in the tanks and stage it so it can be breathed without blowing your lungs up.

Octo: a secondary second stage regulator. for redundancy/safety. It has a yellow hose and reg mouthpiece for easy identification in a panic situation.

NITROX: also called EANx....Enriched Air Nitrox and the x is the percentage of enrichment. We breathe 21% Nitrox...Nitrogen/oxygen. EANx/Nitrox, when it's used in SCUBA diving, is a breathing gas blend with a higher percentage of oxygen...the x stands in for the percentage. So EAN32 is 32% oxygen, and so on. The advantage to breathing enriched is that your intervals between dives are shortened, and you have less fatigue after the dives. You can also generally stay in the water longer because you're absorbing less nitrogen.

BCD: Buoyance Compensator Device...a fancy pants name for that vest thing the tank is strapped to, all your hoses and bits and pieces are attached to, and can cost as much as your left kidney. It has bladders in the back that you can fill with air to allow yourself to either float on the surface, or release the air to sink into the water, and use to maintain "neutral buoyancy in the water...that is, neither sink to the bottom nor float to the top. Skilled divers know how to manage their buoyancy to the point where they need neither extra weights nor extra air in the BCD. I am not one of those divers.  Yet.

Weights: Yes. Most divers strap weights to their waist in a belt, or have integrated weight pockets in their BCD. The weights are necessary because if you have a big tank of compressed air on your back, it floats. If you're wearing a wetsuit, you'll float. You need something to counteract all that. Thus, weights.

Wetsuits: You know, makes you look awesome because they're a tight neoprene whole-body girdle that also happens to keep you warm in the water. If only they were comfortable on land. Sigh. It's also near impossible to sink in one because it's foam, unless you have on weights.

Spit: a thickish goo you rub on the inside of your mask to keep it from fogging up when you're underwater. No seriously, it is. And it's better than the stuff after which it's named. Comes in a bottle and there's always someone on the boat who forgets theirs and is borrowing yours.

Viz: Short for visibility...that is, how far you can see underwater. "How's viz?" "Fabulous! Gin-clear!" or maybe "It sucked! I couldn't see Sarah's hot pink fins from 3 feet away!"

Safety-Stop: Without going into the physics of deep diving and nitrogen absorption issues, a safety stop is a point at about 15 feet down where you stop on your ascent at the end of the dive and wait 3 minutes, to help facilitate the reabsorption of nitrogen and keep from getting The Bends. It's also a good spot to swap hairy eyeballs with barracuda. 

No seriously. They just hang there and accuse you of not being a small fish.

More terms to come as I think of them. Also, if you have any questions, please ask! If I can't answer them I know someone who can.

Oh, The Places We Go

 When I first met Capt, in 2017, one of the things he told me was of his desire to eventually end up in Bocas del Toro, Panama. I didn't know squat about Panama, other than it was warm, there was a canal, and in the 1970's-80's it had political issues. Thanks to the Internet and all it's glory, I did some reading up and discovered it is a Tropical Paradise. Ok, I thought...lovely idea! Having been in the Caribbean as a teen, I knew what that meant and knew it was a good thing to want to live there.

Move ahead 3 years. Capt convinced me to learn to scuba dive. I've snorkeled before, and thought being able to go underwater and stay there long enough to actually look at creatures would be fun. So in January of 2020, I signed up, and in February actually started with the lessons. In March the world (and scuba lessons) shut down, with no assurance of when it would start back. Eventually lessons started back and I was able to earn my Open Water and Nitrox certifications. Capt earned several advanced certifications and went to Sea School to formalize his boat captain licenses. He'd been diving for close to 15 years.

The Lockdown of the World gave him plenty of time to do all this schooling (most of it being online, and if you think about it, SCUBA is the ultimate in Social Distancing because you have your own air source), and gave me plenty of time to Research Where. After roughly 18 months, he had all the important things, and I had lots of information.

A few weeks ago, once everything was fully finalized and Pro numbers recorded, job hunting commenced. One of the things learned was that there's more availability via word-of-mouth than what shows on the marketplace/pro channels online. But still...where to go? Crete/Greece? Maldives? Indonesia? Lots of work there. I opined that staying closer to home would be my preference. Maybe not Florida....not THAT close. Frankly, I wanted to be somewhere that took more effort than normal to get to, in order to ensure no one would "just drop by". Not so expensive to get to that no one would ever visit, but far enough that planning was required. More research.  Someplace we could afford to comfortably live on a boat captain/dive instructor's income, maybe (hopefully) I could also find work in a shop or a restaurant or something. 

