Life's A Dream Journal... Building and Living on a little island in the South Pacific Email us at: FetokoIsland@yahoo.com
Let us paint you a picture: Imagine a blank canvas. Well not really blank, as your canvas in reality is a 2.5 acre deserted tropical island, but a canvas brimming with possibility nonetheless. What do you do with it? This is a question we have kicked around for some time. You want whatever you choose to be so many things: unique, a work of art, natural, sustainable, comfortable. Well the moment is here – no more talking about it… time to get down to it and stick a shovel in the dirt. Right now, we feel like we specialize in bridging the gap between dreaming things up and actually doing them. To offer a quote from the movie Waking Life - “the trick is to combine your waking rational abilities with the infinite possibilities of your dreams”. In this time of seeing our dreams come true on Fetoko, we are so excited to realize that our blueprints are actually beginning to take shape!
That said, we’ve learned that building structures on remote islands is not as simple as snapping your fingers and moving on in. Let’s say you want a 16ft x 16ft x 10ft cinder-block foundation for your home. Well, surely you have to source your materials first. But oh, wait, we’re in a remote island group of an already remote island nation… we’ve run out of toilet paper here before… how do you think we go with cement, floor hangers and pipe fittings? Okay, let’s say you’ve got all the stuff you need to start building – I don’t suppose you think it’s gonna swim itself right on out to the island? We had to devise a barge out of two of our old rental sailing dinghies. We learned (the hard way) that its capacity is no more than one ton, so that means the truck from the store drops all of your cinder-block, rock, sand, and cement on the shore and you have to pick it up one bag/stone at a time and then tow it out to the island one ton at a time. Of course, you still have to unload it onto the beach and then carry it all up the hill to the build site. All that done? Okay, now you can start working. As we lick our wounds at night, we’re just happy that we have help from some very dedicated (and fit) employees.
The fruits of our labour are ripe and this process has brought all of us closer together than ever before. We’ve managed to keep our wits about us (despite the heat) while running several businesses and even organizing a Regatta sail week the last 3 years. We sold the Aquarium Café to lovely new owners and Vava'u Adventures Kart Safaris to a really nice family and have started a Jet Kayak Tour business here on the east side and will have a restaurant here on the island as well. Our dream is to create a revenue stream that brings smiles to people's faces, employs our local friends, and can be managed from the hammock while we continue to watch our dreams come true. This blog is dedicated to the process of all our dreams coming true. Stay tuned as things take shape!
January 2012
March 2010
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