Author Description

Have you ever wanted to get a piece of land right by the beach somewhere tropical and build your own dream house? Quite possibly. In 2005 I decided to squander most of my money on just that, a piece of land by the beach on a Caribbean island. I had initially wanted to build a very simple off-grid small cottage but the project morphed into something a little bigger. This is the story, in the form of a day-to-day log, of the building of my beachfront Caribbean house, Sonichka, and the trials and tribulations that went along with it. I learned to live on 'Bahamas time' and to expect the ship to come 'next Tuesday' and had to negotiate the sometimes tricky local politics. There was no popping down to the nearest DIY superstore and instead all the island's hardware stores, with their unusual and often surprising inventories, became my close friends. My pick-up truck rusted at warp speed and carried insane cargoes. I became a half decent carpenter and plumber and a water cistern expert. A house did emerge over five years and incredibly is still there despite the hurricanes.