Plenty of places were considered. We started with the HELL YEAH places...you know the ones...they are sung about in songs by Kenny Chesney, Zac Brown, and Mac McAnally, and involve "toes in the water" lyrics. A little digging and we determined that one had to be independently wealthy, of the Kenny Chesney and Mac McAnally sort, to live there. (looking at Y'ALL, St Thomas and St John!). Once those were eliminated, we went to the HECK YEAH places, like St Croix, Roatan, and Bocas Del Toro. St. Croix (a US territory) saw a couple of job offers. One was investigated further and determined to be insufficient, Another is in the process of further investigation so has yet to be determined. Bocas was looked into, but tourism has fallen off so sharply (looking at YOU, COVID!) they aren't wanting to hire anyone new right now. Roatan is very promising but we haven't met anyone in person yet....which brings me to our upcoming trip.

Back in December 2020, the shop through which Capt trained for many of his certifications planned a trip to Roatan and asked him to consider coming along, as there would be several new divers going. It was a good price for such a thing, all-inclusive, and apparently the diving there is spectacular. It would also give him an opportunity to meet in person the owner of a dive shop, that he'd been talking to about working there. So we paid for the trip, made plans, and I started thinking "shorts or sundress? Do I want to get a new skin* (not literally. Back off, Buffalo Bill!), a boob job? a haircut?" Capt continued scouting the job postings. 

So now, the trip is 6 days away. I didn't get a new skin, a boob job, nor a haircut. I got a decent tan and a couple of string bikinis because nothing shouts self confidence (or maybe self delusion) more than a 56 year old woman in a string bikini.  Capt has a job interview, and since there are myriad dive shops on the island, and we learned the power of the Dive Shop Grapevine on St. Croix (more on that later), the potential on Roatan is fairly robust.

Research into the cost of living there is very encouraging. Lots of American and Canadian expats live there. We'd have to learn Spanish, which I can read fairly well but if a person is talking fast I'm lost. People eat fish, fruit, and vegetables. Deodorant is nearly impossible to come by. We're going to check it out whenever we aren't underwater or eating. 

So right now, our lives are in this sort of holding pattern. We are investigating. We spent several days in St Croix, scoping out the situation and getting 2 offers, one of which was firmly but graciously refused, another of which will possibly be investigated pending the results of the Roatan trip. The cost of living is much higher in St Croix, but it is a US Territory so moving there would be much less complicated. Worst case scenario, we got to spend 3 weeks in the Caribbean this Summer. Best case, we have our choice of where to go. The whole point of Capt getting all his certifications was to make himself marketable, in a career path he'd been dreaming of his entire adult life....and that was successfully accomplished.

In his words, he wants to spend the rest of his life "making people happy." 

So now the question is this: Where am I in all this? I have a skill set that is also useful. I have a degree in business management. I'm adaptable. I'll find my niche as I always do.

*a skin is a long sleeve rash guard and leggings made of swimsuit material, excellent protection against jellyfish stings, and available in all manner of prints I normally usually wouldn't be caught dead in but oh so pretty.

What now, Peggy Tillman?

Welcome! I'm Peggy and this is Capt (say hello, Capt) (Hello). We are in our mid-50's and starting all anew with our lives. I was a housewife for many years, and then a widow, then a late-term college student. Capt worked in the wood products industry, owned a business, was a late-term college student, a fisherman(basically all his life), took up Scuba diving, and generally a Renaissance Man.  We met in 2017 and that, folks, is that.

Now, after 18 months of schooling, Capt has become Very Official Indeed with a 25T Master's License Boat Captain (as well as a few related certifications), and an instructor for PADI, SSI, and DAN (the first 2 being SCUBA certification agencies, and the last being Dive Emergency Medicine. As well as other related things. I have achieved a couple of certifications in Scuba but nothing much beyond being able to do it.

But WHY? Because we want to live Elsewhere. Right now we are in Central Alabama and while it's not a horrible place, it isn't a warm sunny island with bougainvillea and mangoes and people driving on the wrong side of the road and scaring the crap out of me. 

So that's what we're looking for. It started with an idea to head southerly a little bit- around Wewahitchka, Fla, with it's proximity to excellent fly fishing for Capt to run charters and teach folks how to do it. Then we started looking REALLY South. 

So far, we've visited the Fla Keys (expensive), and St. Croix (less expensive and still a US territory). Upcoming is a trip to Roatan (even less expensive) with an interview, and another trip to St Croix to see about a job "offered and his to take if he wants it". 

The first trip to St Croix was a job-investigation but wasn't to be- too little money and the shop wasn't impressive. But, thanks to The Grapevine, someone else heard about Capt and his qualifications and a flurry of text messages while 35,000 feet in the air resulted in an offer and a request to come back to meet in person. It isn't a given though.

We are also looking at other warm places like Belize and wherever is affordable on a Capt/Dive Instructor's income....which rules out Sts Thomas and John, Curacao, Bonaire, etc. But that's ok! Warm is warm. 

Anyway, the purpose of this is to document the upcoming adventures of Peggy and Capt. Stay tuned!